Well.. It does have [TDP][1] of 280 watts. So if you ran it at full capacity all the time - it'd be roughly equivalent to 300 watts heater. But at that time you

Well.. It does have [TDP][1] of 280 watts. So if you ran it at full capacity all the time - it'd be roughly equivalent to 300 watts heater. But at that time you'd probably be more worried about the fan noise (which really depends on how you build it). Most of the time my machine is at very light load. Case exhaust is slightly warmer than ambient, but that's not a good metric. Unfortunately I do not have a power meter. I'd say heat is not a concern, but noise can be. It takes some time to figure out good fan curves to balance cpu temp vs noise. There may be some companies who do pre-built and well configured machines, but I haven't researched that at all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power