How many Watts does a computer consume?

it depends

laptops are between 68 and 120 watts

a desktop will depend if you're just talking about the tower or the whole thing that's needed to be on so you can use the computer.

CRTs generally use between 15 and 50 watts,
The Mouse/keyboard is like 1.5-2.5 watts
if you have a glowing keyboard then its like 3 watts
your speak system will vary from 5 to 300 watts, depending on what you have. the average is under 50 watts. A low-end speaker (basic) is like 9-13 watts
Your printer is about 11 watts, and the scanner is between 10 and 25 watts.

Your computer will also vary in wattage depending on temperature too. its not much though, less than 5 watts difference. Its consumed by the fans to keep your cpu and other parts cool.

Desktops:
low-end
150 to 250 watts

general comp, at least 3 yrs old
200-350 watts
general comp, newer than 3 years
200-300 watts

multimedia
250-400 watts

a general gaming or workstation
300-500 watts

high-power workstation
300-600 watts

high-end gaming (older processors, at least 1 year)
500-1000 watts
high-end gaming (with newer processors)
400-800 watts
> the difference is that newer processors uses less energy and speed to do the same thing, they run cooler and uses less energy even when OC'd.

custom computer can be between 300 and 1500 watts or more. Most consumed by overclocked processors, graphics cards (more than one usually), extensive cooling system that can range from a water cool to phase change cooler. Some computers use TEC coolers, further driving up power usage.

about 20 watts for a portable, to 100 watts for a typical desktop machine.

Hmmmm. Let's see. I've got a 500W power supply in my desktop computer & I've estimated that I'm currently using about 300W. My 17" CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor is rated at 2 amps @ 220 volts. This means that my CRT monitor uses about 400W. Therefore, my overall total power consumption is about 700W.


EDIT 30/4/08.
Could somebody please explain to me how a CRT with a "rating plate" current value of 2 amps @ 220 volts could possibly use between 15 and 50 watts? Most CRT monitors use between 1.5 to 3 amps, depending upon their size. Since a computer system can't be used without a monitor, it must be included in the overall power consumption calculation.

This depends on many things such as how new the CPU is, how many GB of ram you have, whether your graphics card is for performance or not, how many hard drives, how many optical drives....
Think of it this way: everything you "plug in" to your computer takes power, everything inside the computer takes power.

I recently built a Desktop computer with a High-end CPU and Graphics card. I have a 550W power supply.

This does NOT mean my computer takes 550W, but if I had to estimate, it would be between 400 and 500 Watts.

Billruss is correct..
the computer powersupply is giving the maximum power. but average power consumption for a computer is abt 100 watt. If you have a CRT monitor add 20 more watts.

The newest model of Core-2 laptops use about 15 watts ( very efficient)

Remember now, the high end graphics card, gaming computers use more energy.

Thankyou everyone for answering!

Sure thing

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/aw2b4

The power consumption is on a label on the back of the machine(s). If its listed in amps, and not watts, then the conversion is Volts(110) x Amps = watts. EXAMPLE: So if the machine listed .5 amps it would be .5 * 110 or 55 watts

Rich is right-But a normal computer uses about 150-250 watts. an hour.

can you help me? please say how many unit spend for a month...my PC details- samsung LED 18.5''.....creative 4.1 sound system....i ball key board and mouse....