Do laptops use a lot less electricity than a desktop?

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Becca

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I presume a laptop uses less electricity than a desktop.

Is there much difference in the electricity consumption between them?
 
Well i guess the fan would use the most power, and some desktop pcs have two fans.
I think LTops only have one (usually) and it would obviously be smaller. But desktops are getting more efficient especially with the LCD screens instead of those huge CRT monitors.

Any info of use here?

Google would probably be helpful on this kind of stuff:)
 
Thanks. It appears that although there can be very big differences between various makes/models, as an average a desktop uses four times as much electricity as a laptop when both are on maximum usage.

Which is a much bigger difference than I thought it might be...
 
Sn@kebite said:
Well i guess the fan would use the most power, and some desktop pcs have two fans....
Click to expand...

Its not the fans. But the CPU and GFX card and the PSU. Especially if you buy a powerful machine designed for gaming. Also fast harddrives, optical disks and lots of extra add on cards etc. Big monitors also use more electricity than a smaller one.

But in general Laptops use more power efficient components and thus use less power than a desktop. Typically they have better power saving functionality built in. So they can throttle down the CPU and turn off components to save power when not needed. A general rule of thumb IMO would be that the laptop with the longest battery life will have the lowest power consumption.
 
My laptop power supply is 90W, I can go online and buy a workstation witha 1Kw supply. In general most desktops are rated ant 300-400w but it doesn't follow that they are running at this power all the time.

Watching a DVD on your pc is intensive, data from the DVD is written to the HDD to be decoded and then displayed, this measn you are using the optical motor, HDD motor, processor and graphics for an extended period.

Most power supplies are never used at full capacity, the extra watts are supplied in case extra cards and drives are installed later and need this power.

My rule of thumb is desktops use 2x as much power as laptops but if you adjust yur power settings you should be able to reduce it...
 
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