available -- all they have is a PDF list of ALL the PC's (pages and pages you have to sort through) -- more brainless government efficiency.
piss out of it.
There are a bunch of issues.
The GREENEST PC isn't gonna be on that list. It's VERY expensive these days to do all the testing required. That's only cost effective for mainstream configurations. The only energy star qualification I've done was in 1994. At that time, all you had to do is send in a form saying that you complied. Those days are long gone.
My "greenest" computer is a palm pilot that runs for weeks on a couple of AAA cells. That's a lot different from the "greenest" PC that can do weather prediction competently.
What's your definition of a PC? If it doesn't include everything, do you care about the greenness of the SYSTEM? My DSL modem and router suck more juice than the 8-watt computer.
Then there's diminishing returns. How much more would you pay to save a quarter watt? How slow would you tolerate to save a quarter watt? How much behavior modification will you tolerate? Bundling your computer activity into one ten minute session per day will save you more than running a "greener" pc when you're not using it. I leave my DSL modem on all the time, because if I don't, it takes several minutes to re-establish connection and I get a different IP address. (don't gimme a bunch of crap about DYNDNS, I use it.) You'd probably save more by turning off your cable box than shaving a few watts off a PC. Ditto for running a live linux CD and unplugging the hard drive.
Of course, you've probably got some particular considerations that you haven't disclosed.
It's an ongoing man vs beast deal when I strive to save power consumption -- it's a good thing and I have the always improving power bills to prove it.
I just want a top ten list of PC power consumption (and other devices as well).
Look at their PDF file of test reports -- no one has time to look through that crap.
I may email consumer reports -- maybe they can help me.
it's a good thing and I have the always improving power bills to prove it.
But you will have to define what you mean by a PC first. How fast does it have to be to satisfy your requirements? More speed means more power.
There are mobile phones that will run for days and have far more computing power than the original IBM/XT. Most mains powered PCs have several states with various power consumptions ranging from 0W (off/hibernate) to 4-10W (sleep) to (100-500W active) and a bit more if you have a fancy 3D grapics card. The proportion of time in each state matters and only you can know that!
Some designed as home entertainment centres are now low power enough to be passive cooling or a very slow large fan with negligible noise.
crap.
Then find yourself a better summary or compile one and quit whining.
it's a good thing and I have the always improving power bills to prove it.
crap.
Cool. If computing performance is not an issue, the abacus has had low power consumption for centuries. And it's well suited to calculating how much your power bill went down.
Might get better info from an Amish newsgroup. ;-)
If you don't need the X86 (Intel) architecture, you can't do a whole lot better than the Beagle Board. $140 for the original model, "hard drive" is a SD memory card, it needs an outboard dongle for ethernet. It has an HDMI video output and USB for kbd and mouse. Runs off 5 V at
3 W maximum. There are Windows CE ports (I think) for it, but I have run a full Linux system on it. My guess without careful measurements is that normal operation is under 2 W for the full (computer) system. The LCD and backlight will raise that total up a bit, however.
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