Read more.If nothing is done to make them more energy efficient.
Read more.If nothing is done to make them more energy efficient.
I think we'd all welcome less power usage and less heat, provided we still have the performance we like. My graphics card alone uses a lot more power than a current gen games console haha... :/
Replacing your GTX780 with a 970 to save the planet? "Just off to the shops to save the planet dear", don't think that really flies as an excuse, but am willing to give it a go
But replace your i7 4820K with a Pentium Anniversary Edition? They lost me there.
Edit to add: Non paid for version of the article seems to be linked here https://sites.google.com/site/greeningthebeast/energy
So, replace your PC parts (ie: make them redundant, increase waste, increase landfill) with new parts that require power to create in order to save energy?
Oh, and let's also not forget the cost.
Don't get me wrong, I do think that newer architectures should be more energy efficient, but don't make everyone replace stuff just for the sake of it.
Also, how about investing some of that time and money in clean, renewable energy - let's make generating it more efficient too!
KeyboardDemon (04-09-2015)
I'd quite happily change my system for a more energy efficient machine, but I do not have the wherewithall to do that. My 'old' machine is what I have and that is that. Unless of course the manufacturers are willing to reduce the price of the components (I'm must be having a laugh ), I can't see myself doing what has been suggested anytime soon.
In an ideal world we all want to be saving power where ever we can, but we don't or can't, and therefore the power drain will continue :/
I'm disappointed how shallow this study was, it should have at least gone further than testing two machines and comparing 10 arbitrary off the shelf rigs.
That's a ridiculous amount of power to be used while idle..... Something must've been wrong!?
I love having a lot of headroom with the psu. While an overpowered psu can draw a bit more power when the computer is idle, they can be more efficient when the computer is under load, as they're not as near to their maximum output.
The heat thing is also something I like to look at as some sort of bonus sometimes haha.. I don't have central heating at my place, only a 2.5KW electric fan heater that I bought. So if I'm gaming in the winter, I don't need the heater on so much. I might think about hooking up a frying pan in place of the heatsinks so I can cook with it too. Now that's efficiency!
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On a more serious note, efficiency has to be balanced with expenditure. No point "upgrading" to a more efficient part if the money saved on electricity bills is going to be less than the cost of the upgrade over the life of that upgrade.
All my upgrades create second hand parts which get recycled to family and friends. It's a waste to chuck good parts into the landfill.
Efficiency comes with technological progress. As does "cleaner" energy supply. No one would give a monkeys how much your PC used if it was being supplied by electricity from fusion power.
We aren't even at Type 1 on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
Putting on my imaginary Treasury politician hat..... This means that we should all contribute to the cost of these power stations by way of a series of non-means-tested graphics card tax bands, with either CPU-integrated/<25 watts being tax-free, and an then a one-off purchase tax set at, say, £40 for every 20 additional watts. Or alternatively, perhaps a simpler way would be to create a new VAT category of "computer graphics output equipment" of, say, 50% or 80%. Maybe even have it over 100%.
You know it's probably the sort of thing they would start thinking about if they saw stories like this...
/s
I've long been someone who picks lower power alternatives when putting together a PC - speed isn't everything, so if something can be 99% of performance but with 10% less power (or more), then it's worth it. My current CPU is running at stock speed, but undervolted, saving me around 16watts on the CPU side on full load; not much, but it all helps.
I should hopefully see a few efficiency increases going from E6550/GTX480 -> i7 6700K/GTX970, the difference alone between the power the 480 uses and the 970 uses is pretty substantial to say the least.
I'm guessing that a heavy processor overclock with increased voltages is not helping!!!
Please don't let my wife see this
A fuller comparison would also include:
- Average duration of gaming power load compared to idle./normal workload, and both as a percentage of yearly power-on time
- Energy cost of manufacturing a new card and disposal of the old card
- Average working lifetime of a card, compared to card power (bets on high-end card owners upgrading more regularly than mid/low-end card owners)
- Amortised energy cost of manufacture over projected card lifetime
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