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Don't forget to use a black background on your desktop... that'll save 5 watts on mine.
I'm interested in a good graphics card that has low power requirements and uses a heat sink instead of a huge fan. I was gonna try and build a low power quiet one to replace the one I built years ago but it was way cheaper/faster/easier to buy, so that's what I did the other week. Night and day difference on the sound level. My power consumption (w/o monitor) dropped from 135 watts to 45 watts. Only downside might be the integrated graphics. The front has a "green" 19" CRT which runs around 70 watts. I'm not sure how much lower an LCD would be but I want to hold one until the 24s start to tank in price.
I thought mine was a steal... $400 for a 1.6ghz / 2 GB ram / Vista / 320 GB 7200 rpm, DVD burner Lenovo. Even has a remote which isn't as useless as I though it would be. It's an odd looking duck with a weird blinking eye in the middle that as far as I can tell fakes whether the knob around the eye is set to be on performance (red), economy (green) or auto (blue). The watt meter shows no real difference.
Nets out at $400 at Tiger Direct in Canada, but about $730 US...
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