economical pc

[Daox]

Almost a year ago I rebuilt my pc. I went from a box that idled at 141W down to one that idled at 58W with MUCH better performance. There were two keys to the build, one was a power efficient CPU, the other was using nVidia's hybrid SLI technology which basically allows me to power down the video card when it is not needed.

I have a thread about it here:
Building an efficient computer - EcoRenovator

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by NiHaoMike

I have the PC running 24/7 since that's the only one I have with me that is designed for continuous full load operation...

Err... Why? Unless you're running some kind of web server at home, why not turn it off when you're not using it?

Another trick is to angle the PCs so the fans blow to the side and hang wet laundry on a rack a short distance away. So now it also works as a clothes dryer for the winter.

Fans are probably the biggest reason I went to notebooks, and spend some time optimizing them for low power. Constant noise like that really gets on my nerves. And of course around here I can just hang clothes on the line, since it's rare to get more than two or three wet days in a row.

[dcb]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Err... Why? Unless you're running some kind of web server at home, why not turn it off when you're not using it?

He is running a "service" of sorts
Folding@home - Main

and heating his bedroom

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by dcb

He is running a "service" of sorts
Folding@home - Main

That kind of reverses the logic. Folding @home & similar projects were conceived as a way to get some use out of all the PCs that people leave on. But the question, if a person is at all interested in energy efficiency, is why leave the PC running in the first place?

[dcb]

Well I think using it to heat a bedroom and simultaneously help solve large protein folding problems is a reasonably conscientious usage. If it is actually used for heating then there is little energy to lose. Better than putting it in an air conditioned room.

[roflwaffle]

Technically a heat pump would provide more heat for the same electricity, but I don't think an extra kWh/day is egregious either.

[drew1d]

Here are my specs. I tried to go low energy consumption...and mega cheap.

Motherboard:ECS 7050m-m v2.0

CPU:AMD 5050e Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor

RAM : MEM 2Gx2|OCZ OCZ2F8004GK R

Video Card: SAPPHIRE 100255HDMI Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card, Integrated with native HDMI port

PSU Antec 80plus 430Watts

Monitor (connection used): HDMI

Hard drives: HD 500G|WD SATA2 32M WD5000AADS

Optical Drives: None connected

Additional PCI cards: none

Number of fans present: 1x120mm case / Artic Cool CPU fan

Operating System : Windows Vista 64

[Daox]

Haha, drew1d. Thats almost the exact same specs as my computer, except I used a 9800 GTX+. I was going to go with the Radeon 4670 until I found out about hybrid sli.

[drew1d]

Originally Posted by Daox

Haha, drew1d. Thats almost the exact same specs as my computer, except I used a 9800 GTX+. I was going to go with the Radeon 4670 until I found out about hybrid sli.

You're smarter than me Sir. The 4670 has been giving me problems. How do you like the 9800 GTX+? Would you recommend it?

[NiHaoMike]

In general, Nvidia works better than ATI on 64-bit. Both of my 64-bit PCs have Nvidia cards and they work great.