To estimate electricity cost, multiply average power in watts (converted to kilowatts) by the hours you stream and your electricity price per kWh. For a 24/7 setup, that is 720 hours in a 30-day month or 8,760 hours in a 365-day year. Calculate GPU-only use from the GPU’s average draw; use wall-side whole-computer watts if you want to estimate the full streaming PC’s contribution to your bill.
How to calculate GPU electricity cost
Use this formula:
Cost = (average watts ÷ 1,000) × hours × electricity price per kWh
Dividing by 1,000 converts watts to kilowatts. Kilowatts multiplied by hours gives energy use in kilowatt-hours (kWh); multiplying kWh by your tariff gives the estimated energy cost. Use the all-in per-kWh rate that applies to you, including delivery and other per-kWh charges where relevant.
- Choose the power figure you want to estimate: GPU-only average draw or whole-system wall-side draw.
- Enter the hours the setup will actually run. For uninterrupted use, a 30-day month is 720 hours and a 365-day year is 8,760 hours. Use actual hours for other billing periods or a leap year.
- Multiply by your applicable electricity price per kWh.
Worked example: hypothetical 100 W load
A continuous 100 W load for 30 days uses (100 ÷ 1,000) × 720 = 72 kWh. At $0.173/kWh, the arithmetic result is $12.46 for the period. This is an illustrative calculation, not a measured NVIDIA GPU streaming result. It estimates only the load represented by the 100 W input; it excludes the rest of the PC unless 100 W is a whole-system wall-side measurement.
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As a shortcut, each continuous 1 W averages 0.72 kWh over 30 days and 8.76 kWh over 365 days. Multiply those energy amounts by your own rate to estimate the cost per watt.
Choose the right watts: GPU-only or the whole PC?
For GPU-only cost
Use the GPU’s average power during a representative stream if you want to attribute energy use to the card. GPU telemetry can help estimate that figure, but power varies with stream settings, encoder, scene, concurrent graphics work, and machine state. A reading taken at one moment may not represent an entire day.
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For the streaming computer’s electricity cost
Use average wall-side watts for the whole PC and any streaming equipment you want included. A plug-in electricity usage monitor can measure the combined load at the outlet over a representative stream. It does not isolate the GPU, and it will include other devices plugged into the measured outlet or power strip.
Keep the distinction visible in your estimate: a GPU-only result is not the cost of running the whole streaming computer. Conversely, a wall-side reading includes components beyond the GPU.
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Why NVIDIA TGP is not your streaming average
Total Graphics Power (TGP) is a power cap for GPU Boost, not a promise that the card will draw that many watts continuously. NVIDIA explains that high-power applications such as games may reach the TGP cap, while light workloads or workloads bottlenecked by the CPU can use much less. Its RTX 4080 example lists 320 W TGP, 13 W at idle, 21 W during video playback, and 251 W average gaming power. Those examples show how workload changes power draw; video playback and gaming are not measurements of YouTube live encoding. See NVIDIA’s explanation of GPU power and TGP.
For exact-card specifications, consult NVIDIA’s GeForce graphics-card comparison. Reference-design TGP and required system-power information are useful context, but partner add-in-card specifications can vary. A recommended power-supply capacity is not the PC’s constant electricity consumption.
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- Best estimate: average watts measured during a representative stream with the settings you intend to use.
- Fallback estimate: if you only know TGP, treat it as an upper-cap or conservative proxy, not an expected average. State that the estimate is uncertain.
- For a whole-PC bill estimate: use wall-side watts rather than adding a GPU specification to a PSU recommendation.
Use your own electricity rate; published averages are context
Your current bill or tariff is the relevant rate for a personal estimate. Electricity prices vary by location and customer class, so a national average should not be treated as your price.
For context, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported preliminary 2025 average retail prices of 17.30¢/kWh for residential customers, 13.41¢/kWh for commercial customers, 8.62¢/kWh for industrial customers, and 13.63¢/kWh across all customer types. These figures come from preliminary Electric Power Monthly data published in February 2026. For all customer types, the reported 2025 state range was 8.20¢/kWh in North Dakota to 35.72¢/kWh in Hawaii. Details and attribution are in the EIA explanation of electricity prices.
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Illustrative costs at U.S. 2025 averages
The following are arithmetic examples for a hypothetical continuous 100 W load—not predicted bills for a specific GPU, computer, or location. The residential and commercial rates are EIA’s 2025 U.S. averages noted above.
| Example rate | Cost for 30 days (72 kWh) | Cost for 365 days (876 kWh) |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. residential average: $0.173/kWh | $12.46 | $151.55 |
| U.S. commercial average: $0.1341/kWh | $9.66 | $117.47 |
For current U.S. state and customer-class comparisons, check the EIA Electric Power Monthly tables. The EIA page listed July 2026 data, released September 24, 2026, when checked on October 3, 2026; it showed October 23, 2026 as the next release date. A current personal bill remains more useful than a national or state average for calculating your own cost.
Compare two streaming setups fairly
Compare estimated monthly or annual cost only after the assumptions match. For both setups, use average watts measured or estimated under the same workload, stream settings, encoder, hours of operation, and applicable electricity rate. A card’s TGP alone is not a fair substitute for another card’s measured streaming average.
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