Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
A Pentium 100 MHz processor from 1995 consumed 10 watts of power. Transistors continued to shrink at an astonishing rate, which had the effect of making each calculation take just fractions of of the power the Pentium 100 required. Eventually the Pentium 4 3800 MHz processor was released, which consumed 115 watts.
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But now Intel's up to the I7 processor series, the mobile versions of which consume a max of 17W, which includes a lot of functionality which in the P4 was relegated to separate chips. That 17W is also max: unless you're doing serious number-crunching (or gaming), the processor is going to spend most of its time in a low-power idle state.
Also, a newer system is probably going to be using an SSD or hybrid drive rather than a hard disk, the display is a LED/LCD panel rather than a power-hungry CRT, etc. So the bottom line is that although some applications can consume a lot more power (e.g. hard-core gaming systems), most will be using a lot less most of the time.
Then look at the larger picture: I do most of my work on a notebook+display+cable modem, router, etc that probably draws an average of 40 watts (plus my share of whatever the cable company uses to run its system). But that replaces upwards of 1/3 gallon of gas per day, because I don't have to drive to a physical office to work. It saves all the energy involved in making and transporting paper checks to pay my bills (and get paid!), gas I'd use to go to physical stores for shopping...