Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

Hello, anyone can suggest a free software (or paid) which could help me monitor the power usage on my computer system, like how much power is being used by the CPU, GPU, motherboard etc?

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As hinted, the most reliable way to get absolute watts for a whole PC is to measure the power at the mains or via a metered PDU/UPS — software can only report what sensors and vendor APIs expose, and those are often estimates or chip-level values rather than true board/PSU power. For quick checks a smart outlet or UPS/PDU with metering is the simplest, and for per-component accuracy testers use inline harnesses or dedicated meter rigs. (tomshardware.com)

What software can do today (and where it helps): NVIDIA’s NVML / nvidia‑smi reports GPU power on supported cards; AMD’s Radeon Software (WattMan/Overlay) and Ryzen Master expose GPU/CPU telemetry on supported hardware; and sensor‑aggregation tools like HWiNFO, Open Hardware Monitor or HWMonitor collect what the motherboard, GPU and vendor drivers actually publish. Those packages are great for trends, OSDs and per‑sensor logging, but they depend on hardware support and driver accuracy. (docs.nvidia.com)

On Linux there are kernel interfaces and utilities that are more “authoritative”: the powercap/RAPL framework exposes CPU/package energy counters (use perf/turbostat or read sysfs), and PowerTOP helps find software activity that drives power use. AMD also added energy reporting drivers in recent kernels, so per‑socket/package numbers are becoming available across vendors — still, read the docs for your kernel/hardware first. Also note that Intel’s Power Gadget has had support and security changes; prefer kernel/RAPL or vendor tools where possible. (kernel.org)

A practical workflow that balances cost vs accuracy: 1) start with HWiNFO/GPU‑Z/nvidia‑smi/Radeon Overlay to see what sensors the system exposes; 2) log an idle baseline; 3) stress just the component you want (CPU or GPU) and record the delta — that gives a good estimate but beware PSU efficiency, shared rails and sampling rates; 4) if you need true per‑rail/board accuracy use a wall meter for whole system or an inline rig / metered PSU/PCIe harness (lab setups like the Powenetics/Tinkerforge approach or vendor PSUs that report power via iCUE give the best component‑level numbers). Pick the tool chain that matches how precise you must be. (tomshardware.com)

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

With regard to software, I havent seen anything for a single computer. for the Enterprise, I was involved way back wtih the BigFix (now IBM Tivoli) power management solution.

Have you considered just buying a monitor that you can plug in the wall, then plug your device to to monitor the power that is running through? This is what the BigFix team used to get stats from several computer models to come up with their business case.

here is an example of one of these devices:
http://www.microdaq.com/p3-international/kill-a-watt/index.php

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

thanks for mentioning this device

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

I found a software Uniblue local cooling, which can display the amount of energy being used in Watts for the most common devices found on a PC/laptop

Member Avatar for JorgeM

thanks for the update. Looks like a neat application.

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