If you have a question in mind does gaming laptops consume more power than a normal laptop? The answer is absolutely Yes and rather consumes much more which must be a critical factor for any gamer. This is true that hardcore gamer is not going to change decision on this basis, but this article will share some valuable information on this topic.
The article has been written after performing in-depth research and will be sharing with you the facts which you would not have imagined earlier. But, let’s just make a power consumption comparison between gaming and normal laptops ?
Power Consumption Comparison Between Gaming and Normal Laptops In Watts ?
Most of the times gamers ask this question that how many watts does a gaming laptop consume. Though there are many factors involved in calculating the power consumption of both categories of laptops, we go with the standard one. A laptop for performing daily routine activities consumes 55-65 watts of energy. Whereas, gaming laptop consuming 160-185 watts. This power consumption difference is more than double.
The G.P.U. is the single hardware that consumes most of the power in rendering high-graphic gaming data. According to the statistics, the average energy consumption of gaming laptop on annual basis is around about 1450 kWh per year.
Let’s discuss about the all hardware in terms of energy consumption and how much they add in total.
Consumption Factors
Gaming or regular laptop is not just about GPU and also includes other hardware to perform functions, we will discuss all one by one.
Graphics-Processing-Unit
This is the most important and critical hardware in any gaming laptop which performs the most complicated job such as rendering high-end graphics that gamers love the most. It performs all heavy duties in processing complex data by the support of main processor, which we will discuss about later.
All latest heavy games require powerful GPU comes with multiple cores and can handle these games which offer real life experience. The more heavy game will be the more energy it will consume. It allows you to play the game at Ultra settings and higher than 60 FPS to enjoy it at most.
There are also older versions of GPU’s which actually do not consume more power, but they also can run only low-end games with poor graphics.
A virtuous card is used for improving the efficiency of graphic card and helps G.P.U. in performing better, but needs higher wattage.
We are going to share the average energy consumption of graphic card from all ranges.
Low-End Graphics Card – 28-85 Watts
Mid-End Graphics Card – 108-165 Watts
High-End Graphics Card – 165-260 Watts
Top-End Graphics Card – 245-350 Watts
Screen Resolution ( HD, 2K, 4K )
It’s technically true that higher screen resolution will consume more power. A laptop with 2K resolution is going to consume more energy than a 1080p resolution, 4K also requires more power comparing to 2K resolution.
It is important to mention here that all latest technology in screen panels is highly energy-efficient and consumes a small amount of energy. Therefore, user should not be much worried about this feature in gaming laptops in the context of power consumption.
New screen technology with large resolution is far more energy-efficient than old screens with lower resolution.
Central Processing Unit
C.P.U. is the brain that has to continuously performing its operations such as processing the user’s input and run the all complex logical codes. The computer’s brain is always processing the data same like human brain and has to consume extensive amount of energy.
A standard CPU of normal laptop to perform daily routine activities consume 65-85 watts. Whereas, C.P.U. of gaming laptop requires somewhere 300-500 watts per hour. This is a big difference and makes a big total on annual basis.
R.A.M. ( Random Access Memory )
R.A.M. is on the run when user performs multi-tasking, it requires power to handle and run more than one application. R.A.M. stores the temporary data for multiple apps, killing them and resuming tens of times on every second. The good thing is every 8GB RAM of DDR3 and DDR4 only consumes 3 watts.
Therefore, RAM should not be an issue for a gamer while upgrading and extending it.
Adapter
Adapter allows the user to connect the device with one plug to a different jack which otherwise is not possible. Typically, a wall adapter consumes around 30 watts power which adds up in the total power consumed by gaming laptop.
The Power Consumption Comparison between Gaming Laptop and Gaming PC
Let us share power consumption facts for standard laptop and personal computer first. Standard laptop consumes 60-65 watts power, whereas standard PC requires 165-185 watts of energy. This is a huge difference in power consumption by laptop and PC.
As far as gaming desktop and laptop is concerned, the gaming desktop consumes 400-1325 watts to keep the consistent power to all its hardware component, where GPU and CPU consumes the largest share. The gaming laptops are mostly more energy-efficient and its architecture is well-organized in consuming power, high-end gaming laptops consume 130-185 watts of energy.
There is no doubt that gaming laptop is the better choice, when user is concerned about power consumption issues.
Final Words
We explained that how there are multiple factors involved in calculating how many watts a gaming laptop or personal computer consumes? The G.P.U. and C.P.U. are two hardware which consumes largest share of the power.
It is also worth to mention here that the latest technology in screen panel is highly energy-efficient and consumes less power with higher screen resolution as compared to those old laptops having lower screen resolution. Latest screen panel technology consumes less watts on gaming laptop, the credit goes to Research & Development.
