PC power supply?

[Falcon_Phill]

My question is if you leave your pc on all night, does the power supply suck out all of its rated power just sitting there downloading something?

I have a 500watt suppy for the video card, does it suck the full 500watts when the computers on idling or would it be less then that?

[pauljh74]

Just whatever power is required by the running devices. Your graphics card should be using only a small portion of it's max. power usage unless you're making it work hard - just displaying the desktop wouldn't work it hard at all. The CPUs now have the ability to scale back voltages and therefore power consumption when the PC is idle.

Your PC would be consuming low amounts of power for downloading - nowhere near 500W

[blackers10]

think of 500w as an amount it can supply if it needs to

sorta like a car can have 500kw .. but you dont need 500kw to putt around the shopping center carpark
its all controlled by what it needs at the time

[Falcon_Phill]

thanks guys, i didnt want to get a suprise on the power bill.