Dell Rings In Energy Star 4.0

Dell's new Inspiron 531 is the PC manufacturer's first consumer desktop to achieve Energy Star 4.0 requirements. (With the latest iteration of Energy Star requirements, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that only the top 25 percent of energy-efficient PCs will qualify for its vaunted stamp of approval.)

Featuring a 80 percent-efficient power supply and a paperless owner's manual, the machine is also set to switch to a low-power sleep state after 15 minutes of inactivity. Entry-level configurations, which start at $369, include an AMD Athlon-64 X2 dual-core processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, 160GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, nVidia integrated graphics, Windows Vista Home Basic, and a one-year limited warranty with at-home service and support. ::Dell