A few weeks back I bought one of those fancy Kill-A-Watt devices and decided to check it out.
While idling, my main machine draws about 124-125 watts, as soon as I crank up Folding the consumption rises to 150-151. So, running Folding on this machine is about the equivalent of a 25W light bulb. Obviously, your mileage will vary depending on the processor in use. :-)
How much power/money is used by keeping a F@H running 24/7 on a computer? Roughly, a CPU uses about as much power as a watt light bulb. Here's a report on computer power management from Lawrence Berkeley government labs, and there are other references on the web you can find. Although power supplies on most computers are rated at 400 watts, average usage is lower. On average, a Pentium-type computer uses about 100 watts (if the monitor is off). So, the daily difference between off and running F@H is about 24x100 = 2.4 kWh. At $0.15 per kWh ( from PG&E here in California), this works out to about $0.36 per day. In general, lighting and climate control use a much larger share of household power than computers do. So the best bet for cutting costs and conserving energy would be to turn off lights, turn off your computer monitors (which use more power than a CPU), and turn down the heat.
Very interesting. Thanks.
My UPS reports watt usage via usb port and the APC monitoring tool. It barks if I get all 3 machines over 600 watts (which occurs if I fold on my main machine over 60%). That said, while it's not very accurate, I found about a 35 watt boost when my machines are folding. YMMV. Of course, I also run late model CPUs so again, YMMV.