I recently, reluctantly - realised I was asking too much of my Internet PC and bit the bullet and retired it. I prided myself on keeping it tuned and working as it was designed and the whole system, including monitor was only drawing 270 Watts,  being on almost 24/7 was as economical as i could make it.

With my increasing time on the net, both work and play, what finally put paid to it was Spybot's new and excellent real time protection. Although still frisky most of the time and able to run AVG real time security, Winamp and browser, some pages were taking too long to open.

So I comandeered the lowest spec gaming rig I have - a C2Duo 6750 on a P35 mobo with Radeon 1950Pro video card, there's no way I'm going on the Web with the 3870 rig or the 8800GT one either. To my surprise this setup is only using 100ish Watts more as its barely ticking over so far so good.

Now the reason for this diatribe, I'm taking delivery of C2Duo 8500 which I'll mate to a P45 mobo with 4GB Ram and a 4870 because I was hoping to leapfrog Vista and get Vienna or Windows 7 when hopefully it comes out next year, but I need DX10 now and can't wait.

Intel and AMD are doing there level best to make more energy efficient CPU"s and Asus et al are taking similar steps with die shrinks etc. At the same time the OS system and software is getting more bloated by the day, Increase of RAM to run it - each 128Mb using 7watts so doubling consumption to 224watts, the video card drawing 350Watts under load, with a 750Watt PSU to keep things sweet, you can't help thinking that Intel although on the right track are farting against thunder.

This coming at a time of rising energy prices and possible shortages, if this latest war between Georgia and Russia becomes protracted, if there are any cutbacks on the European pipeline we will be the first to experience it because we are at the end and going by past events both Germany and France won't help us out.

If McCain gets elected in the USA, he'll make George Bush look like a Care Bear in comparison and if they succeed in bombing Iran  then forget about Energy saving and Green issues, they will be the least of our problems.     

Nil desperandum

Intel e7200 @ 4.0GHz (4.32GHz SuperPi(e)) Lapped

Asus P5E-VM (Vdroop pencil modded)

4Gb Patriot Pc6400 4-4-4-12

250Gb Samsung Spinpoint

Sapphire ATI 3870/Akasa Vortexx Neo

Enermax 600 Watt PSU

Ubuntu/Win XP

All in a Thermaltake Handbag...

Or flying @ 4.21GHz in the Stacker.

 

Try some MM Super Pi(e) here!

Before, you may have considered underclocking. Although nowadays with the likes of Intel speedstep and the AMD equivalent, there is little reason to. The problem here really lies in the software camp, IMHO. Modern apps and programs demanding too many resources which equate to watts in the real world. Of course gaming is just the devil in disguise- demanding huge amounts of processing power from everything you've got. But the developers simply say- the user has the capacity to do so, so we will. That way we have an edge over our competitors... and so it goes on.

As ricedg says - Consoles would likely be a better option if you want to save the planet. And definately not Vista. Though it wouldn't surprise me if there was an energy efficient distro of linux.....

Pheonix

Alamo:Vista64/XPPro Intel C2Q Q6600 @ 3GHz, Asus P5E-VM HDMI, 4GB OCZ ReaperDDR2-800, HD4870, OCZ 600W, SATA DVDRW, 750GB Samsung f1 250GB WD Caviar SE
Maverick:XPHome AMD64 3200 (939) @ stock, 2GB DDR500 +512MB DDR600, 500W, Gigabyte K8N51GMF-9, X800GTO16, SONY DVDRW, 160GB WD Caviar

Sidewinder:Vista32 Acer Aspire 5710WMLi, 1.66GHz C2D T5500, 1GB DDR2-800, Intel GMA950, 80GB

Intel e7200 @ 4.0GHz (4.32GHz SuperPi(e)) Lapped

Asus P5E-VM (Vdroop pencil modded)

4Gb Patriot Pc6400 4-4-4-12

250Gb Samsung Spinpoint

Sapphire ATI 3870/Akasa Vortexx Neo

Enermax 600 Watt PSU

Ubuntu/Win XP

All in a Thermaltake Handbag...

Or flying @ 4.21GHz in the Stacker.

 

Try some MM Super Pi(e) here!