Sleep, hibernate or shut down: what saves the most
Power draw of idle, sleep, hibernate and off for a desktop PC, and the settings that make sleep work reliably.
Leaving a gaming PC on and idle is one of the most common hidden costs. An idle desktop with a modern graphics card typically draws between 40 and 100 W at the wall, around the clock.
The four states
- Idle: on, nothing running. Everything is powered; the monitor may be off.
- Sleep: the PC keeps your session in memory and switches almost everything else off. Typically a few watts.
- Hibernate: the session is saved to the drive and the PC switches off. Close to the off value.
- Shut down: usually well under 1 W for the power supply’s standby circuit.
What it is worth
A PC idling at 60 W for 16 hours a day uses about 350 kWh a year. Our leaving-it-on calculator shows what that costs where you live.
Making sleep work
- Set the PC to sleep after 15–30 minutes of inactivity in your operating system’s power settings.
- If the PC wakes up by itself, check which devices are allowed to wake it, often the network adapter or a mouse.
- Turn off RGB lighting in sleep in your motherboard or lighting software; some boards keep LEDs on.