Here’s the running cost for each machine under light desktop usage.
To calculate the cost per year I assume each machine is used 8 hours a day under light usage. A kWh is £0.2635 (the current price cap from October 2025 in the UK).
| Computer | Wh | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Mini PC DreamQuest Intel N100 CPU | 12.9 | £9.93 |
| BOSGAME M4 Plus AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS | 15.4 | £11.85 |
| Mini PC Intel NUC 13 Pro i7-1360P CPU | 17.7 | £13.62 |
| Minisforum AI X1 Pro AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | 19.6 | £15.08 |
| Mini PC ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-255H | 25.1 | £19.31 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-10400 CPU | 32.1 | £24.70 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-12400 CPU (with dedicated graphics card) | 64.5 | £49.63 |
- The annual cost is the electricity cost of the computer only. To calculate the overall running costs, you’ll need to factor in peripherals such as monitors, speakers, external devices etc.
- The Balanced CPU governor is used.
The next table shows the annual electricity cost with each machine headless running at idle and permanently on. This information may be useful if you are thinking of using the machine say as a NAS server and want a baseline running cost. Again, I’m pricing a kWh at £0.2635 (the current price cap from October 2025 in the UK).
| Computer | Wh | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| BOSGAME M4 Plus AMD Rzyen 9 7940HS | 5.8 | £13.39 |
| Mini PC DreamQuest N100 CPU | 6.5 | £15.00 |
| Mini PC Minisforum AI X1 Pro AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | 6.9 | £15.93 |
| Mini PC ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-255H | 9.1 | £21.00 |
| Mini PC Intel NUC 13 Pro i7-1360P CPU | 12.7 | £29.31 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-10400 CPU | 14.1 | £32.55 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-12400 CPU (with dedicated graphics card) | 37.3 | £86.10 |
In the next article in the series, I’m going to look at the M4’s processor in more detail.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Power Consumption With System Idle
Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light Usage
Page 3 – Power Consumption With CPU Stressed
Page 4 – Electricity Costs
Complete list of articles in this series:
| BOSGAME M4 Plus Mini PC | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Introduction to the series and interrogation of the machine |
| Benchmarks | Benchmarking the BOSGAME M4 Plus |
| Power | Testing and comparing the power consumption |
| Cores | AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS |
| Noise | Comparing the machine's noise with other mini PCs |
Interesting!
i have 2 of these 1 maxed out with 64gig of ram plus
two 4tb m.2 and it goes like lightning. it recognises the yottamaster 42tb
and also a 4 bay 40tb ugreen nas and also an old lexmark c746dn
i am using linux mint plug them all in turn on and
every thing just no external drivers needed. i got in touch with bosgame
to find out whether i can us 96gig sticks and she said yes but that is maximum
just thought i wold let you know well worth the cash.
My minisforum mini PC goes a lot faster.
And is probably more expensive.
which one have you got?
I’ve got the Minisforum AI X1 Pro. I bought it after reading the series on this site. It’s an awesome mini PC. I’ve got 3 Crucial 4TB NVMe SSDs in it and 128GB of RAM.
The MediaTek Wi-Fi isn’t the finest so I replaced that. It’s now amazing in every respect.
yep iv’e got 64 gig on mine and two 4tb m.2ssd
iv’e also got a bosgame egpu 6700m xt for games over oculink
i was looking at the minisforum AI X1 pro
i did buy the minisforun AI X1 bear bones it is nice. put in 32gig and a 2tb drive runs quit well on ollama on gemma3. i am talking about my m4 plus now.
how fast is it mine is pretty quick on the igpu i am getting 30fps on furmark on the 6700m xt i am getting 130 fps
blue tooth is very good in the garden it began to stutter
but that trough 2 brick walls and about 10 more feet
and i say it is worth every penny
i don/t use my main pc much now