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Sorry to ruin your nit pick but a quick google search tells me that the SeaSonic PowerAngel used in the test has an accurazy of 2%.

So a 2% variance on 33 watts is between 32.33 and 33.66. The 27 would be between 26.46 and 27.54.
of course, this is approxamate I just got what 2% of 33 was and added/subtracted. It's the lazy mans math.

Purchase a little dongle to test how much power your utilities consume while you plan this project. I'd much rather have empirical knowledge about power consumption on a given system rather than trying to piece together information from shottily written technical documents on the internet. My family owns one of these devices from http://www.seasonic.com/, and I recommend purchasing something from their S-12 power supply line. Supposedly they have the highest ratio of power drawn to power consumed by the system, and all of their gear is tagged "80 plus" for 80% efficient or better. Also see this article: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article261-page1.htm l.

Operate like Dairy Queen ice cream shops -- move a whole data center North in the summer.
And open windows like overclockers do during snowy months to avoid high air conditioning bills.

While killing services and cutting back on powered equipment is an option people should consider efficiency improvements.

Speaking from experience, a large number of x86 boxes out there are running on power supplies which run in the 60 to 70 percent efficiency range. By replacing old low efficiency power supplies with some of the newer 80plus supplies you will save on electricity for the box and for cooling.

I did some tests with replacing a cheap 250 watt low efficiency power supply with Seasonic 250 watt 80 plus supplies and found a 20%+ reduction in power consumption at the AC outlet. When I ran the numbers the savings in electricity to the power supply alone would pay for the new supply in one year. And that does not include the saving in air conditioning costs.

http://www.seasonic.com/

And no I don't work for them or own stock. :) And there are other 80plus manufacturers, its just that this is the only one I tested.

burnin

linux cluster on the cheap:

Go with a diskless cluster.
Buy all in one motherboards, video, ethernet.
Cases are pretty cheap, but you can save by creating a custom rack solution.
Spend a little extra on 80% efficiency power supplies ( http://www.seasonic.com/co/index.jsp ).

with that route you could build a decent little cluster for under $2k (USD).

Will it make you cool, doubt it, but the path to the solution will teach you many lessons.

burnin

I was on a quest to quiet down the PCs I've got, and came across the Seasonic Super Tornado Review over at SilentPCReview.

I measured the before and after current draw of my PCs and found that the Seasonic Super Tornado PSUs were not only much quieter than the PSUs I replaced, but also reduced current draw out of the wall about 15%. Additionally, they have a PF that I measured at .98 to .99. I used a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure before/after power draw and PF. The PSUs replaced were 2 generic PSUs and one Antec True Power unit.

The Seasonic PSUs are the most efficient that SilentPCReview has reviewed at about 80%. It makes sense that if you are building a new PC or need to replace a failed unit to spend the money on the Seasonic units. They are even competitively priced compared to other name brand PSUs as well.

Anyone try one of these yet? (Bottom of the page, Super Silencer retail box .pdf) Seasonic is claiming significantly greater efficiency than your average PC power supply. I've got one on order (less waste heat ==> less fan noise, and I want QUIET, dammit!), I'll see if it makes a difference on my UPS's load meter. Anyone already have one?

LCD monitors. If you have the money (yeah, big if) and don't have a really good excuse for running a CRT, buy one. 19" panels are the best bang/buck. Samsung is my favorite brand at the moment. Get a TV tuner card (or one of those ViewSonic N5 convertor boxes so you can shut the PC off) and ditch the separate TV.

Athlon 64. AMD's Cool & Quiet works very well, I think it was enabled by default in the ASUS K8V BIOS. It drops to 800MHz when you're not doing much and the power consumption goes way down. Even under full load it burns much less power than high-end P4s (65W vs. 100W?). AMD has made substantial progress on transistor leakage, Intel hasn't. The upcoming Intel Prescott "Blast Furnace Edition" (over 100W) ought to be banned from dorms.

Yes, you could go with a notebook, but they're just not the same...

Anyhow, since an awful lot of students have a lot more money than I did as an undergrad (WTF is with all the cell phones?!), maybe some of this is useful?

I recently purchased Seasonic's 300 watt Super Tornado (they should have called it "Silent Tornado") power supply, and it's *very* quiet. It uses a 120mm fan mounted on the interior surface of the power supply instead of the traditional 80mm fan mounted at the back of the PC. That alone helps to slash the amount of noise the fan makes, but the power supply is also the most efficient you can buy, which means it generates less waste heat than any other power supply its size. So not only will it cut the noise, it'll also cut your power bill.

The power supply also comes with a nifty set of cable-management goodies - wire wraps and ties. Cost about $60, should pay for itself with a couple of years of use. A few people reported problems with an early run of this unit - the fan received so little voltage when the case temp and power requirements were low it would sometimes squeal or chatter - but Seasonic quickly fixed it. Shouldn't be an issue now - mine doesn't suffer from the problem, but then I've got two hard drives, two CD ROMs, 512mb of RAM and an Athlon, so the system is probably always drawing enough power to keep the fan spinning faster than the minimum speed.

The PSU fan isn't the only culprit in system noise, though. Although it's traditionally been parked right at the edge of the case, where the sound can most easily bleed into the room, the CPU fan is probably the #1 offender. I picked up one of these Cooler Master squirrel cage fan coolers recently from newegg.com and I'm pretty happy with it. It makes a LOT less noise than a traditional fan, given the amount of air it moves, and it's not outrageously heavy like some of the giant heat-sink coolers out there. Makes about half as much noise as my old CPU cooler and keeps the chip just as cool with the fan cranked to about half speed. Curiously, running it full blast doesn't make the chip substantially cooler, but it does generate a lot more noise - I think the limiting factor is the relatively small aluminum heat sink (the copper model they sell might be a better option for hotter chips, but my Athlon XP 1800 isn't that bad). Another benefit is that the noise generated by this cooler is lower in frequency than the noise generated by other coolers - less a whine than a whirr, with a bit of rumble too (the cooler does cause a bit of low-pitched vibration in the case).

I also purchased Samsung's new 160GB SpinPoint drives, and they're effectively pretty damn silent. No whine, no noticeable spin noise, no seek noise audible from where I sit (at least, not over the other sounds emanating from the case). About the only issue I have with them - or had with them - is a bit of vibration that setup a buzzing in a removable drive bay I've got in my system. I pretty much solved that by putting vinyl grommets in the mounting holes of the drive bay.

The silentpcreview website is the best one I've found on the web for reviewing quiet hardware and practical modding ideas. You may want to read through some of their articles and the forums. Interesting stuff.