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Maingear Touts New Rig As "Planet's Greenest Gaming PC"
Maingear has just unveiled what they are calling the "planet's greenest gaming PC." Built using a small form factor and coming with Intel's new Ion graphics as the default option, this little powerhouse is built with a definite eye toward energy consumption. "Said configuration is available with Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs and an 80+ certified 300-watt power supply; those who care more about frame rates than Ma Earth can opt for a GeForce 9800 GT ECO, which — despite being a discrete, power-hungry GPU — still swallows some 40 percent less power than a standard 9800 GT. You'll also find WiFi support, room for an optional Blu-ray drive and TV tuner, upwards of 8GB of RAM and room for a single 2.5-inch HDD or SSD. The whole box checks in at just 7.6- x 8.3- x 11.4-inches, and it's available for order right now starting at $799."
Intel's? What did I miss?
is not to play
I don't think this really qualifies as either a real gaming PC or a green PC. Sure, it will play games, but I wouldn't call it a gaming PC. Same thing with green, it uses a bit too much power to be considered really all that green. Sure, its a good compromise but I don't think its really that green or really that much of a gaming PC.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Mmm... Slashvertising. How tasty!
Rhapsody in Numbers
Slap together some mid range components, an ugly case and call it Prius... err Pulse.
It's "eco-conscious" says the article/advertisement/press release.
Too much power usage to be truly green. Too little performance to be a real gaming rig. Lame.
And for their next trick, they're targeting the auto industry, planning a sports car that gets 40 mpg.
Sure, it may have an unimpressive 0-60 time of 8.4 seconds, but they've gotta hop on this "green" bandwagon while they still can!
Perhaps I can mount this little beast inside my hybrid-electric Hummer, Pimp My Ride Style!
Yo dawg, I heard you like irony...
On the one hand, this seems like a good alternative. On the other, the notion is basically incompatible. After all, wouldn't the greenest thing of all be to simply unplug and go till your garden?
I fear that 'green' is becoming more about fashion than it is about the Earth, and the notion of a green way to do a very non-green thing seems to support that. Sort of like a hybrid SUV, an eco-friendly landfill, or a more merciful way to kill whales.
Some things just aren't green...
Why do I feel the need to go buy carbon credits just for posting this?
coming with Intel's new Ion graphics as default option
Ion is an nVidia product, not an Intel product. The terms "Intel graphics" and "gaming PC" should never be used together.
This can only be right when the story title is: Intel buys Nvidia
Learn to juggle rocks.
You could upgrade bit by bit, only purchasing the items you need to get the performance boost you desire.
You could theoretically keep the case, fans, dvd drives, maybe the HD between builds. Will you end up paying a little more over a bare-bones setup. Depends on where you buy and what deals you find.
Re-using is more eco-friendly than recycling.
On a different note, doesn't a 9800 require a power hook-up, and isn't the suggested minimum PowerSupply 400W? I thought I noticed that the last time I was looking at them... And if you're putting a Blu-Ray and a TV Tuner, aren't you going to need a larger PS?
I scanned TFA and all I saw that was "green" was the CPU, PS and the vid card. I don't know if that warrants a $800 starting point.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
Those parts are outdated for anyone who cares to be on the 'bleeding edge' in gaming, and anyone who doesn't can build their own version of that rig at about half the price (ignoring the form factor).
Given the probable lifetime energy savings of that $800 box over the $400 DIY job, plus the base environmental costs of building all those parts, you're essentially spending money to have someone else make you feel better.
Why would anyone want a small form factor when building a gaming pc?
That just makes it harder to fit enormous graphics cards in the case. Is that supposed to be a green selling point?
Also, why have wifi access? That sucks for online gaming because of its unreliablity.
Other than that, looks like a sweet build. Good price too. Computer gaming really isn't that expensive it's been looking like lately. If your buying a computer, might as well pony up a little more moola and play games on it too.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
Materials list:
1 CPU
1 ACPI enabled motherboard
1 Aluminum ATX case
1 Copper heatsink
1 UPS
1 hand crank A/C generator
1 set of bicycle pedals
Process:
Build PC using CPU, motherboard, heatsink, and case. Attach bike pedals to hand crank generator. Attach generator to UPS. Pedal your way to "greener" computing and a healthier life.
PS) I fscking HATE the term "green." Meh.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
That's not a gaming PC. Where's the SLI? Where's the upgradeability and massive hard drive space? Where's the modern graphics card -- the 9800 GT is a few generations old already, just imagine where it'll be a year or two down the road.
Stop with the silly "green" crap, seriously. This system is at best a midrange small form-factor PC with an inflated price tag. While it might play current games, it's nowhere near future-proof, and its price tag isn't low enough to justify that fact.
Then what the hell is the Mac mini at only 110W?
Sure, it's not a "gaming PC" but it does have a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and the nVidia 9400M is about the same as Ion graphics too, not to mention that the Mac mini is smaller and cheaper. And yes, you can install Windows on it if you want.
So what's special about that not-so-small Maingear "green" PC again?
Oblig. BOFH:
"A REAL computer has ONE speed and the only powersaving it permits is when you pull the power leads out of the back!" I blurt. "In fact, a REAL computer would have a hole in the front to push trees into and an exhaust pipe out the back for the black smoke to come out of."
Alright, where to begin...
"ION" is nVidia's, not Intel's. (Only the story submitter makes this mistake, not TFA.)
"ION" is nVidia's codename for the combination of their 9400 or 9300 integrated graphics chipset plus the Intel Atom processor. This rig uses a Core 2; which makes it *NOT* an ION. It just makes it a Core 2 plus 9400 chipset.
And as others mention, the Mac mini is the same damn thing; only smaller, draws less power, and costs less. (However this one has the ability to add a discrete graphics card, which the Mac mini obviously lacks.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Soon enough someone is going to produce a "Green" watch that consumes even less electricity than those that use the smallest batteries. Someone will also invent a "Green" flashlight that uses so little power it actually makes the room darker! What the hell? Are companies really so retarded that they think cutting back on some of the lowest energy usage appliances are going to save the world? If you really want to save the planet why not invent a water heater that doesn't require heating massive resistance coils to warm water up. Or maybe someone could invent a dishwasher that can clean pots and pans without using superheating coils to melt all forms of food and tupperware. Or perhaps someone could invent an alternative cooking method that doesn't involve superheating coils on a stovetop.
Oh wait, we have things like clothes lines, cauldrons, and BBQs. This is the thing that bugs me. If consumers really wanted to "Go Green," if they really wanted to take drastic action to save the environment, all they need to do that is in place already. Our society existed before mass distribution of electricity, and we could save a crap-ton of kW-hr (because, you know, they have mass too) by cutting back on some of the conveniences that really do drive power bills through the roof. Granted, computers being left on day and night help drive up electricity bills. This pales, in comparison, however, to something like 4 people taking 30 minute hot showers every day. Rather than trying to pinch every bit of energy savings from every friggin' appliance in every household, how about we just start conserving a little bit by cutting back on some of our luxuries. Restricting showers to 10-15 minutes would drastically save on electricity for a 4 person family. It would also save water (which is at least as important a problem as the energy issue these days). The best benefit of that kind of behavior modification: we don't have to buy all the new green trendy BS that marketeers are spamming our lives with everyday.
Granted, this is a rant, but I am sick of seeing stupid "Technological breakthrough" stories that involve skimping on power consumption for every little appliance in the household. Lame.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
You're going to power a dual core processor and a 9800 gt graphics card along with all the other hardware on a 300 watt PSU? Riiiight. Good luck getting it to run stable. Any graphics card alone passed the 7800 mark (for nvidia) tends to require a 500W PSU or greater, not including all the other gear. Green and gaming are inherently counter to each other. Gaming wants more power and more speed at the expense of cooling and energy usage. Green is the exact opposite. A Green Gaming Machine (aside from attaching green LEDs on the case) is an oximoron.
They've been designing extremely power efficient computers for ages -- they're called Laptops. Sure, it wasn't for reasons of being "Green", but rather of Battery life. But the net effect is the same for a consumer interested in having a very power efficient box.
At any rate, these days there are some pretty decent gaming laptop configs that you could buy that I imagine could handle most gaming tasks you throw at them while being a heck of a lot more power effecient -- plus then you'd have the option of unplugging the monitor/keyboard/mouse and taking it with you and actually using it as a laptop.
Just make sure you don't throw it in the trash when you're done with it, both the batteries and LCD displays are fairly toxic . . .
This is so corny. Environmentalists are some of the goofiest people alive.
I like how Al Gore started up a carbon credits company just before he released a movie that encouraged people to purchase carbon credits. And when people pointed out how much power his mansion used, he paid himself by purchasing carbon credits from his own company.
Anyway, I'm off to litter.
THERMONUCLEAR WAR
Just make sure to just aim for China and the USA
See here. The system seems to use desktop PC parts, not mobile parts: a motherboard with an nVidia chipset, a LGA 775 CPU, DDR2 memory, a micro ATX power supply. The system is using Intel desktop CPUs with 65 W TDP and a motherboard with integrated graphics. I would expect a system using a mobile CPU and chipset to use less power.
The "greenest gaming PC" would be a system using a mobile CPU and chipset (and possibly a full desktop GPU) - something similar to the iMac's hardware, perhaps.
Strikes me as World's Greenest Gaming PC, is equivalent to Worlds Gentlest Rape.
Why bother
Is like the most fuel-efficient Hummer. Who cares about it?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
It has very similar specs to the Mac Mini and is about the same price. TFA says a 300W power supply however, 80+ means that it is (as far as I can see) EPEAT Silver or Gold. The Mac Mini has a 110W power supply so the losses will be smaller. I wonder if somebody will take those 2 machines to a test soon to see how they compare.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The Wii does all of this for about 20W and has a much smaller form factor. I'd say it's much more "green" that the Pulse.
I think you'll find nVidia makes Ion. Great editing.
I would never buy the thing because it has a completely fugly graphic on the case, but.... these guys are building more or less exactly the kind of PC that I try to build for myself - as much computing power as I can reasonably get without blowing out the $$$ or power budget, enough to play some games, but Crysis is totally optional...
As someone said above, the MacMini is a very nicely executed example of this theme, and in a much more tasteful case.
[crank mode=on]
Am I the only person who's irritated by this use of the word "rig"?
Before computer geeks started using "rig" to refer to their computers, the only commonly used meaning was large trucks, e.g., 18-wheelers.
To call a computer a "rig" irritates me for the same reason that the term "domestic engineer" bothers me: it's trying to gain respect by stealing the respect rightfully earned by the thing to which the word traditionally refers.
Long-story short, it's posing.
[crank mode=off]
A properly green computer would output more energy than you input. Greenwash. The Next Big Economic Bubble.
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Gotta find out what chipset this thing uses. Would make one hell of a Hackintosh.
gimmicky...
If enough people buy these, a massive Smug cloud mean the end of the world (of WarCraft)...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Probably common knowledge, but many computers are still made with toxic chemicals.
Until they can get a computer to grow off of garbage, we will likely never have a green computer.
ASUS M3N78-EM (hybrid SLI, express gate, DDR2)
The AMD 5050e 2.6GHz dual core - 45 watts for your ass
Western Digital caviar green drive idle power doesn't suck
A good nvidia card, because compromising on this doesn't result in a gaming rig.