Low power office computer?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Should I put a candle in the window?

...or a taco. What are your preferred take-outs (or eat on streets)? Lunch is on me if we can make it work one of these days.

[samwichse]

I got a cheap atom ("Celeron" quad core) NUC with 16 gb SODIMMs (already had) and a 512gb SSD... It's more than enough for an office computer.

https://www.newegg.com/intel-boxnuc6...9SIAD6HB4A4712

$200, add your own ram/hdd, and it has a 15w TDP. Iirc it idles around 7-8w, running all out it hits 25w or so.

Alternately, for my media/gaming machine in the living room, I used an AMD 2400g (now there's now a 3400g update). 65 watt TDP including pretty solid 3d performance and quad core/8 thread. AMD also makes a 3400ge they sell to oems only that has the same specs but a 35w TDP.

But for a cheap, energy saving office machine, you can't really beat the NUC.

[freebeard]

Coburg Pizza on Olympic (in Spfld not Coburg) has a single slice of pizza for ~$5 each day before 3pm. Best $5 lunch IMHO.

They had the dining room open for a while, but it closed again.

[redpoint5]

Ended up at the McMenemins on High St. Mediocre food, but you go for the atmosphere. Their "outdoor" seating was nice. Did a little catching up with my good friend.

Traveling and seeing my customers are my favorite part of work, which I guess means I made the right decision to not pursue programming beyond high school.

My least favorite job in the world would be a salesman, go figure.

[Isaac Zachary]

I've been hobby fixing up several computers and even smartphones. Lots of people just throw perectly good computers away and there are lots of people who need computers right now. Here are a few thoughts.

For myself I use a 128GB Surface Go, which is pretty low wattage. Right now I'm using between 0.9 and 1.9W to write this. Of course that doesn't include charging and battery losses. Oh, I just hit 2.1W momentarily! I also have a dock which is hooked up to two more monitors, two printers (one with a scanner) and a Blu-ray/DVD/CD player/burner as well as several USB splitters. I'm not sure what my whole setup uses though.

The lowest power consumption devices are ARM based right now, although I'm sure there are some that use more than my Surface Go. There are the new M1 Macs that are ARM based. Any Android or iOS (iPadOS) devices are ARM based. There are also Windows-on-ARM laptops that are pretty low wattage.

But there's also reasons not to go the portable route. A lot of the desktop computers I've gotten are over 10 years old, or close to that. But for the most part I've picked them up for free. I usually get ones that have, or can be, upgradeable to a CORE i7. I throw some 16GB of RAM in them and an SSD. On a few of them I have needed to buy Windows 10, but Windows 7 and up are upgradeable to 10 for free still. Once all that's been done these old computers blow the doors off of my fairly new Surface GO in terms of performance.

The point is that portable computers, like laptops, tablets and smartphones, while using less power, are also more disposable, so end up costing more in the long run. Most things are soldered nowadays on these devices, so no upgrades or repairs. And since they are portable they tend to wear out faster. Don't expect a smartphone to last more than 5 years. But I'd be willing to bet that if you get a cheap desktop and it might last 20 with the way things are going.

The problem is it's kind of hard finding a combination between the two, a low power setup and a repairable/upgradeable desktop form factor. I did find this high efficiency (35W TDP) CPU and motherboard combo but I don't think the CPU is upgradeable on it. That might shorten it's usuable life.

Also, actual hard drives, while slower, can actually outlast SSD's, especially in a desktop. If you get a device with an SSD get a good one with DRAM on the SSD. Crucial's MX series SSD's are a good choice for laptops and desktops. Seems like the internal SSD failing was the main problem I've had with older handheld devices. Five years and they're shot. Buy I've got a few hard drives that are decades old and still work.

So it seems like longevity vs efficiency.

On a similar note, I have thought about taking all my electronics, both portable and not, and figuring out how to power them all off of solar only.

[Isaac Zachary]

I also forgot to mention that there's also the Raspberry Pi 400 computer.

[freebeard]

I'd actually prefer the Raspberry Pi 400, all the ports are on one edge of the board; but they're on backorder at Best Buy.

Actually, I'd prefer the new Mac Mini, but they're on backorder for 4-6 weeks too.

[Piotrsko]

Silicon has gotten rare lately. Might want to wait a bit longer for another blood money check

[freebeard]

Silicon chips and brass ammo. The next round of Chinky Pox money goes to a 3D printer.

The first thing I was going to do with a new Mini would be to down the blockchain and generate a Bitcoin wallet address. but by then my federal fiat Lucky Bucks will buy half as many Statoshis.

[redpoint5]

You don't need a Mini to get a Wallet. Seems like excuses to not do things.