Fulwood Mini Desktop Sips Just 16 Watts
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 09.23.08
Photo Credit: VeryPC
Energy-sipping desktops are starting to become the norm, and a new desktop for Very PC drives that point home, running on just 16 watts.
The Fulwood is a Mac Mini-sized desktop that beats out even the 23 watt sipper Shuttle x27 PC for low power useage. In fact, it is 75% more efficient than Energy Star requirements. Best of all, it doesn’t sacrifice high performance for that low power. Indeed, it seems to be a full package.
The Fulwood, despite its meagre power draw doesn’t fall short on features, which include an Intel P9500 2.53GHz dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Intel x4500HD graphics, DVDRW, remote control Windows Vista Premium, DVI (with DVI-VGA splitter for dual screens and HDMI adaptor), and surround sound audio (with SPIDIF optical interface Gigabit LAN). All of this is placed into a stylish little box no larger than 165.1 x 165.1 x 50 mm. Like with all VeryPC machines the Fulwood is fully customisable. Available options include internal WiFi, internal digital/hybrid TV tuner and internal Bluetooth.
While pretty pricy at £868-1104 ($1,562-$1,987) depending on specs, it might be worthwhile to green-minded people to have a high performing PC that saves you some bucks on energy bills. You can pre-order starting September 25.
Via SmartPlanet
More on Energy Efficient PCs:
New "EcoSystem" PC Uses Only 75 Watts
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BuyGreen: Desktop Computers
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I believe the full quote from their Hexus hosted press release is
,but they have not released the average and/or max load power consumption figures.
Great, just add two HD screens at 250 watts a piece, a 7.1 Dolby surround sound system that sips 400 watts and then when the disk drives kick in, the ram is in use, and the 2.5ghz are processing, the unit itself will use a meager 200 watts.
Anyone who posts about computer energy consumption should understand that a computer in use cannot (with current technology) actually be functional at 16 watts. On the other hand, I'm only drawing 13 watts on my EeePC while surfing the web, with music blasting. Full functionality, without using more energy than a lightbulb (CFL, of course).
This is 16 watts at idle, I'd like to see what it's max draw is for comparison to the ~5W fit-PC (http://www.fit-pc.com/new/fit-pc-1-0-specifications.html) and the linutop (http://www.linutop.com/).
I am impressed they managed to pack a >2Ghz CPU in at that idle power though.
Sometimes this gets a little ridiculous. I applaud to an extent, but the excess outlay (5 times what you'd ordinarily pay at least in the US) is just beyond the pale. This is an electric windmill.
My home computer uses 300-330 W with no load and 350-380 with a load, so scaled down it's not that big of a jump for lower power computers. My other one uses 200 W no load and 215 with.
And yes, there are screens that have low, low power outputs (like under 40W). Headphones ftw on the sound issue.
@ Cybercat
I'm trying to understand your comment, are you saying that because you own another computer that only increases its draw by 15 watts at load that you believe that the same would be true of the Fulwood?
Just because a computer uses 16 watts at idle does not mean it will use another 15 watts under an average load. I'd be much more impressed if their press release included average load numbers, or power consumption numbers for different tasks.
ie -- what happens to the power consumption of this machine when
1) You're watching a DVD
2) You're playing graphic heavy networked games
3) running 4+ commonly used programs at the same time ( email, document editor, spreadsheet and browser)
*****
The average load power consumption number should be included in a press release whenever a company is trying to claim green status for a personal or workstation computer. If they forget to include that number I then wonder why they are telling us only about the idle power consumption. I'm not saying it's intended to be green-washing but it does make me wary and wouldn't a company be better served by giving us that little bit more information.
Thank You for your comments;
Obviously the Fulwood is a high specification piece of equipment, including intels most powerful (computing power) 25W TDP Centrino 2 CPU. There are more cost effective energy efficient computer available.
At maximum load the machine never exceeds 40W in our test environment.
We would anticipate an APU (average power in use) of 18.44W.
As for lower power equipment.
i.e. all the Low Power, Low computing power solutions; this is against the VeryPC 'economy, ecology, performance' mantra, which is to provide a greener computing alternative , not a compromise.
You will not find a desktop with the performance of the VeryPC Fulwood (19,000MFLOPs), with comparable power consumption.
@Peter
Thanks for the new information ..... and I've officially hit drool mode over this high end toy :D....