v0.1
As the number of computers is increasing in households, a few months ago I started thinking about the power consumption issues. Until now I've paid scant attention to the electricity costs of the Computer in the corner and have been enthusiastic in recycling older machines for people's use.
Last time the electricity bill came in, I had a look at the cost - 25c per KWhr.
My nephew has just constructed a Server to use as a media centre. It is powered by an Atom D525 cpu, and has a terrabyte HDD with nVidia ION graphics, as well as more interface ports than you can poke a stick at. It draws less than 50w at maximum stretch playing 1080p HD Video.
Note: Asus produce a similar product called the "eee Box".
An older desktop I use is a Pentium 4 3.0 machine with two HDD of 160 gig and 500 gig and an nVidia 6800GT video card. This was my gaming machine for IL2, a combat flight simulator until a couple of years ago. Now before going away to work it out, I guess that this machine would draw about 350w at full steam. I know that I did blow up a 280w power supply at one stage on it. I'm breaking it down as:
- CPU 65w (subsequently found to be 80w)
- HDD 50w ea - 100w
- Motherboard - 20w (probably too modest)
- Video Card - 150w (really 185w)
So, 350 w to 380 w is the ballpark consumption of this machine.
I found it was difficult to get the power consumption discrepancy below 200w (even with a pretend lower powered video), which surprised me because I've always thought of it as about a 100w saving. Based on all that, there is about a $400 per year saving in electricity (assuming the machines were left on all the time) using the Atom based machine, which has more than adequate video capabilities for all but demanding 3d games, and more computing power than the older machine, even more than matching the faster P4 3.8. After 2 years you have a free system and the savings mount after that.
It all made me think about how much computing power you really DO need these days. Do you REALLY need that Intel i7 machine?
Some Performance / Power links
Later ......
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