Power Consumption and the Modern Geek

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case got his hands on an Extech model 380083 power meter and decided to find out exactly how many watts today's geek equipment uses. He compares AMD vs. Intel processors, Nvidia vs. ATI graphics cards, and even checks out what a cranked up audio system draws -- it's a lot more than a PC."

Comments

If only...

[Kittie Rose]

They'd invent a computer powered off a geek. Solve half of the obesity problem pretty damn quickly.

I use half the energy i used to use in 1999

[WillAffleckUW]

and it's all renewable too (live in Seattle, purchase green power).

Some easy ways to reduce power:

1. use LCD flat screen instead of CRT;

2. replace lightbulbs with flourescent lightbulbs as they burn out (1/8 energy);

3. get a good UPS system ($99 or less on TigerDirect) which allows you to turn off power automatically via software, and send shutdown and kill signals to programs that don't need to be on (such as backup servers, monitors, TVs, etc).;

4. run off of flash RAM USB keychains and such that are low power, and consider using LEDs instead of incandescent lights.

And now I have many times the processing power, even with less energy usage.