While most laptop users are concerned about the configuration of a laptop, it is equally important to know how many watts a laptop consumes. Although your laptop energy bills format a small part of your total electricity consumption, it is still essential to account for its users to understand your house’s overall energy consumption pattern.
A typical 15-inch laptop is estimated to consume around 60 watts of electricity per hour. But this is not the standard amount that every laptop does not go with this standard consumption. Several factors govern the laptop’s power consumption.
In this blog post, we will discuss How many watts does a laptop consume?
Factors that Affect the Energy Consumption of a Laptop:
Here are the factors affecting the energy consumption of a laptop:
Type of Laptop
The type of laptop is one of the major deciding factors in how much energy is consumed by a computer. A fundamental and general laptop consumes, on average, 60 watts of energy. However, high-end notebooks and gaming laptops use much more power than a standard laptop.
Even some gaming laptops may go as high as consuming 100 Watt per hour. It is why laptops turn so hot and need to be cooled down with adequate vents provision and using cooling pads.
CPU
Low-grade processors and CPUs use a lot more power than high-grade power-efficient CPUs. On the other hand, powerful CPUs such as Intel i9 or Intel i7 do not require much energy and work great with lesser power. The low-quality processor needs more energy to deliver the desired performance.
Adapter Wattage
Most of the 15.6-inch laptops come with 60W charging adapters. But the laptops with 17-inch laptops come with 90W of charging adapters. The computer with 60W charging uses less power than the 90W charging adapter.
Graphics Card usage
A Graphics card is an important consideration when deciding how many watts a laptop consumes. The higher the Graphics Card performance, the higher shall be the power consumption. High-end CPUs are available in most high-end gaming laptops.
Most high-end GPUs come with a high-end CPU that offers a high-quality display and excellent battery power. But they are also responsible for higher battery capacity.
How Much Power Does a MacBook Use?
A standard Apple MacBook Pro needs 61 Watts in the chargeable battery, whereas a 15-inch Apple MacBook consumes 88 Watts per hour. MacBook fans know that. Based on the cited data, it is easy enough to determine how much energy your MacBook can use each day and weekly. The MacBook uses 62 Watts per hour in the air.
Estimating the energy bills, when a Macbook runs for 61 watts for 10 hours, the average energy unit costs 7.32 cents, 51.24 cents.
Tips to Save Power on Laptop
As we already know, the power consumption by any standard or gaming laptop can be a severe concern if you are using the laptop for prolonged hours. Here are some of the tips which help to save energy:
- Avoid overcharging your laptop. Besides consuming more power, it will also weaken the battery and reduce battery life.
- Always use the original laptop charger instead of duplicate ones. The laptop’s charger power consumption is higher when using the duplicate charger.
- Allow the laptop to cool down before you restart the work
- While charging your laptop, always use the cooling pad
- Once the Laptop charge reaches 10%, you should plug in the charger. Do not wait till the laptop is switched off. IT takes more effort to charge the drain-out laptop battery and thus consumes more power.
- Update the hardware and processor to avoid any pressure on the system.
- Always remove the plug once the laptop is fully charged.
How Do I Calculate that Watt Consumption by My laptop?
Here are some of the suggested methods by which you can calculate the watt consumption of your laptop. YOu can assess the power consumption either by checking out the laptop’s power or by using the Electricity usage monitor.
- Electricity Usage
Electricity Usage Monitor gives you an accurate calculation. You can plug it into the power socket that shows the electricity consumption while charging. As all the power consumption comes from a single socket, you can monitor the results from time to time.
This device is compatible with other appliances such as fridges, air conditioners, etc., that read the power consumption. Once the laptop is fully charged, you can calculate the total energy consumption on a single laptop charge.
- Manual Calculation
We can quickly assess the power consumption by referring to its charger. To get a precise idea about power consumption, you need to consider several factors.
In the case of Acer Predator laptop, it comes with charger labels with 180 watts per hour. GPU and CPU are the main components that are responsible for power consumption. YOu can check the official website of the AMD, Intel processors, and AMD to know the exact amount of power consumption by the respective GPUs.
While GPU accounts for up to 85w of power, most CPUs come with power consumption between 45W to 50 w. These two components form up to 15% of the laptop power consumption.
The screen brightness accounts for 0.5w to 15 watts per hour. The maximum brightness setting attracts the maximum power consumption. Other factors such as HDD/SSD, RAM, etc., are also considered while calculating energy consumption for laptops. Manually, it is impossible to find the exact amount, but an approximate value can be derived.
An average of 60 watts of electricity usage leads to 0.06 kWh. With an average of eight hours per day, it costs around 6.76 cents, with an average unit cost of 12 cents/kWh.
Does Setup Matter in Consuming Power Between Laptops and Desktops?
Consumption of electrical energy results from the setup that one system must complete for its manufacture. In simple terms, the output and the internal configuration determine how much electrical energy is consumed. As for the desktop case, the laptop comes with a 4.5-star rating for energy saving.
Power consumption depends on the situation. Using max settings on a laptop will draw more electricity to play the games that you are playing.
How Much Power do Laptops Consume?
Gaming laptops have a similar feature because they come with improved components for better performance on any given task. They are heavier as they have most of what is needed for gaming. The charger attached to a gaming notebook has an optimum power rating of wattage. For example, Dell x86-based Acer Predator Helios 300 has a battery capacity of 180 Watts.
How to Calculate Watts Consumed by a Laptop?
Look at the charging wattage of your PC to calculate the approximate power consumption. When looking for the most accurate numbers, you should also look at various variables. The CPU and GPU of the computer will likely increase the total power consumption.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Laptop use Less Power than a PC?
Yes, a laptop consumes lesser power as compared to a PC. However, laptop wattage differs from model to model. Gaming and high-end laptop consume more energy than a standard laptop.
What is the Laptop Wattage in 17-inch Machines?
A laptop with specs of a 17-inch screen generally consumes 90W of energy.
Basic Laptop Wattage Vs Gaming Laptop Wattage – Which is More?
The gaming laptops come with high-end components such as processor, CPU, GPU, and RAM that consume more energy than the standard laptop configurations.
How Many Watts Does a Laptop with a 15.6 Screen Consume?
On testing more than 150 laptops, we have concluded that the average power consumption of 15.6 is 60 watts.
Final Thoughts
Although laptops are not energy-guzzling devices, still they consume energy. Differences in operating costs are considerable for different types of laptops. It’s important to know what energy savings strategies help you save money on your laptop energy consumption. An assessment of how many watts a laptop consumes helps overall energy consumption management.