Electricity Costs
PC power consumption matters in the UK, particularly because electricity costs remain high once the unit rate and standing charge are taken into account.
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 costs £0.2467, the current UK price cap from April 2026.
| Computer | Wh | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Mini PC DreamQuest Intel N100 CPU | 12.9 | £9.29 |
| Mini PC Minisforum M2 Core Ultra 7 356H | 13.5 | £9.72 |
| Mini PC BOSGAME M4 Plus AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS | 15.4 | £11.09 |
| Mini PC Minisforum UM890 Pro AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS | 17.9 | £12.89 |
| Mini PC Minisforum AI X1 Pro AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | 19.6 | £14.12 |
| Mini PC ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-255H | 25.1 | £18.08 |
| Mini PC BOSGAME M7 Core Ultra 9 285H | 27.2 | £19.59 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-10400 CPU | 32.1 | £23.12 |
| Mini Workstation Minisforum MS-02 Ultra | 44.9 | £32.34 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-12400 CPU (with dedicated graphics card) | 64.5 | £46.46 |
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 storage, networking equipment, and any expansion cards installed in the MS-02 Ultra.
The next table shows the annual electricity cost with each machine running headless, idle, and permanently switched on. This information may be useful if you’re thinking of using the machine as a NAS server, virtualization host, or homelab system and want a baseline running cost. Again, I’m pricing a kWh at £0.2467, the average electricity unit rate under the April-June 2026 UK price cap.
| Computer | Wh | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Mini PC BOSGAME M4 Plus AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS | 5.8 | £12.53 |
| Mini PC DreamQuest N100 CPU | 6.5 | £14.05 |
| Mini PC Minisforum AI X1 Pro AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | 6.9 | £14.91 |
| Mini PC Minisforum UM890 Pro AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS | 7.7 | £16.64 |
| Mini PC Minisforum M2 Core Ultra 7 356H | 8.1 | £17.50 |
| Mini PC ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-255H | 9.1 | £19.67 |
| Mini PC BOSGAME M7 Core Ultra 9 285H | 11.6 | £25.07 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-10400 CPU | 14.1 | £30.47 |
| Mini Workstation Minisforum MS-02 Ultra | 27.8 | £60.08 |
| Desktop PC Intel i5-12400 CPU (with dedicated graphics card) | 37.3 | £80.61 |
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:
| MINISFORUM M2 Core Ultra 7 356H Mini PC | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Introduction to the series and interrogation of the machine |
| NPU | Setting up and testing the NPU |
| Benchmarks | I run a series of benchmarks focusing on the CPU, GPU, Memory, and Disk performance |
| Power | Testing and comparing the power consumption |
| Next article in the series will focus on the BIOS | |