When you built your desktop PC, you probably didn’t think about the power it uses other than making sure your power supply was up to the job of handling all your components.
But, power consumption is more than just a number, and there are plenty of good reasons to think carefully about the components you choose, and how efficient they are.
We’ve stopped thinking about Watts
In my experience, power consumption is something desktop PC users think only matters for laptops or something the bean counters in data centers care about. Perhaps that’s part of why we now have high-end PCs, mostly for gaming, that have 1000W or more power supplies, and CPUs and GPUs that can happily gobble down hundreds of watts each in the pursuit of faster render times or higher frame rates.
When your only concern is getting the most performance, then it’s natural for power consumption numbers to keep climbing. It’s the diminishing returns of eking out the most performance from a particular silicon microchip. But, I think desktop users, whether gamers, professionals, or just average people browsing the web and doing their homework, should care very much.
Your electricity bill isn’t the only concern
The most convincing argument to get someone to care about energy use is when it hurts their bottom line. So it very much matters that your 1000W gaming PC is guzzling juice from the wall when energy costs are going up. There are many reasons why US power costs are soaring (via CNBC), but the glut of power-hungry AI data centers are getting much of the blame–fairly or not.
The reason why is perhaps less important than the fact that running a 500W to 1000W device is expensive, and it’s only getting more costly as time goes by.
But maybe you don’t care about the running costs of your rig. Fine. That still doesn’t change the fact you’re running an absolutely massive amount of energy through a relatively small device. This has implications for heat, noise, and hardware longevity.
Efficiency equals performance stability
When you change your outlook from performance at all costs to performance-per-watt, you’ll see that there are many benefits to choosing to buy power efficient hardware, or run your current hardware in a more efficient way.
An efficient system can more easily reach its peak performance, and is less likely to run into thermal throttling. Also, modern CPUs and GPUs are designed to dynamically adjust performance within power and thermal limits. More efficient hardware has more headroom to do this, all things being equal.
Thermal throttling happens when a processor has to dip below its minimum guaranteed performance due to thermal limits. Not reaching its maximum boost clock is not throttling.
This is why some laptop users undervolt their machines. The default voltage level is set conservatively so that all processors of that model will run with acceptable stability. However, depending on your luck in the “silicon lottery”, chances are your CPU or GPU will happily run at a lower voltage than that, without losing any performance at all.
In fact, it might even run faster than before, because fewer watts means less heat, which potentially means reaching higher boost clocks or sustaining those clocks for longer. I’m not suggesting you undervolt your desktop PC (though why not? It’s fun!) but this demonstrates the principle of how better efficiency can help performance.
The hidden infrastructure cost
Setting direct, personal benefits aside, the hard sell here is definitely when it comes to the greater good. Every watt your computer uses has to be generated, transmitted, and cooled. There are costs involved all along that chain. A power-inefficient desktop PC scales beyond your bedroom or office.
I know it can be hard to care about the bigger picture, but if millions of people are running their high-draw systems without thinking about whether they actually need that much power or performance to get the job done, well, it has a real impact.
This is why companies like Intel, Sony, Microsoft, and more are trying to let us have our cake and eat it too. It’s why operating systems try to be smarter with power allocation, but you can still override all of that in the pursuit of performance. The fact is, you don’t need to play a turn-based JRPG at 200fps, so maybe it makes sense to only let your PC throw its full might at the software you’re using when it actually makes a difference.
If you just let things max out always, you’ll have a hotter, noisier experience using your computer without any clear benefit to you. After all, just because your car can drive at 150mph, doesn’t mean you should floor it on every trip. Some people may want to white-knucle things no matter what, but if you try a more chill path you may find you like it even more.