Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer
Crayon Shin Chan wrote:I did consider this, but for what I'd be getting, they're often quite expensive. I don't need mobility, and I think I'm paying a lot for mobility when I get a laptop. I do already have a MacBook Pro that I could run Windows on, but I use it at work and I like to leave it at work during the week.How about a laptop? You can tell how much power they need, worst case scenario, by looking at the power supply rating. 10s of watts for an entire system including a monitor... now that's power saving!
I tried putting the computer to sleep when I wasn't using it, but as mentioned, I found it crashed far too often when sleeping all the time. Often not waking up from sleep, blue screening, etc.Uh... if you really want to save money on power consumption I've got a new idea that's very cost effective: Put the machine to sleep whenever you aren't using it! Off is even better, but a suspend-to-RAM uses very little power and doesn't make you wait around for the machine to reboot.
If you are determined to buy something new then I'd first look at an easy update: Get an LCD display with an LED backlight if you don't have one already. If you don't have one, get a Kill-a-watt meter, or equivalent, and you'll see that the LCD can use quite a bit of power all by itself.
Only after all of that would I be looking at a new machine. If you really want more efficiency, a non-overclocked non-extreme Ivy Bridge will save power while beating the i920 by measurable amounts. If you need a discrete GPU, I'd recommend a GTX 660 since they have about the best performance/power efficiency bang for the buck right now.
EDIT: Just plopping the GTX 660 into your existing machine will certainly help game performance, and it might even save power compared to your older card.
RhysAndrews wrote:What about Mini-ITX? Are there any performance considerations for these if the components are the same (e.g CPU / RAM)?
I considered this setup:
- Intel DH67CFB3 Mini-ITX Mainboard
- Intel Core i5-3570 3.2GHz
- Corsair 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz
- OCZ Vertex 4 128G SSD
- IEEE1394a PCi-Express x1 Card
- FSP 400W Aurum Series PSU, 80PLUS Gold
- Lian Li PC-Q11 HTPC Chassis
But is the PSU too overpowered? What should I be looking at, if I may later on add a video card?
RhysAndrews wrote:Discrete GPU is not important if the onboard gfx can handle a smooth framerate on games like Call of Duty 4 and Minecraft
ludi wrote:The OP needs different hardware that will use sleep mode correctly, and then he's not saving the 60W difference; he's saving nearly all of it