Pentium M is the way to go!

Watch the graphics card though, they are the energy hogs these days.

Did a little maths the other day and if power consumption matched Moore's Law, everyone would have a 51kW desktop PC by 2020. That could power a car!

One way to reduce your power consumption with a computer is to use a laptop - they are designed to draw less power than desktops. They are also usually much quieter than the average desktop PC. And you can recharge them with renewable energy if you have the means to do so.

It's not drawing that much less than a regular PC; my huge desktop machine draws about 100W. By comparison, my mini-itx machine draws 35W, and my iBook about 20W.

Neither my mini-itx nor my iBook is particularly fast, but they do the job well.

do these numbers include running the monitor and peripherals? There's only so much pedaling one can do while surfing the net.

i'm not totally impressed. the new iMac uses the same family of Intel Core Duo processors and they draw 95 watts, including the 20" LCD display. supposedly the display takes an estimated 32 watts, so that means they iMac (including wifi, bluetooth etc) draws 63 watts. here's the referenced blog entry.

My desktop that I rarely use eats up 130 watts during idle and 204 watts during heavy video game load.

The cause of this heavy power usage is the 3 hard drives (two of them are WD Raptors) and a somewhat high end video card (ATI X800).

In contrast, my laptop uses 33 watts during idle and 63watts during heavy game load.

Laptop has a 4200RPM HD and an ATI X200 3D card.

A laptop definitely uses less power. My laptop uses 30 Watts . I just tested the computers at work and even the do-nothing computer draws 180 Watts. Our most power hungry computer is about 320 Watts. It's pretty clear that laptops are more efficient and that is why I bought mine. Also nice is that you can run them directly from 12V thanks to car adapters so solar powering them without using an inverter is a possibility.

Anyone know how much power the Mac Mini uses? If I remember correctly, it's built using many laptop components, so I would think that it's relatively miserly.

as a computer person i can tell you that there is absolutely nothing they did that is green. the only low power component they used is the processor. everything else is standard and consumes plenty of power. hopefully they used some of the few motherboards out there that are made with environmentally non-damaging materials, but i dont see that listed anywhere.

What you have to understand is that 75 watts is while under full load, i.e. while the processor is running at full capacity and the other components of the system are operating. For a desktop system, this is a very impressive figure. Comparing this system to a laptop is not entirely fair because a laptop would cost far more for similar performance and would probably not be very quiet. Further, laptops are far less reliable, cost much more for repair and maintanance, and cannot be easily upgraded. So, if this were a laptop, these numbers would not be particularly impressive, but for a desktop these numbers really can't be beat.

but the whole point is that this is a desktop system built using a laptop cpu - isn't it?

Apple's 17" iMac intel according to several measurments takes a max of 60W (including the LCD monitor) on full load. That's even lower than Apple's own numbers. If you google about it you'll find out it's about the most power efficent PC out there.

Desktop power consumption is usually defined by the efficiency of the power supply and the CPU built into the system.

Notebook CPUs are designed for lower power consumption at the expense of lower performance. For many uses the performance
loss shouldn't be much of a problem. A new generation of AMD CPUs, just released in May, consumes only 35 or 65 Watts, compared
to the "standard" desktop CPU consumption of 89 or 110 Watts, without loss of performance.

Most power supplies have an efficiency of only around 65%, newer models have efficiencies better than 80% (look for 80+ rated power supplies)

I.e., everybody using one of the mobile or the new AMD CPUs can build a computer that is relatively energy efficient.

The biggest power waster is still, that people do not turn off computers when they are not using them!!!

I don't like to work with notebooks, because they have higher failure rates than desktop PCs, i.e. higher shipping costs (more fuel burned, packaging, paperwork, etc.).

They create more heat in a smaller space, are usually not as well shielded as a desktop, and ergonomics are not as good because of the "defined" location of keyboard and screen and higher noise levels.

A green computer is not one that only uses a little bit less energy.

A green computer also uses components that are manufactured in a greener and cleaner way: lower or no heavy metals, toxic and carcinogenic substances, noise, radiation, etc.

Anybody interested to read up on those issues, we have a free e-class explaining the above mentioned (and more) in more detail: www.greenmachineshop.com

The EcoSystem compares well with my Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P desktop, which uses a Pentium 4. Using an energy monitor, I get the following:

* 81W at idle loads (not much more for typical actual use)

* Up to 130W under heavy loads

* 5W when switched off

The monitor adds another 30W when on, about 1W when suspended

By contrast, my Sharp laptop (Centrino) uses comfortably below 20W.

The EcoSystem seems to be US-only, and quite expensive. Hopefully there will be a wider choice of low-power desktops next time I buy - or maybe I'll switch to using a laptop only.

Excuse me but my desktop computer only uses 30 watts, it is called a Powermate Eco. It is the only way to go and runs only Linux, Thank You, and no M$ tax on this computer.

PS Tell Nec to start up a new production of this computer. The fools stop making them.

The new Energy Star standard is 15 watts in standby:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=CO

Looks like Jinglehorse was bought by CineMassive Displays. The Jinglehorse url and ecosystem link redirect to CineMassive Displays

It looks like you can easily save 80 to 100 watts by choosing an average laptop over an average desktop. That does more than replacing a standard lightbulb with a compact florescent lamp.

Also consider the requirements for air-conditioning with higher power use. This is especially true in an office environment where cooling is required even when the outside temperature is well below freezing.

If a large proportion of computer users do that, it should save the building of many power plants world-wide. That probably more than offsets the waste caused by the higher failure rate in laptops.

I'm a serious computer user, but to me it is a tool, not a toy. I only care about expanding the computer if I need something that isn't built in.

The only thing I've had to add to my laptop is several external (firewire/USB) hard drives - which are off most of the time.

As for the ergonomics, that's easy. I have a separate full-sized keyboard, so using this computer is no different from a desktop model.

I can't see going back to a desktop.