It is interesting reading the comment list here - there is such a disparity between those who “get” the whole greenhouse gas emission problem, and those who just don’t “get” it (or who turn their minds off whenever it is mentioned).
It’s fun to play with the numbers a bit. For example, if we assume an average of about 1kg carbon dioxide emission per 1kWh, that means that Jeff’s server’s emissions alone are higher than the lowest 78 countries’ per capita emissions!
Kind of explains why other countries get a bit narky with America sometimes.
My electricity bill is the lowest of all my bills. Cable/Internet bill is higher, Phone is higher, Gasoline is higher, Heat is higher, even in the summer with AC its pretty low ($80-120/mo)
Just a question how much affect the age of the hardware in the power consumption I mean the difference between a P3 and a Core 2.
Let me put myself as an example I have an iMac 20 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHZ) which I use as a server for music and video for an XBMC, download torrents and process stuff (rendering models for engineering) while not in use, and obviously I use it for work during the day so it’s on 24/7; this is my actual situation but I get an old toshiba laptop with a busted battery (1.2 ghz Celeron) so the question is what happen if i swap the laptop during the nights for post processing of my work of the day and shut the imac since both will work with the screen off, wifi on, and both have very similar power supply and architecture and the laptop will work more time because of the slower processor; so its possible that a recent desktop waste less energy than an old laptop???
I have to say that the laptop is considerably more noisier than the laptop
I hope someone read this and put your opinions about this, I’ll try to get a current meter for the weekend and make some actual testing but in the meantime what do you think???
Forget the refrigerator, the microwave oven, the dryer and the washing machine there is a new king in the throne: the almighty Apple iMac. I’ve got that current meter and do some testing in my home.
Here are the results. First In one circuit I’ve got the Internet modem which is a Nexnet wireless and is hooked up to my router which is an Airport Express (I choose it because I figure something so small can consume so much energy!!! ) I was wrong together the two of them get 24W and the iMac with the screen off, WIfi and Bluetooth On and doing some minor processes get a result of 29 W and the old toshiba laptop also with the screen off wifi on and doing the same process get a reading of 21 W so my question get answered. Desktops waste more energy than laptops no matter how old they are but even worse the tiniest router in the market consumes almost the same energy than a computer just idling as a home server, well maybe my Internet modem wastes most of the 24 W I’m going to check it out in the future.
IF i get the power of the iMac the airport Express and the modem y got a total of 53 W and they are ON 24/7 so it cost me $ 83 a year with a cost of 0.18 $/kWh wich i admit maybe is not that much but in other way it consumes 40 kWh/Month of the total 200 kWh/month so the 20 % of all electricity just goes to the computer, and its just the beginning because I’m not counting the other two computers the media center and the other two airports which are on and Off during the day and the time when I am actually using the iMac, which is a lot, so i think 40% to 60% of my electrical bill just goes to the computers.
but im not going to use the laptop because the difference is just about 15 $/year and its too much hassle using two computers.
I just wanted to say I have come across this post several times when researching energyconsumption of computers and I keep loving it with every visit!
I have an old gaming PC that I leave on all the time to stream media to an Apple TV, and I keep wondering how much of a difference it would make if I downgraded to the world’s most energy efficient desktop, the Mac Mini.
My server runs a Via C7 mini-ITX formfactor (1.2GHz c7 cpu). It fits behind my desk, and when using a picoPSU and a 60W 12V brick powersupply, a kill-a-watt measures it at only 18W! I put it together with a 100GB laptop hard drive for about $400, and since I have become addicted to having a server up 24/7 this machine will pay for itself in a little over 2 years, as well as using about 10% of the power my p4 rig was using.
I’ve updated this article to reflect 2022 California power prices which are substantially higher… more than doubled since I wrote this article… thank goodness Intel, AMD, and especially Apple, have been building such power efficient CPUs these days! The idle state improved dramatically around Haswell (4th gen), too which is a big deal since most computers are idle most of the time…