Kill A Watt

So I was wondering how much energy my old-yet-huge CRT consumes, probably subconsciously to justify purchasing an LCD screen. It’s a Viewsonic P815, a wonderfully crisp 21″ professional behemoth that sold for $1,500 in its prime. Amazingly, it’s still offered for sale at $1,300 from some, and $75 from others. Anyway, the days when I sat between two of them, bathing in their sweet x-ray glow is long past. One on its own is a bit superfluous. But I digress. I got one of those Kill A Watt electricity monitors and ran some tests on “Big Ugly”, checking out how varying the resolution, the refresh rate, and the background (white or black, ie, on or off) would affect its power consumption. Current kWh cost in New Jersey is $0.15. The results are interesting:

Setup

Watts

$/Hr

$/Day

$/Week

$/Month

$/Year

Idle, Suspend Mode

2

0.00

0.01

0.05

0.22

2.59

640×480, 60 Hz, Black

73

0.01

0.25

1.78

7.73

92.80

640×480, 75 Hz, Black

78

0.01

0.27

1.90

8.26

99.16

1024×768, 60Hz, Black

81

0.01

0.28

1.97

8.58

102.97

1024×768, 120Hz, Black

92

0.01

0.32

2.24

9.75

116.95

1792×1344, 75Hz, Black

113

0.02

0.39

2.75

11.97

143.65

1024×768, 60Hz, White

119

0.02

0.41

2.90

12.61

151.28

1024×768, 120Hz, White

125

0.02

0.44

3.05

13.24

158.91

1792×1344, 75Hz, White

127

0.02

0.44

3.10

13.45

161.45

Running at the highest supported resolution of 1792×1344, I save $18 by using a dark background instead of a light background. Assuming I’m using it 24×7 of course. Choose your desktop background well!

1 Response

  1. your wife says:

    you have too much time on your hands. waaaaaay too much time….

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