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First "Carbon-Free" CPU Fights Global Warming
An anonymous reader writes "VIA is doing its bit to fight Global Warming by introducing the 'world's first carbon-free' desktop PC processor. The RoHS-compliant C7-D consumes 20W at 1.8GHz, and is accompanied by a 'Clean Computing Initiative' that aims to offset the chip's environmental cost. According to a LinuxDevices report, VIA has pledged that atmospheric carbon released during generation of the power needed to run the chip throughout its expected life-cycle will be offset by regional conservation, reforestation, and energy programs initiated or contributed to by VIA."
I recently purchased an HP Slimline computer to reduce my consumption of electricity, so I can offset the massive carbon output of my H3 SUV. God I love the smell of gasoline in the morning! I think more people should be doing their part to purchase computers that aren't overpowering the electrical grid, because who really needs 128MB of RAM or 3GHz to check grannies email?
Naked under my flag.
Yes, it's low, but it's still using energy. Depending on the source, it would be emitting CO2.
No Sigs!
I was wondering how long it would take for another CPU company to make the argument that their CPU is better for reasons other than speed.
I know that AMD has been making the power saving argument for awhile (I saw ads in downtown Chicago at busstops in early July).
Here's info from the article about AMD's CPUs in comparison...
"AMD, meanwhile, is currently shipping "energy efficient" desktop chip models that typically draw 65 Watts, instead of 85 Watts. Additionally, the company offers "energy efficient, small form factor" models rated at 35 Watts, although only the single-core Sempron model in this category appears to be shipping -- the long-awaited, 35 Watt, dual-core Athlon64 X2 3800+ model is expected to ship to PC-makers in time to go into holiday-season PCs"
First "Carbon-free" CPU Fights Global Warming
How come I have this nagging feeling that Al Gore was involved in this?
If I understand sustainability targets correctly, the total environmental payback period for chips is supposed to include compensating for the power/etc. used in manufacture, not just in operation. This is a great step, though; let's hope more industries take it and start looking at the next one.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I have a feeling that the chip's production generates more pollutants than the electricity needed to power to it. How about greening up the fab plant? Then I'll be impressed.
Just throwing that out there.
i think they're forgetting the heavy metals cost of gold, the industrial waste cost of the wafer fab process, the energy it takes to run a whole semiconductor assembly operation, and the huge environmental 'fixed cost' of constructing the buildings that make these processors. i wonder if there are plans to distribute these environmental costs and offset them as well.
but it is a start, and more companies could adopt the same attitude.
I underclock my Athlon CPU because even at 1GHz, it runs fast enough for web browsing, etc. To me, this reduction in heat generation is the next logical step in CPU evolution. And it comes at a good time. If they really want to impress me, get it below 15 Watts.
But I'm glad to see this trend. Along with the LCD displays, we're started to make a difference in power consumption. Good for VIA.
Best regards.
I'm certainly concerned about this stuff. (I'm reading this after returning from walking around the floor turning off lights in empty conference rooms.) But this "carbon-neutral" business, where those who can afford it can consume as much as they desire as long as they pay for it with offsets based on some extremely nebulous calculation, and those who can't have to do without -- reminds me of papal indulgences more than anything else. You can be a good person by sacrificing, or you can be a good person by giving money to a sanctioned recipient.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Back in the '70's the big scare was Global Cooling. We were told that we would all freeze to death. Now the big scare is Global Warming. We're all going to overheat, melt the icecaps, and drown. These are all part of nature's climate cycles of cooling and warming trends. To say that man's activity is warming the earth is unproven.
However, under the name of "Global Warming", there are large power-grabs between nations. Notice that China, the world's largest polluter, is excluded from the Kyoto agreement, yet the US is supposed to follow it. This allows China to grow their economy while it tries to destroy the US economy. The amount of pollution that we emit is small compared to China, yet we are pegged as the "world's polluter."
I'm a conservationist. There are many ways to conserve the environment and have full economic activity. That is in stark contrast to the environmentalists and Global Warming theorists who want us to reduce and/or stop our economic growth.
I'm still waiting for chips made out of diamond semiconductor. It'll be hard to label them "carbon free" when they're made from the stuff.
but what are they doing to counteract all the hot air they keep expelling?
...and therefore it can't be called "carbon-free" until they eliminate the x86 instruction set too.
First it was lead-free chips, now carbon-free? Get it togethor guys! You don't even know what element you want to be rid of! lol m i rite?
-AC with obviously strong critical thinking and knowledge of semiconductor production.
Fight Announcer: [interviews C7-D] It was chaos. C7-D, you went the distance. You went the 15 rounds. How do you feel? ...for Global Warming!
C7-D: All right!
Fight Announcer: What were you thinking about when that buzzer sounded?
C7-D: [yelling] Clean Computing!
Fight Announcer: What were you thinking when the 15th...
C7-D: What? Clean Computing!
Clean Computing: C7-D? C7-D?
Fight Announcer 2: [taking the mic] Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention, please.
Clean Computing: C7-D? C7-D!
Fight Announcer 2: Tonight, we have had the privilege of witnessing the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring!
C7-D: Clean Computing!
Clean Computing: C7-D. C7-D!
Fight Announcer 2 : [reads the results] Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a split decision.
[Fight Announcer 2 continues; indistinct]
C7-D: CLEAN COMPUTING!
Clean Computing: C7-D!
Fight Announcer 2:
It's the power supply not the CPU that makes the difference. My power supply separates the electrons made fomr non-renewable sources and returns those to the mains for the rest of the ignorant world to use, and then uses only the ones generated by renewable sources.
I also contribute to reforestation efforts in China - each $50 funds a slave laborer who can plant 100 trees a day as part of his "reeducation".
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
...pirates inside?
It's sad how few people realize their "efficient" Via CPU is not so efficient?
:D
Clock-for-clock, the optimized WinChip core (yes, even the C7 uses the very same core) can only process one integer and one floating-point instruction in parallel. This makes it 2-3x slower per-clock than modern CPUs. So, while you're still waiting on your Via C7 to crunch those numbers (at 20w), a Core2 Duo or A64 X2 system can do it in 1/4-1/6 the time (at 35w), and clock down to low-power state (3-5w).
So, I hope you feel good about how much carbon Via saves building the chip, because not only does it uses more power than competing processors to do the same amount of work, it takes longer too
Via's day in the sun is over. They were faced with the poor performance of the Winchip core, and instead of redesigning it, they touted the low power (which is true) and efficiency (which is not true). Intel and AMD responded with innovations like real-time voltage and frequency adjustment, and all of a sudden Via is scrambling just to try and keep up.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The parallel processor : Also known as a graphic cards ,stream or vector processor.
You will need to use a language that fits the architecture.
They are way more efficient that general processors.
These are all part of nature's climate cycles of cooling and warming trends. To say that man's activity is warming the earth is unproven.
I think you might be a bit behind with your information - for a while there were doubts, that is true, but at the moment the consensus seems to converge on "manmade" again (ie temperatrue rises faster than can be explained with ice age cycles or whatever). OK, it's not a proof, but that doesn't disprove it's manmade, either.
I'm a conservationist. There are many ways to conserve the environment and have full economic activity. That is in stark contrast to the environmentalists and Global Warming theorists who want us to reduce and/or stop our economic growth.
Who says that economic growth == more pollutants? I think to build a more energy efficient technology is economic growth, too. Everybody is better off: people are happy, because the air is breathable, they save on energy costs (not all of them are induced by environmentalists), and China will be wanting it, too. Also, another question: so since you are convinced that manmade global warming is unproven, are you actually convinced that human activity has no effect on the climate whatsoever? I think that is highly doubtfoul. In Europe you can see examples where Romans have turned flourishing landscapes into deserts (several hundred years ago, no machine exhausts needed).
Myself I power my whole setup off a giant water wheel under my sink faucet. Sure I use 5000 gal of water a day but the energy savings to the environment is worth it.
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
At my, um, "major semiconducter company", there's all sorts of initiatives to go green. This is no reason to choose Via.
The fact that next to noone will use these chips.
While I can smell the sweet pungent aroma of sarcasm dripping like syrup from your post, I gotta say two things:
You don't need an oil well to make your own diesel.
And, while Greenpeace aren't exactly sissies, I must state that they're insane. They make practical environmentalists (those who are environmental because it's better for personal finance and convenience) look bad.
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Check out the Wiki article on it - yes there were a few people behind it - a few percent of the atmospheric scientists, but it never had the overwhelming support like global warming does.
..........FULL STOP.
5000 gallons of water is nothing. I power my office with a generator that runs on bald eagle heads and Faberge eggs.
Welfare for developing nations. It wasn't about pollution, it was about money changing hands.
China was specifically exempted as a developing nation as were many other countries. Let's call them the 'recipient nations'. The ones that were penalized were/are the 'donor nations'. Mainly the First World.
Basically, the main objection to the agreement, beside the palpable unfairness of constricting our economic growth while other nations are unfettered, is that to achieve economic growth one must pay for 'carbon credits' which ultimately means the money goes to nations on the recipient nation list, like China. So, i'm paying China for the right to pollute, and they take the money and spend it on forced sterilization or more firewalls. Or on a war with Taiwan. Or us.
The "best" part about Kyoto was that even if it worked, it wasn't going to reduce anything. Everyone knew this. We would be lucky if we tread water under this agreement, and it's likely that global emissions will increase under the Protocol. Specifically because of the exemptions for developing nations which was the identified reason the US would not ratify.
But come on, it was all a wealth-transfer scam, a soak the rich scheme on a global basis. If the US ratified this, it would be insane. Just because the EU is bent on self-destruction doesn't mean we have to follow them over the cliff. Paying people that hate you for the right to virtually exist as a nation is not very smart. As for the rest of the world, most of those nations are recipient nations. Approving the treaty meant windfall cash. Who is going to turn that down?
And if you haven't heard about global cooling you haven't read enough. It was all the rage in the late 70s and early 80s. Then the advocates pretty much turned on a dime and started talking about global warming in the same 'threat of doom' tone. If you look around, you can find lists of contrasting quotes from quite a few people. These are funny and I recommend them. Unfortunately, after reading them, environmental scare tactics aren't very effective against you.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
So if somebody has a child, then kills a person, does that mean the court will let them off the hook because their net life taking was 0?
and multi-core to boot. PWRficient processors.
This reminds me of the organic eggs that cost so much in stores. Here you have something that is the same/inferior but it makes you feel good, so pay more than you would for it.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Sar-casm n.
It worked for my parent, so why not me as well?
How is the parent insightful? And why isn't the grandparent marked as funny? Al Gore certainly is involved in Global Warming, and he does have a rep for claiming he invented the internet, so it's definitely plausible that he'll claim he invented the environtmentally friendly cpu.
Doesn't POST make Cereal? Why would you put syrup on cereal? ICK..
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
Last year everyone blamed the incredible number of hurricanes on global warming. "Something must be done!" they demanded. Climatologists said we were entering a period of increased hurricane activity that might last a decade or more. The clamor grew to DO SOMETHING about global warming.
Well somebody seems to have taken care of the problem. After all, the number of hurricanes is way down this year, isn't it?
It makes me wonder. Why does anecdotal evidence in support of global warming gloom and doom predictions played up so much, but when that evidence fails to emerge the following year nobody wants to talk about it? At the very least it makes the "killer hurricanes every year" prediction by global warming enthusiasts absolutely BS.
I think global warming deserves serious attention. I am in favor of the Kyoto accord. Having said that I fear that for every wingnut who values profit over human life there is an equally deranged nut on the other side of the political spectrum who spouts nonsense because, out of ignorance, they don't know any better.
I can't see Slashdot promoting this as it doesn't help the world in a really positive manner. Lets have Slashdot promote something to improve the world!
. . . How about:
Victoria Secrets announces Carbon-Free thongs!!! (not available in 'plus' sizes...)
We can make the world a better place!
The whole point of this particular CO2-"producing" processor is that your purchase of a unit adds that much more carbon-consuming effort, thereby compensating for the energy usage of the CPU. Sure, there are inefficiencies in between and all, but maybe they compensate a little for those as well?
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
There should be a fee for producing any carbon-free device.
Atmospheric carbon is our one and only defense against the next ice age, which we know is coming and which we know will wipe us out.
Not to mention the fact that warming the planet will yield more useful land in northern climes than will be abandoned in equatorial climes.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Life is a balance between perfection and disaster. Get use to it.
Perfection is boring anyway...
Basically because of the hysteria surrounding CO2 emissions these days, it's a convenient advertising point to the public. You claim to be "carbon neutral" and it makes people feel good. For that matter I'm going to bet that it isn't even the kind of thing that will be checked on all that well. You are very correct in the indulgence angle as most likely what will happen is the company in question will throw some money at an environmental group that claims to be doing whatever carbon offsetting thing they are doing and then say "Well, we are neutral, good work everyone."
yeah, well he's right - Bush has proven without a reasonable doubt that the evidence doesn't show whether there is or is not global warming at this time and until we can prove it undoubtably, we should not put any unnecessary restrictions on campaign funde... er, I mean big businesses.
For that matter, Al Gore is an idiot*, so don't believe everything he says - I'm pretty sure he's secretly in league with law breaking PETA militants. George Bush's far superior IQ** always prevails.
* compared to a genius monkey
** compared to a dead monkey
p.s. this was intended to be funny. If you didn't find it mildly amusing, I'm sorry, and please don't grenade my house.
>>Back in the '70's the big scare was Global Cooling.
>>We were told that we would all freeze to death. Now
>>the big scare is Global Warming. We're all going to
>>overheat, melt the icecaps, and drown.
>Weird, because when I was in school in the 80s, they
>were telling us about global warming (and the ozone
>hole). Of course global warming has been warned about
>since then, non-stop.
Um, minor point here, but the 70s are not the 80s.
Via must have looked at ISO14001 and found that they had no control over
chemical use, water pollution and what their subsidiaries in china were up to.
But since you can buy certificates to clean their otherwize uncontrolled electrical
supply they decided that if they could buy a green corporate image for by getting
certificates a small fractional percentage of their production.
This smells like Chiquita's banana stickers, nowhere close being accepted by
any real certification system, but bragged about in commercials everywhere.
Chiquita - Going Green or Greenwashing Corporate Crime?.
Everyone can make a difference by conserving power, but not by buying more stuff.
LOL, internet
If in fact CO2 is what is causing this so called global warming, then wouldn't a carbon-free CPU less environmentally friendly than a carbon-based one? A carbon based CPU is made of carbon which they have to get somewhere. This carbon is not going to the atmosphere, whereas the carbon that was not used for the carbon-free CPU could possibly go to the atmosphere. Therefore these CPUs are actually worse for the environment than the carbon based ones.
Isn't that interesting. The people behind the man-made Global Warming agenda get the media to repeat it enough times and soon nearly everyone assumes it's the truth. There's an increase in hurricanes? Global Warming! For a few weeks this past summer, we had a real scorcher out in the West. Global Warming!
What is greatly disheartening, though, is that when someone posts a different viewpoint, it is immediately regarded as trolling. At least a few replies posted similar items regarding the Kyoto agreement and what we were taught in the '70's.
Either the GPP is trying to be funny and his post means what you understood it to mean, or he is bashing on Gore & global warming and by implying that only he could come up with something that sounds as dumb as 'First "Carbon-Free" CPU Fights Global Warming'. I'm guessing this is the reason the GPP isn't modded, and why the GP is modded up by those who subscribe to the latter interpretation.
Is it good at fighting something that doesn't exist, or
Are they advertising it won't run OS X?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
You mean... like most people don't need a car as big as an SUV ? Besides for compensating some physical shortcomings...
I intend to counter the Global Warming Fighting CPU by installing the latest release of Gentoo....Stage 1 install.....with KDE and OpenOffice, among other packages compiled from source.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
There were commercials between two race cars, one using the SNES and one using a Sega system (with some crap similar to the "emotion Engine" sounds really good but really didn't do much different)
Anyways I'm thinking it's the same thing here. You have two F1 cars, Ferrari with the AMD/Intel logo and the Renault with the VIA logo. The light goes green, Ferrari flies down the road at close to double the speed, While the Renault is in persuit but the entire time you hear a speaker from the car "We're saving the enviroment".
Simply put performance is what matters in chips, if you buy a chip for anything other than quality and performance for it's price point you're making a mistake. If you have a critical (read "any") business you want the power, performance, and stuff that will not break down, not cheap or enivormentally friendly parts. In the same vein when is Microsoft and Sony going to learn that in console wars. Nintendo is known for quality and finally stepped out of the power grab race, the other two are just climbing over each other on tin foil scafolding which keeps breaking.
Don't believer it, folks!
You're dead wrong:
0 5.htm
t m
1 4.htm
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/Environment/aqfactbk/page
Even though population has increased 41% and there are 112% more vehicles, CO emissions have still gone down 62% since 1970.
There are a lot more pollutants emitted by China than just CO. China had a coal fire that was only recently put out (a fire burned for 130 years):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3978329.s
The article states 100,000 tons of pollutants were emitted from this fire every year.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/Environment/aqfactbk/page
Light-duty vehicles in the US emitted about 6000 tons in 2004 (NOx and VOC). Which one do you think is worse?
Next time you open your big mouth as an AC, why don't you have the facts? I found that info in 2 minutes using Google.
Do any of you green weenies eat cooked food? Use electric lights? Watch TV? Use a sound system? Use hot water? Air conditioning? Heat?
The processor is just a small part of the electrical load of a PC. And the PC is just a small part of a typical human's electrical load.
Furthermore, "Global Warming" (what's up with the caps? Is it an official religion now?) does not correlate well with human activity. It seems about as likely that shutting down all human activity would have no effect on the warming trend.
Rediculous: A word indicating the writer is ridiculously ignorant.
Global Warming is a bunch of bullshit. Enough said. Mother Earth can take care of itself. If this means Earth will plummet into an ice age then so be it. The planet has a few billion more people then it should anyways.
The question is, can the Human race adapt and survive a ice age? I know it can. The question is, Will we be ready for an ice age? And I am not talking about evolution.
Via needs to stop wasting resources on building a environment friendly processor and build us a quantum computer. We want more power. *que the tim taylor graunting*
\
Wow. I got trolled for that? What's slashdot coming to? Very strange moderation.
Eh. Mods: it's all in good fun, I assure you.
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If you are planning on local energy generation as your primary source of power I think a low wattage device like this can go a long way to slimming down the consumption profile. I might just look into this technology.
Think Gnole-ish, not prole-ish
ack, "TreeMark", I'm gonna vomit. They must think I'm a fucking retard. I thought I was part of the niche market but my TreeMark was off the charts so I said fuck it.
Think Gnole-ish, not prole-ish
Because if you think global warming is a serious danger, then making your CPU more "green-friendly" will make one whit of difference, right?
so the PC ends up being a mass murderer.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The advertising is misleading, since the CPU ACTUALLY CONTAINS CARBON WITHIN IT. Do they think that we are idiots? This CPU is not carbon-free, it only reduces the amount of energy used by the processor. I guarentee that if I got one of these CPU's, I could find carbon in it, so it would be deceptive and fraudulent to label it "Carbon-Free". A finished CPU still contains carbon from many possible sources: Residual photoresist, solder flux, thermally conductive adhesives, chip protection expoxies, PCB mounting boards, and residues from solvents used in the manufacturing process. The logic that they use in their justification of labeling, marketing, and selling the CPU as "carbon-free" is a bastardization of basic human thought and common sense. Just like "alcohol-free" beer still contains alcohol.
Hmmm..... I wonder..... If I buy one of these CPU's, clearly labeled "carbon-free", and I find carbon in it, am I entitled to a refund?
-----
Sig Sauer
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Right, but they have it small enough quanties that they can say 0 grams of carbon per serving.
Ofsetting the carbon pollution during the operating phase of a product's lifecycle is a great start. Especially because it will get us talking about the real cost of the rest of the cycle, Like the carbon pollution from the energy consumed and waste produced by manufacturing and delivering the product. And then maybe even some in "discarding" the product.
--
make install -not war
but what about saturated fats?
A quick check of several carbon neutral sites, where they propose to offset your carbon output for a fee dependent on how much driving you do etc..., left me feeling as if it were a scam of some sort. They offer no real assurance that your money is being placed into long term land/biomass projects. IE, the data is not publicaly verifiable. Its just their word. "pay us 88 dollars and you are Carbon Neutral!!" The sites/entities proclaming carbon offsets should be required to have verifable data to those that join.
I saw no evidence of that, and it is needed.
So some digging was in order. A quick call to the Chicago Carbon Exchange, and subsequent dialog with a nice enough bloke in charge of the offsets regarding the siging up of our ranch up in carbon offsets struck me as odd. The exchange currently favors pine plantations with poplars, vs native hardwoods. Native hardwoods live longer and are a a climax species for my area (East Tennessee).
The fellow said that our pine planataion could qualify for listing with the carbon exchange, but they really want actively managed plantations vs. unmanaged tracts of woodlands (even if they are recoverving from clear cutting).. I tend to disagree on the track of these offset schemes, because even the Carbon Exchange wants the timber to be harvested.
The whole process is just getting started I will admit, but it needs some serious thinking through on their part. The trees when mature are harvested. Which emits C02, and then proccessed, and then that carbon slowly degrades back into the atmosphere.
It really doesn't make sense. They should really be trying harder for longer term preservation with native species into climax ecosystems, with selective logging.
Now, about the late comment, I would have posted earlier but I have been running a business all day, and came home to plant yet another acre of white pines for a seperate christmas tree thing we are trying at the homestead...(yep /me = hippie, geek, rancher, musciaion type)
So please folks treat it as more than just feel good, pass the buck public image/advertising.
And demand verification from the offset folks, don't just take thier word on it.
Peace out, D
No - just some sort of dope.
So, while you're still waiting on your Via C7 to crunch those numbers (at 20w), a Core2 Duo or A64 X2 system can do it in 1/4-1/6 the time (at 35w), and clock down to low-power state (3-5w).
That's funny. I have a Via C3 box and an Athlon64 X2 box right here. One uses 30W when idle; the other, 75W. Care to guess which? (Hint: the systems and the numbers are given in the same order.)
I want a CPU made of carbon nanotubes. Such CPUs would be tiny carbon sinks to help tie up some carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. That would help fight global warming. I also ride a bike AND buy only plastic furniture made from petroleum products.
'First "Carbon-Free" CPU Fights Global Warming'
My CPU is a silicon chip with various other trace elements present. It is already carbon free. If you have significant amounts of carbon in your CPU then you do not have a working CPU.
This is absolutely retarded in all respects. I can't believe I'm even commenting on it!
my country is nuclear powered, you insensitive clod!
HLT and CnQ are two entirely seperate issues, both of which reduce your CPU's power usage, but CnQ does dramatically more than HLT ever could.
I'm pretty sure that's wrong--why would a CPU use more power stopped than when processing at any speed?--but just for kicks, I pulled everything but video card, one drive, and one stick of RAM, made sure powernow-k8 was loaded, and set the governor to powersave; and idle power usage still bottomed out at 55W. I did learn a couple of interesting tidbits (did you know that an SBLive PCI card pulls 3W even when you're not using it?), but I think it's pretty clear you're not going to get a dual-core Athlon system into the 20-30W range.
And yes, even in Linux power draw shoots over 100W when I load both cores, and performance drops along with power usage (but still close to 100W) if I set powersave mode.