- $500 Gaming PC: Day 2, Testing & Analysis
- $500 Gaming PC: Day 1, Component Selection
- Secure Remote Data Access for Home Users
- System Builder Marathon: Price/Performance
- System Builder Marathon: Overclocking
- System Builder Marathon: High-Cost System
- System Builder Marathon: Mid-Cost System
- System Builder Marathon: Low-Cost System
- The World's Best Hardware Prices
- DIY Solar-Powered PC: Solar Components
On a User Level
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: green, power, energy
Syndication:
On a User Level
Finally, the user can do a lot as well. This starts with switching individual devices on only when you need them, and ends with your behavior in your working or gaming environment. A PC that isn’t doing anything should be hibernating or switched off, and external components can also be switched off if they are not needed. You should also have a look around you.
What’s the light situation in your environment? Do you really need lots of lamps on, or can you switch some of them off? Of course it’s not beneficial to sit in the dark as you will stress your eyes quite a bit, but it is often possible to switch some bulbs off and save some power as you work. The same applies to air conditioning or heating: does the current configuration make sense? Becoming more aware of energy drains is a very easy and effective way to reduce overall energy cost that doesn’t have much to do with your PC directly.
Component Choices
AMD System
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM with AMD780G Chipset
The 780G chipset by AMD provides excellent energy efficiency, as it comes with an integrated DirectX 10 graphics engine.
Since chipset performance is really secondary on AMD’s Socket AM2+ platform due to AMD’s processor-integrated memory controller, the chipset choice can be made based on features. The 780G chipset by AMD offers sufficient graphics performance for Windows applications and video playback, and it comes with a nice feature set, such as support for two monitor outputs (one analog D-SUB, and one digital DVI connector for TFT displays).
This motherboard supports dual D-SUB and DVI display outputs.
AMD Phenom X4 9100e
The AMD Phenom arrived late, but it’s now bug free and it’s even available in a low-power version called Phenom X4 9100e.
AMD’s Phenom X4 processor isn’t the fastest quad core, as it does not reach the clock speeds of Intel’s Core 2 Quad offerings. However, the model 9100e is one of the most energy-efficient quad core choices. It is rated at a maximum power requirement of 65 W, which is about as much as Intel specified for its dual core processors. Unlike the other 9000 series quad cores, the energy efficient model runs at only 1.8 GHz, which still provides more than enough performance for intensive workloads, as long as these are thread-optimized. At the default voltage of 1.1 V, it consumes only 19 W when idle, which is considerably less than the idle requirements of all other quad core processors on the market. And the maximum power consumption stays within the 65 W power envelope defined by AMD. The Phenom X4 9100e requires a BIOS update, and will then work on all Socket AM2+ motherboards with Phenom support.
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Seriously, though. While it's nice to have a single comprehensive article to link someone to, as a starting point for "how do I 'go green'?" or whatever... this article does seem to be largely a repeat. I was a little disappointed to see that you didn't include performance and power figures for the example systems.
As far as specific advice goes, probably the most helpful is the reminder to be sure to hibernate/switch off. It's surprising how many people still don't do that on a regular basis. Perhaps Tom's H. could offer an exploration of hibernate/sleep in XP & Vista? with an investigation of why "automatic" hibernate hardly ever seems to be an option...
Clearly there is no technical review before publishing.
The article says:
"because power consumption increases as the square of clock speed. In addition, voltage boosts further reduce energy efficiency."
This is quite novel, as power consumption for CMOS is generally known
to be a function of CFV^2, where C is capacitance, F is frequency,
and V is voltage.
There is no F^2 term there.
"Any energy efficient processor, such as an Intel Core 2 Duo E8000, will no longer be efficient at all once overclocked, because power consumption increases as the square of clock speed. In addition, voltage boosts further reduce energy efficiency."
Thats wrong.
Voltage increases cause power consumption to square.
Processor speed causes a linear increase in power consumption.
Article is wrong in regard to processor speed causing
I do agree this is a worthless article. The misinformation in this article aside, I could careless about energy savings. Just another example of people being penny wise and pound foolish. So what if I could save $200 a year by cutting electricity costs. That would be the price to pay if you do not want to live in the stone age.
CFV^2 is also the same as C^2 x F^2 x V^2.
It is harder to create new but interesting articles.
lol
Perhaps your basic math skills need some work.
In general, ABC^2 is considered to be (A) x (B) x (C^2), as the ^2 binds to the nearest element. Though it is true that (ABC)^2 is the same
as A^2 x B^2 x C^2, that isn't the formula for CMOS power consumption.
To make it very clear:
CMOS power consumption is a function of Capacitance * Frequency * Voltage^2
There are other errors in the article, such as poor English. For example,
"Make sure you find a motherboard that is either based on a small number of voltage regulator phases in order to save power, one that dynamically switches phases on and off as required."
This should say ...power, *OR* one that...
Perhaps the authors are not native English speakers. That's ok, but the article should be proofread for correct English, if it is being published in English.
In general, the article is a fluff piece. I have been reading tomshardware for at least 10 years, and it has been going downhill.
I didn't even notice a mention of using solid state hard drives for reduced power consumption. On my personal web pages, when I say that switching to a notebook hard drive saves me power, I have a measurement of how much power I save. It isn't very precise, but it is better than nothing. See
http://www.weasel.com/comp_server.html#bit
for my article about a 'low power bittorrent server'.
It may just be that my computer expertise has risen, but I seem to recall that Tom's Hardware used to be highly technical and difficult for average reader to understand. They seem to have made it a bit "user-friendlier" over the years, but lately it seems to have been dumbed-down to the point of almost useless.
I'm not giving up yet, as there are still loads of nuggets to unearth at this site, but I resent wasting time sifting through garbage to find them.
You complainers need to get in perspective. But I did seem to like the Toms of a few years back a lot better, but this isn't too bad either. It's mostly the site design and organization I don't care for. It's really boring and not focused properly on the intersting parts. Bring back that initial design from about 3-4 years ago with the scrolling comments right near the top along with the single icon next to the articles. Old articles cycled off. That and the news...and simply DELETE the rest of the web site. Seriously. And leave these article comments, I like reading them.
"The Core 2 Duo E8000 series, which is based on Intel’s 45 nm manufacturing process, is the most energy efficient dual core processor available today, and is the most powerful dual core model as well. We recommend going for any version, as the performance differences among them are small; if you stay below 3 GHz, the power consumption will also be low even under load. All E8000 Core 2 Duo processors have a total of 6 MB shared L2 cache, and they will run in all current Socket 775 motherboards. It’s usually possible to exchange an Intel dual core for a quad core processor, should you need more performance."
First bolded phase: The E7200 which has only 3MB cache is actually the most energy efficient. It is also nearly half the price. Perhaps the article was written before this chip was released, but even so, this should be updated for accuracy.
Second bolded phrase: I'm not sure how you define "current". I would assume that means P35/X38 and later chipsets. There are still some motherboards with compatiblity issues even with these chipsets, but usually a BIOS update fixes those issues. Unfortunately, some motherboards (Abit ones in particular) currently only properly support these chips with beta BIOSs, so you can't find them on the abit website.
I do have 4 computers in a relatively small room, in a hot climate.
Minimizing heat is important for me.
For people who have computers in server rooms, server rooms now have
pretty dense, hot computers, and the server rooms are usually limited by
the amount of ac power going in, and the amount of air conditioning.
Less power per computer means more computers, which generally means
more money.
Not green hysteria, but the desire to maximize server room resources.
However, as a Linux user, I feell like I am still left behind in the cold. These power saving are proprietary design from each of the MB manufactorers. However, I cannot see any of them are willing to release the driver for the Linux OS. May be we are not a customer group big enough for the right support.
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Another pointless article with no substance and just a heap of prattle and waffle.
There is absolutely no point in reading this.
You wasted 10 minutes of time that I could have better spent picking weeds in the garden.
Start looking for another job boys !!!