Energy efficient PC? Worth it?

broona

broona

broona

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Hexham
I currently have the following setup :-

Stock Intel E8400 with Scythe Ninja + 120mm fan
EVGA 650i Ultra
Corsair 550W VX PSU
Stock Radeon 3850, volt-modded by previous owner
4gb (4X1gb) Crucial Ballistix PC5300
2X 320gb Seagate 7200.10's
Pioneer DVD-RW
22" Samsung TFT

18 months ago, I played a reasonable amount of PC games, now I mostly play on my 360, so haven't played a PC game for at least 6 months.

My PC is used 50% of the time to surf the internet, and 50% sitting idling whilst downloading things overnight, so my current spec's probably a little overkill!

What components would I need to downgrade to make it worth my while price/efficiency wise, and any ideas on yearly savings if I do end up doing a major downgrade?

Could someone spec me a reasonably priced efficient rig if it would be worth my while too please, not really sure what to look for? Cheers. :D
 
I'm in a similar position to you but I don't think it's cost effective to swap the pc out for a low power alternative. Better to wait until you'd naturally upgrade and just get something new then.

I had looked at some seriously low power atom mini ITXs but when I factored in things like me needing 4 gigs of ram and either dual dvi or dvi and hdmi my choices were seriously limited.
 
I'm sure I've heard it before and think it's true that the only way you're really going to get something decently energy efficient is to get a notebook.
 
rghjones said:
I'm sure I've heard it before and think it's true that the only way you're really going to get something decently energy efficient is to get a notebook.
Click to expand...

Notebook as in full sized laptop, or a netbook type device?

PS, I'd still need a decent amount of storage space too, as my current 640gb often isn't enough! ;)
 
Thought about a laptop ?

A lot more energy efficient, well unless you get a obscene gaming one...
They usually have better power saving features than a desktop too.

you can get a pretty decent dual core system for around 200 bucks.

You'd probably save a good 100+ a year, but I'm puling numbers out of mid air here.. maybe someone knows better.

You'd be reducing your carbon footprint too. So to offset that you can rev your engine needlessly whilst stationary, burn random items in the garden (I hear old tyres are effective), use at least triple spacing when printing/writing letters, use seti instead of folding at home.
 
Enable maximum powersaving mode tbh.
Turn on automatically hibernate after x minutes, turn off monitor after x minutes and make sure speedstep etc is turned on. Undervolt things as much as possible etc.
 
Thanks for all the replies, at least I've got a little more to think about now. :)

Can I hibernate and still download overnight, or will that not work?

My CPU runs at 2ghz in Windows most of the time too, so Speedstep's on I assume?

I like the look of the Eee Box, I assume I could just connect up an external DVD-RW and HDD and have a low power PC then?
 
You wont be able to download when its hibernating. Hibernation saves your current session to disk and turns the PC off. When you fire it up again its exactly as you left it as the session restores from disk.
 
You can hibernate, it stores the content of the ram on the harddrive. When you turn it 'on' then it copies it back and you have the exact samedesktop as when you hibernated. Including open programs etc. It cant download while hibernated.
 
I have two ITX's and a full size PC (in sig).

Main PC uses around 160 watts at idle and over 300 at full load.

First ITX is a via chipsetted 1.5ghz machine. Full sized HDD (could accomodate the largest capacity 3.5" model) dvdrw and has space for a PCI card so dual monitors is a possibility.

At full tilt it uses around 40 watts and at idle drops to around 30.

Next ITX is a 45nm C2D based unit with a full sized HDD, e7200, 4gb of DDR2 and a mobo equipped with a vga, dvi and HDMI socket. Has decent onboard graphics allowing light gaming (manages stalker at medium settings and resolutions) HD playback and is just as fast as the desktop in my sig for web surfing and similar.

At full tilt it uses just over 80 watts and at idle sits at just over 60.

gt
 
gt_junkie said:
Next ITX is a 45nm C2D based unit with a full sized HDD, e7200, 4gb of DDR2 and a mobo equipped with a vga, dvi and HDMI socket. Has decent onboard graphics allowing light gaming (manages stalker at medium settings and resolutions) HD playback and is just as fast as the desktop in my sig for web surfing and similar.

At full tilt it uses just over 80 watts and at idle sits at just over 60.

gt
Click to expand...

What motherboard & case? I take you can manage 1080p playback on that?
 
z0mbi3 said:
What motherboard & case? I take you can manage 1080p playback on that?
Click to expand...
It's Intel's Fly Creek with the onboard X4500HD grahics chipset and it's all encased in a Hoojum Cubit3 case.

1080p is handled effortlessly with between 15-30% usage on one of the cores.

gt
 
Does it have to be a cutting edge rig if it's just surfing the web and downloading? I have two pc's atm. One is my gaming rig - q6600; 4G ram; Ati 3850 (I know not much of a gaming card), 620w psu which spends most of the time off. My other 'low power' rig is using an old 32bit athlonM chip, 1G ram and a passively cooled nvidia card with a reasonably efficient 320w psu. It uses way over half the power consumption and only half that if it was actually ever at full load!!! It's very proficient at d/l and surfiing the web. Ok, it's not quite as instantanious at multi tasking but it's good enough.
If you have an old copy of winXP or delve into a Linux distro like ubuntu, you don't need an uber powerful system. I also have it set to turn the monitor off after 15 mins idle.
A quick look shows that there are plenty of perfectly reasonable old bits of kit knocking around that are just waiting to be reused.
 
z0mbi3 said:
Cool, what do you use for a PSU?
Click to expand...
It's a tiny 120w Pico PSU with a 102w external brick.

picopsu.jpg


Drawing around 80 watts at the plug means (even with it's relatively high efficiency) i'm still running it well within it's capacity.

gt
 
gt_junkie said:
Next ITX is a 45nm C2D based unit with a full sized HDD, e7200, 4gb of DDR2 and a mobo equipped with a vga, dvi and HDMI socket. Has decent onboard graphics allowing light gaming (manages stalker at medium settings and resolutions) HD playback and is just as fast as the desktop in my sig for web surfing and similar.

At full tilt it uses just over 80 watts and at idle sits at just over 60.

gt
Click to expand...

I'd be very interested in a full spec on that system please, sounds ideal if it's not prohibitively expensive like most small format stuff! :D
 
My oc'ed system at load is only 120watts. (90w idle with speedstep off)
only 15watts difference between running at 2.6 and 3.2 on my Abit IP35 pro :D

Most pc's can be low power ~100watts load if you have a high efficiency psu (ideally around 300-400w) and a passive graphics card (or onboard graphics)

Your system is not far off a low wattage spec anyway - only two changes needed.

You've a good high efficient PSU.
But you could sell in and get a earthwatt 380w psu - that way your ~100w usage is at the top of the efficient curve.

Your mobo is more power hungry that the intel ones (sell / swap for a gigabyte EP-P35/P43/P45 range)

GPU is over kill for a web/download box - most new passive card will do HD.

Under volt the E8400 and run the ninja without a fan. (use a bolt through kit)

One 120mm case fan (on cpu header) in combo with the psu fan will cool the lot. - and use less that 100w load.

It will not get down too sub 50watts without a rebuild, but should cut your pc electric use by half. As a bonus your also achieve a quiet system too :D
 
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