Most of us who game on PC and build our own rigs are probably aware that faster, more capable components like high-end graphics cards generally come with a higher price tag and associated power draw. But one thing we all might have overlooked is how much power external accessories are consuming, and one of the biggest power hogs might just be staring us right in the face.
Gaming monitors have been improving with leaps and bounds every year, and the breathtaking imagery, smooth motion, and searing brightness levels they're now capable of providing are more impressive than ever. Those enhanced capabilities are coming with creeping power consumption, though. So, in honor of Earth Day, we're going to take a look at how much our monitors might be taxing our electric bill and what options we have to cut back.
A few, like the LG Ultragear OLED 27GR95QE, Monoprice Dark Matter (42770), and NZXT Canvas 27Q, give you plenty of performance-per-watt, but you might be surprised at how much power other displays hog.
There are many aspects of a monitor that make it truly great to look at. A 240Hz, 360Hz, or now even 500Hz refresh rate display (the Alienware AW2524H) can provide the smoothest visuals you've seen. Higher resolutions like 1440p or 4K allow for sharper detail in every scene. And brightness levels reaching up above 600 or even over 1,000 nits allow stunning highlights that make game visuals all the more awesome.
Pair these with newer display technologies like Mini-LED backlighting or OLED panels, and you can get unmatched visual quality. But each of these upgrades has a cost, and not just financially.
To do a little experiment on how different increases in specs come with changes in power draw, I plugged a slightly higher-spec monitor-the 34-inch Monoprice Dark Matter 34, with a quantum-dot VA panel and a 3440 x 1440 resolution running at 144Hz and 437-nit peak brightness-into a smart plug that provides real-time power use.
Running the monitor in Standard mode, which I set to be fairly dim because it's not in a bright room, and keeping the refresh rate at a reduced 60Hz, the monitor drew just 20W. If I let the display bump back up to its peak 144Hz refresh rate, the power draw increases to 24.3W. But, let's look at how much higher it can go.
By switching from the dim setting to the extra-bright Movie mode, the power draw bumped up by more than 100% to 57.2 watts. Now we're looking at almost the same power as some mid-range CPUs. For example, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 runs at an average power draw of 65W.
Of course, this monitor is also fairly mid-range in the current market. Some of the monitors we've tested recently, and even those we simply loved like the Alienware AW3423DW, are much, much worse when it comes to their power draw.
Part of what spurred this investigation in the first place came from testing the Sony Inzone M9. This is a high-end, 4K, 144Hz monitor with 96 local dimming zones and a 600-nit rated peak brightness. The catch? It has a 139W average power draw and comes with a correspondingly large power brick. Now we're topping the base power of a Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
The Inzone M9 doesn't stand alone either. Some of our favorite gaming monitors have high power consumption. The dazzling Alienware AW3423DW is rated by Dell for 200W. The Acer Nitro XV282K KV can hit 160W according to Acer. Meanwhile, a bigger model like the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ reportedly hits up to 220W.
These ratings begin to feel a little wild when you consider TVs. LG rates its 77-inch C2 OLED TV as having a typical power consumption of 150W. Go for the 55-inch model, and that drops to 95W. Mind you, these two OLED TVs both have 4K resolutions and 120Hz refresh rates just as ready for gaming as many monitors. Samsung's S95B OLED TV paints a different picture still, with a typical power consumption of 100W but a listed max of 300W.
The average price of electricity in the United States is currently $0.166 per kilowatt hour; if you use the same monitor for work and gaming, the difference between a 65-watt display and a 140-watt one could be costing you at least $36 per year.
As I demonstrated in my experiment with changing my monitor's setting and seeing a huge difference in power consumption, it may not always be clear what you're going to get.
Take the Cooler Master Tempest GP27U, which looks like a killer monitor on paper. It's a 4K mini-LED display that's faster than the Sony Inzone M9, with a listed power consumption of 47.7W. The catch is that many monitors ship in a special Eco mode, and that may be the only power rating you see before purchasing it. But that's hardly the mode you're likely to use in reality. After all, that Eco mode doesn't tend to allow for the HDR and peak brightness you paid to get with the monitor.
In fact, in the GP27U's case, that 47.7W level was measured with the monitor set at 200 nits. Now, how high might that go when the monitor is running at its peak 1,200 nits? It could be closer to 100W, according to testing by Techspot. That's not horrible, but it's more than double the power consumption you might have been expecting.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to get a clear picture on actual usage figures. Not every manufacturer provides a clear rating on their products. Some show an average power consumption, some suggest a power rating without detailing what monitor settings were used, some list a max (that's handy, actually), and some don't provide much detail at all. When you do get a power rating, it often seems to be tied to the out-of-the-box eco mode.
While you probably want to get what you paid for and enable all of the monitor's bells and whistles, you'll have to disable eco mode. However, when you're not gaming or watching movies, you might consider turning it back on. You'll get to lower your power bill, use less energy, and you might find that a dimmer display throughout the day is actually easier on your eyes.
Alternatively, you could look at monitors that paint a clearer picture of their power consumption, so you know what you're getting is on the greener side.
If you want a slick monitor that's not going to drain your bank account unexpectedly. I've scrounged up a few that are great while also providing a clear picture of their power consumption.
The LG Ultragear OLED 27GR95QE is a joy to game on thanks to its 1440p, 240Hz OLED panel. Even at its most demanding settings, it only draws 94W max. Dial back the brightness a bit, and you can probably go considerably lower.
The NZXT Canvas 27Q is an excellent budget monitor that punches well above its weight class without punching up the power bill too much. NZXT lists a max power consumption of 65W.
The 1080p, 144Hz Monoprice Dark Matter (42770) is one of our favorite monitors under $200, and it has a max power consumption of 65W. Odds are good you can get it to run even lower than that.
So, the next time you're on the market for a new monitor, you might want to look beyond the top specifications like resolution, refresh rate, and peak brightness to see what kind of power consumption to expect and consider what you want to prioritize.
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Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.