New Computer Chips Are Really Cool
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09. 6.06
Every year about this time we think about how we can make our computer run our drawing programs faster but also use less power and get rid of all that damn fan noise. Our last attempt involved a big honking Antec Sonata case and an expensive CPU fan and it still drives us nuts. This year there is a real opportunity to build a computer that is really cool and comsumes very little power, and while Intel is winning the speed and power awards with its new Core Duo, AMD cleans their clock when it comes to saving power and heat. The 3800+ X2 ADD under full power tested at 25 watts, less than half of the best Intel chip, and barely enough to need a heat sink, let alone a fan. However, even the Intel uses half the power of our current P4 hotplate, a great improvement. Shoppers beware- AMD sells the chip with three different power ratings and the differences on the label are obscure. Look for "Energy Efficient Small Formfactor" on the box. We want to build a really quiet, green computer and look forward to suggestions, not including "buy a Mac" or "get a notebook". ::Lost Circuits
Lost Circuits article URL : http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/low_e/
LA: thanks, the link was bad. fixed now.
My home setup is a Asus MB with CT-479 adaptor running a 1.6Ghz Pentium m, overclocked to 2.1. And 2x512MB ram. Probably equivalent speed to a 3.2 P4, and will run Autodesk Inventor (3D CAD) no problem.
With a laptop hard drive it runs at around 75W for the whole PC. (But Battlefield 2 puts it up to 125W! :/ )
I think it should be less than that, I suspect the RAM is using a lot of juice. My intention is to run it off a 12v M2-ATX power supply (no fan), from a solar charged battery.
I assume the figures in the article are for just the chip? The new X2 chips look pretty good, I think P-m chips are up to around 35W max. Anyway, watch the graphics card - now they have power connectors they can use more than the CPU!
LA: solar powered fanless power supply- wow. send us a picture when you get it built.
Unfortunately, the new AMD chips that are "small form factor energy efficient" are only being produced for the new AM2 socket platform. Most AMD systems in use today are Socket 939.
Technobabble, I know: the point, however, is that you can't upgrade an older system to the new efficiency. Rather, you must also upgrade at least the motherboard and memory in addition to the chip.
Given that choice, from an eco perspective, you have to ask whether it's better to run your current system through it's useful life or upgrade and save energy moving forward? Probably the former is better (unless, of course, you're in the market for your first PC right now and upgrading is not an option).
not sure why the Mac bashing is relevant to this post. they use the same "green" CPUs you're lauding...
LA: I am not mac bashing, I like them a lot. it is just that it is a standard response to the issue as they are pretty quiet, and I like to bake my own which you cannot do with them, and if I did not say it we would have 20 comments advising it.
I think the point is that you can't "build" a mac or a notebook from the ground up, where as PCs can be built from the fuse in the plug upwards.
With a mac and a notebook you get what you order. There are specific chips for specific models of Apple machines and thats the only choice you get. Its also pretty much the same for PC Notebooks.
Not sure about green but if you are really adventurous you can water cool to quite down the fan noise. It sounds like that AMD chip mentioned could even have a passive water cooler, ie no fan on the radiator.
I'm semi running my current laptop on solar power.
Semi because I'll use it till it is out of juice and recharge the laptop.
I have a question, how do you recharge the removable battery without it being in the laptop?
If you're okay with the concept of "enough" this barebones small-form-factor Asus Via C3-based PC is only $92 at Newegg. Check the reviews. Silent, small, and extremely efficient. Add a hard drive, some RAM, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and you're good to go. The whole CPU uses less wattage than most processors.
It might run Windows+Spyware+antivirus a little slowly, but with a pared-down version of Linux and it should scream.
Asus Terminator C3
Xubuntu
While the AMD chip may use less power immediatly, the Core 2 Duo is very likely able to do things somewhat faster. So, if a task takes the AMD chip 10 seconds to complete, while the Core 2 only takes 6, the difference is negligable.
If you're not shy about water cooling, there are a couple companies that make passive water cooling towers that should quiet things down quite nicely. This paired with a fanless power supply and video card should really quiet things down.
Using a laptop hard drive should also quiet things down a bit and draw less power (no 12V requiremets).
Move to a case that has 120MM fans for ventilation over 80 or 92MM fans. Larger fans can move more air at a slower speed, thereby quieter.
If you are using an AMD system, you may have to install the Cool'N'Quiet software along with the driver from the AMD website to better utilize the power management and fan-speed management capabilities of your hardware. I know I had to with my AMD box.
If speed isn't an issue, a C3 as David suggested would be ideal.
MV: Ram shouldn't be eating up a whole lot.
Adjustable fans and controllers are avaliable so you can crank it up when you are doing something more strenuous.
Also its important to get the right case and chassis, I think that ideally they need almost uninterupted airflow from front to back.
Anyone trying using a solar panel to power hard drives? You'd probably need a battery and some circuitry to smooth the voltage, but it should be possible.
Anyone have any idea how much power (watts) an average hard drive (7200 rpm) uses?
LA: Not much, 12 watts according to this study of 75 gig deathstars.
I built a system at the begining of the year with full energy use considerations. Unfortunately for me I use Intel motherboards for stability (I wish AMD did their own boards) and Intel's then current desktop chips, notably the P4 Prescott series, were power hogs.
So I actually searched far and wide for an older Northwood P4 which actually performs about the same at any given speed as the Prescotts do, and this is particularly true at the low end because the Northwoods were available with 800 MHz FSBs in the 2.4 to 2.8GHz range while the Prescotts have 533 MHz buses at those speed grades.
To my 2.6C GHz "obsolete" P4 (65 W) I added a Quadro FX 700 graphics card, one of the few professional AGP 8x cards with a passive heat sink (about 35 W). It's not the fastest, but it's very good.
To this I added regular "value" memory (1GB), which runs cooler and at lower power, in echange for a roughly 5% performance hit over "performance" memory, which is also more expensive.
Finally, saving power on components is moot if your power supply is not efficient, so I got a 380W Antec Neo HE, where the HE means High Efficiency. This works very well and runs very cool. The fan runs slow and makes no noise, so the worst noise maker in the system is the CPU fan. The case fan rarely kicks in.
Today I would get the same Power Supply and value memory, but I would get a different CPU and graphics card, applying the same overall logic: Watch both the CPU and the GPU, and get a high efficiency power supply.
And of course an LCD monitor.
http://www.endpcnoise.com/
http://www.quietpcusa.com/ http://www.silent.se/
http://www.zalman.co.kr/ http://www.silentpcreview.com/
http://www.directron.com/index.html
Directron has good prices on quiet and silent PCs and parts like Zalman fans and coolers
I recently put together a very quiet, small, and powerful system using using intel's original core-duo design with an A-Open 945gt-based motherboard. The idea being that some of the newer Core 2 Duo chips (namely the T7600) would be a drop-in upgrade, without busting the heat/energy bank (still less than 35w on average). If you want real power, you can step up to aopen's i975xa board which uses the same low-power chips, but allows for massive overclocking, and supports ATI crossfire. Of course two video cards in crossfire would more than triple the power requirements...
Using a laptop hard drive made the biggest difference in terms of noise, and the new SATA laptop HDs don't even need any sort of adaptor, as the power and SATA ports are the same as the 3.5 inch drives.
So you're basically left with a mac mini, but more upgradable thanks to PCI slots and full-sized drive capability.
Do you have any information on how much energy it takes to manufacture these chips?
I read a report a while back that 80% of the lifetime energy of a PC is in the manufacturing. If that is the case, it is more important that the chip is manufactured efficiently than running efficiently.
Anyone had any luck finding these ADD chips? All I've seen are ADA, ADV and ADO.
Good point:
I read a report a while back that 80% of the lifetime energy of a PC is in the manufacturing.
So:
What about the fact that throwing away your old system to replace it with a new - quieter, efficient one - is in fact suc a waste of energy (manufacture) and manpower and transportation and, and, and, that it's much better to just wait for when the time comes instead of jumping on the new stuff right-away. Nevertheless indulge in the fact that technology and life in general is ALAWAYS getting better and better.
the over all heat emission from pc p4, 3.2 GH
The noisiest fan in a system is the power supply fan system. Knew this because i disconnected the fans of a old Slot 1 Piii and it still made the same air conditioning noise it used to make.
Only apple recently did computers without bothering with the fans and if it gets more common, great. Hard drives and other components (cd high) make much louder noises...