Guide

How much does a gaming PC cost to run per month?

The bill is watt-hours times your rate. A month in this article is 30 days, matching the electricity calculator. The rate used below is the US residential average from EIA Table 5.6.A for August 2026: 18.16 cents per kilowatt-hour, released 2026-10-23. EIA's figure is average revenue per kilowatt-hour, not your tariff, and the 2026 values are preliminary.

A current gaming pair, four hours a day

A Ryzen 7 9800X3D and a Radeon RX 9070 XT, with two DDR5 sticks, one NVMe drive, and three fans, estimate 481 W while gaming. Four hours a day at the US average is 57.7 kWh in 30 days, about $10.48. A year of that same pattern is $127.53. The PC is off the other 20 hours in this example. Real idle time is extra.

Add eight idle hours at 60 W, which is a planning allowance for a desktop that is on but not in a game, plus three hours of the 481 W session. That mixed day is about $10.48 per 30 days at the same US average. Idle hours often cost as much as the short gaming session, because they happen every day.

The state changes the bill more than the badge

The same 30-day gaming-only pattern at Louisiana's 12.87 cents is cheaper than at Hawaii's 47.18 cents. Those two are the low and high ends of the August 2026 residential column in the dataset. A Gold-to-Platinum efficiency upgrade changes wall energy by a few percent. Moving from one state's average to another's can change the rate by more than double. Use your own rate in the calculator. The state list is a starting point.

This does not include the monitor, speakers, or a space heater of a PC in a small room. It also does not include the purchase price of the supply. The payback tool is where a price difference you type gets divided by the yearly energy gap. WattWise does not invent that price.

Open the electricity calculator with your hours, or the 9800X3D and RX 9070 XT build if you want the wattage broken into lines. Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, average price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector, residential column.