The more powerful a processor, the more electricity it consumes. If the impact on the bill is rather minimal in general, it is likely to become significant given the power that certain models can achieve without even overclocking them.
There are sectors where technological advances mean that every year, new models are strictly more powerful than old ones. Not to mention the smartphoneswe easily think of computer processors. It is an obligation for manufacturers if they want to remain competitive in a constantly evolving market where everything moves very quickly. Power, however, comes at a price. That of the component obviously, but also of the electricity needed to run it.
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It seems stupid said like that, but when we take a close look at what using a computer equipped with the latest processors to date represents, we realize that the bill can add up very quickly. The site AnandTech measured the maximum power that several of them can reach, without using overclocking to increase it. We find in particular the 14th generation of Intel Raptor Lake Refresh processors, just announced.
Processors cost a lot of electricity because they are so powerful
In the graph below, we can see for each model the default power in parentheses, then the achievable power peak. Take the case of Intel i9-14900K, very powerful. Basically, it displays 125 Watts. Imagining that you are working on your computer 7 hours per day for 230 days per year on average, i.e. by removing weekends, public holidays and 5 weeks of leave. At current EDF Base ratethe processor alone costs you €41.4 over the year.
But let’s now imagine that your job demands a lot from your PC, so that the chip reaches its peak power let’s say 3 hours per day. The bill then goes to €59.8 per year. And if you are a daily gourmet video game player, the same scenario increases the score to almost 100 € (96.70). Remember that we are only talking about the processor here, not all the rest of the PC, screens or others. This is of course a simplified calculation, but the numbers are alarming enough to make you think.
I’m wavering between amused and dismayed at the state of power regulation for desktop CPUs. Ace @gavbon86 can attest to, enthusiast motherboards regularly disregard any and all TDP limits. It admittedly makes for great performance, but the power consumption is obscene pic.twitter.com/dL4NOaxXBD
— Ryan Smith (@RyanSmithAT) October 17, 2023