Building an Energy Efficient, Always-On PC?

Posted by Cliff on Saturday March 31, 2007 @11:26AM from the a-softer-hit-on-the-electric-bill dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "Like many readers, I find it necessary to leave my home PC running 24/7, for things like web or FTP servers, BitTorrent, or simply to make sure I don't miss any messages on IRC or my instant messaging client. It has been about 3 years since I built my current PC, and keeping it running all the time uses a lot of juice. With my next PC, I would like to do what I can to keep the power-consumption to a minimum, without sacrificing processing power or other features. What should I look for when choosing components for my PC, and what other ways are there to keep the power consumption down?"

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Don't forget the monitor by Pyrex5000 · 2007-03-31 11:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

Using an LCD monitor instead of a CRT will drastically cut your power usage. Turning off the monitor while not at your computer will help as well, instead of just letting the screensaver run. The monitor can consume more power than the PC itself.