How Many Watts Does A Laptop Use

When we talk about the electricity consumption of a laptop, it requires fewer watts of power to charge compared to a desktop system thoroughly. A particular number of watts cannot be stated as the electricity consumption varies depending upon the laptop’s size, make, and technology used. Generally, it consumes from twenty to fifty watts of power to charge, depending on the size.

Laptops are designed to be more energy efficient and run by charging the battery. The Laptop contains a more powerful battery card that uses the integrated graphic system and requires minimal power to fully charge. When you put the notebook on the charge, it consumes 10 to 20 percent more power.

A Laptop's wattage – how many watts it uses – is a measure of how much power it needs. The more watts of power the laptop uses, the faster its the battery will be.

How Many Watts Does A Laptop Use

Typically, a 14- to 15-inch laptop will draw about 60 watts when plugged in. When the notebook is charging, up to 70 percent of the energy is consumed to charge the laptop. While the remaining 30 percent is diverted, chargers and batteries go wasted as radiation and heat into the environment.

How much electricity does a notebook use per hour?

On average, some models may reach up to 100 watts per hour. This is one of the significant reasons why laptops get heated so quickly and need a cooling pad to deal with the heating issue. Power consumption also suffers affected when the laptop is on charge while using it.

What factors does power consumption depend on?

There are a variety of factors on which the consumption of electricity depends. It also varies from an old to a new version, depending on how much power it will be consumed. Technology has improved with each passing day, and most manufacturers design laptops that require the minimum energy possible to function.

So, it entirely depends on the brand and how latest the model to ensure the required power consumption. The laptop will consume even more electricity if it is connected to external hardware. Look at the details mentioned below to understand the factors involved in energy consumption.

 1. Type of Laptop

Today, the laptop is an essential thing that tells how much electricity the particular laptop model may require to charge fully. If you are using a fundamental model of any brand, it probably requires around 60 watts per hour to charge. Gaming laptops and other high-end laptops, on the other hand, need more watts of power to charge.

 2. Adapter Wattage

When we talk about the power requirements watts of a laptop when buying a laptop, it comes with a charger. The charger adapter utilizes the specific watts of power it produces. If the laptop has a 60 watts adapter, it may consume less electricity than those with more than 80 watts adapter. The basis of energy consumed depends on the number of watts utilized in an hour.

3. Type of Graphics Card

The gaming laptop contains a high-end graphic card installed in the body.  Gaming laptops are typically high-end kinds of laptops. They have installed a high-quality GPU along with a high-quality CPU as well.

These notebooks have a better display quality and a higher capacity for placing a battery. They have excellent output both in terms of display and functionality. Excellent performing graphics cards require more electricity to charge than a regular laptop.

When users are gaming, the GPU will display even better visuals, which means that higher power is needed. Put these all together and as a result, it will display an excellent output but followed by a more significant amount of power consumption. The powerful workstations and the gaming rigs utilize more energy than regular notebooks.

4. Type of CPU

The type of CPU also has a significant role in determining electricity consumption. Suppose your notebook is accompanied by a low-grade processor or a CPU system. In this case, it will require minimum energy to charge fully. Low-grade processors work in a precisely opposite way to those gaming laptops with high-end graphics cards installed.

The reason behind less amount of electricity consumption is quite simple. A primary CPU system that slowly renders the computing process needs less electricity than those that utilize more energy to provide a better and quick computing experience.

So the basic model of the notebook is utilized minimum electricity followed by an average computing process.

Laptops typically consume energy when plugged in, and the basic notebooks use less power than high-quality laptops. The utilization of electricity depends on the specification and the size of the display screen. The minimum amount of energy consumption may be 20 watts, and it may take up to 100 watts when running without a battery.

When you charge a laptop while using it, it may use 10 to 20 times more power than in general. Estimated electricity consumption is reaching up to 60 watts for a 14 to 15-inch LCD laptop.

How much electricity does a Mac-Book consume?

A typical 13-inch Apple Mac-Book consumes up to 61 watts on average. It can be clearly seen on the charger, a 15-inch Mac-Book utilizes 87 watts per hour.

How much electricity does a gaming laptop consume?

Gaming notebooks consume from 300 to 350 watts on average. They are known as next-level laptops as they are best at almost every function they perform.

Of course, they consume a lot of energy and weigh much heavier than any regular notebook because they are equipped with high-end components. Gaming laptops have everything which can have an excellent result, from a long-lasting battery to powerful processors.

Calculate the Watts Utilized by a Laptop

What is the formula for calculating power cost?

The formulas you need to know to manually calculate the electricity bill are: Watts = (amps) x (volts) Kilowatt-hours = (watts) x (usage) / 1000. Cost = (kilowatt-hours) x (electricity rate)

1. Manual Calculation

It can be easily assumed by checking a notebook's charger how much electricity a notebook consumes. For an even more accurate answer, you will need to consider other things as well. Some of the significant components tend to increase overall utilization, such as the GPU and CPU among them. Most notebooks are supported by NVIDIA graphics, Intel processors, or AMD. You can search for the energy these laptops typically consume on their official website.

When you increase the brightness of the display screen, it will consume more power. The power may be increased from 10 to 11 percent more than it is used in general. Other components have a significant impact on electricity consumption, such as SSD and RAM, etc.

2. Electric Calculation

For an accurate calculation, you need to use an electricity monitor. It is a device that is used over a power socket and can test the exact amount of watts consumed while charging. The best part of electric monitors is that it includes every tiny consumption as the consumed energy comes from one socket.

This device can also be used for monitoring other household appliances. It is unnecessary to find everything out, but if you have an idea, it works in this case. The method of using the device is very simple.

All you need to do is to stick the device on a socket wall and then plug the notebook charging adapter into it. It will start to read the amount of energy the charger is consuming from the socket. Please wait for a few minutes as sometimes it shows the default wattage initially. But within moments, it starts to read accurate watts being consumed.

Conclusion

The wattage a laptop uses doesn't depend on one or two things. Instead, it depends on a variety of factors such as model, screen size, specs installed in the laptop, etc. In general, basic notebooks, which are not as great as advanced laptops, consume less electricity than high-end laptops.

Gaming notebooks tend to consume more energy than regular laptops. They are coming with robust components to give an improved user experience.