Gaming Electricity Cost Calculator

Yes — Annual Electricity Cost is Annual kWh multiplied directly by Electricity Rate, so every increase in rate raises the annual cost proportionally across the calculator's full $0.05-$0.50/kWh declared range. There's no discount tier or time-of-use pricing modeled here; it's a flat multiplication.

Total Wattage is a straight sum of System, Monitor, and Peripherals Wattage, so all three add to the bill with the exact same per-watt weight — none of them is structurally more important than another. System Wattage tends to dominate in practice simply because a typical setup draws far more watts there (a gaming PC's GPU and CPU commonly run 200-500W) than a typical peripherals setup (speakers, RGB lighting, chargers usually well under 50W combined), so the same percentage change moves more absolute watts on the system side for most real rigs — not because the calculator treats that input specially.

It multiplies your projected Annual kWh by a fixed U.S. average grid emissions factor of 0.855 lbs of CO₂ per kWh. Actual grid carbon intensity varies substantially by region — a state running mostly on hydro or nuclear power emits far less per kWh than one running mostly on coal — so this figure is a national approximation, not a utility-specific number.

No. It only multiplies your entered system, monitor, and peripheral wattage by the Gaming Hours per Day you specify, which is meant to represent active play time. Any standby draw while your PC or console sits idle or in sleep mode outside that window is not added to the projection, so your real electricity bill will typically run somewhat higher than this figure alone.