Evergreen

This may seem like an obvious and silly question, but here it is:

Does overclocking your CPU to its max. potential increase your monthly electric bill? I've heard people say that the PSU uses a certain amount of power but a certain percentage goes to waste, and overclocking your system just utilizes that power without drawing more dollars from your wallet. It'll be great to know if this is true.
If not, how much would the extra power consumption add to an electric bill? I would guess that the max. increase in v-core is probably 0.3-0.5v higher than default. Is this significant at all? It's not that I can't afford paying a few dollars more, just want to know for knowledge gain. X)

Thanks!

mcogan10

no, there will be BARELY any increase on your bill, if any.

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burnstudios

You couldnt be more wrong. If your machine is constantly doing somthing while being overclocked of course its going to use more juice.. I have two folding machines one is an amd 3000+ and the other is an amd 2800+ ... the month after i started folding with those two machine i notice my electric bill go up by almost $50.. So then i stoped folding for a month and it went back to normal.

The only way it will effect your bill is if your cpu is underload all the time, such as folding.

mcogan10

umm he said overclocking not folding...

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frostbite

Its the same difference. A cpu folding at stock speeds TDP could be the same as a cpu thats oc'ed giving off the same amount of heat

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mcogan10

aight my bad.

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burnstudios

AHH!... i forgot to mention that both of those pc's were overclocked. So as an experiment i put them both back at stock and watched my power bill drop by about 10 bucks.. So with both of them folding 24/7 oc'd my bill was 50 bucks more. So then the next month i didnt fold at all and it was normal... SOOO!!!.. lol I turned them back on but at stock frequency's and my bill was only $40 more than normal.. So! two overclocked rigs will suck the juice!

Evergreen

So in a way, it means that if you could overclock without raising the v-core, more power will still be consumed? What about that idea of the PSU not utilizing all its power? Any thoughts?

mcogan10

im not sure, but i dont think that overclocking without raising the vcore could increase your electric bill...but it might, idk

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binormalkilla

That is completely absurd. Overclocking will not lead to higher electricity bills. The only thing that will lead to higher bills is if you are folding 24/7. PCs use a relatively small amount of current. The main consumers of current in your apartment/home are your electric air conditioners/heaters, and your ovens/stove tops.
Yes you are increasing your VCore, but this is so marginal that it really couldn't even be measured, in terms of current consumption. Your CPU uses nothing compared to your AC unit, if you don't believe me, then go read the monthly kW/h readings on the yellow sticker, then compare them to your total monthly bill.
Also look at the sticker on the back of your PSU.

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