Digital Home Thoughts: The Real Cost Of High Powered Gaming

"Our feeling was that the usual extrapolations and estimates using minimum and maximum power readings don’t do justice to everyday operation. Therefore, we decided to measure the actual power consumption over a certain period of time and with different usage models, because most people do not just turn on their computers and play games without ever doing something else."

While consoles are designed for a 5-10 year lifecycle, PC gaming, especially graphics-wise, advances much faster than that. New video cards coming out every 6 months (granted, some are just rubbing off serial numbers and putting on a fresh coat of paint) and those at the top end can cost more than your first born. With greater power comes greater power consumption and Tom's Hardware does a check to see just how much of a difference it makes in a real world situation. Electricity prices being what they are, that expensive toy you just bought may end up costing you far more than you originally thought. Time to reconsider just how important gaming is to you.