Low-wattage computers. Can someone show me a good online article? I am trying to "live green" for my newegg.

Question

Ran out of characters.

I'm trying to build a computer and I live in a area of about 18 cents per kilowatt hour.

I have read about these new 35 watt cpu's and 45mm cpu's (where millimeters I don't understand relevancy)..

What I'd really like to understand is which components of the PC use energy, as so far I only have these estimates

CPU-about 50 watts

motherboard- 5 watts

fan- 15 watts

power supply- 5 watts(for itself)

speakers- 10 watts

graphics card- 3 watts

keyboard/ laser mouse- 1 watt

1 GB ram- 0 watt

harddrive- 0 watt

cables- 0 watt

Please tell me any corrections, and I'd like to spend a couple hours reading some nice articles online, but don't kwow where to find one.

I shop at newegg, recently rated (this month) in the top 10 of 13,000 analyzed online companys for customer-ratings.. So if you give me direct links to the product, in your explanation, even more helpful!!

Thanks yahoo answer people, as I'm trying to live more Green! Last-Q about prius

Answer 1

"Undervolting" is something you can use to reduce power consumption to a laptop.  It requires some computer expertise but if you are building a computer you shouldn't have any problems.

Answer 2

Or you could get one of these.

Answer 3

If you want an energy efficient computer, you should get a laptop.  They are designed to minimize power consumption and will consume much less power than any desktop.  

In a desktop though, the two major consumers are the CPU and the graphics card.  The CPU will consume closer to 100 watts under load, while the graphics card can consume even more than that depending on the model and load.  After that is the power supply which loses some power to heat, and that amount greatly depends on the efficiency of the unit.  The drives all consume a few watts, somewhere around 10 or so when they're being used.  Fans each use a couple watts.  

Now that is just for the computer.  The monitor probably consumes even more power.  All of the power consumption estimates I gave for the computer are under-load values, so typical consumption will be considerably lower.  The monitor on the other hand is always consuming the same amount of power.  In the long run, it might take more to power your monitor than the rest of the computer.    

So back to a laptop.  My laptop's power supply is rated to 65w.  That means to power the whole machine (CPU, graphics card, screen, etc) takes less than 65w even when it's under 100% load.  I highly doubt you could build a comparable desktop that could even idle with the monitor off and consume less than 65 watts.

Answer 4

Desktop power consumption is usually defined by the efficiency of the power supply and the CPU built into the system.A standard desktop CPU consumes 85-100watt power whereas a notebook CPU like the AMD one would consume 30-35watts of power.A green computer is one which uses a little less energy and at the same time is manufactured in a greener and cleaner way. U will find more articles on the net explaing this but at the end its the processor which plays the main role in saving energy. Chk these site for some more info:

http://www.gadgettastic.com/2007/11/29/t...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=755