Considering that this discussion came from the Win98 section... I'll add a completely different twist to the mix.

A lot of members on this discussion are talking about the smallest Linux or a Windows98 machine that's still running strong. Have you looked at your electricity bill?

Let me put it to you this way. I've got a modern file server, built with a C2D CPU, P35 motherboard, and 10 hard drives. At idle, the system draws about 150W from the wall. Now - my mother's computer is an eight-year-old Athlon XP 1Ghz, 256MB of RAM desktop. It draws about 125W at idle. Now - pull 9 of the hard drives out of my file server, and you're looking at a modern system that draws less electricity than the old one.

For those who understand cars a bit better - it's like shoving money into an old beater car because it "still works", as opposed to buying a newer car with better fuel economy, better safety, and overall better performance. There comes a point when maintaining an old vehicle simply becomes infeasible. Same thing applies to computers. I would never dream of personally running a computer that's more than 3 years old - purely on an electrical consumption POV. I gain back enough in saved energy costs on modern technology to make the switch worthwhile.


Oh, and if you're worried that a new system costs too much - just get yourself the ASUS EEE Box. That system is perfectly usable for day-to-day tasks, handles XP/Vista/Linux with ease, it's damned near silent, draws less than 50W AC (if my memory serves me correctly), it's small, and it's only $350. Chances are, the system would pay for itself in saved energy costs over the course of a year or so.

Have you thought about the environment? We don't throw away computer parts every 3 years. Recent hardware is also less durable, mostly because you're going to upgrade before it breaks anyway.

He's saving thousands of kWh. So I'd say yes. Not only he's saving on an individual computer, but when you can replace several old ones by a single modern PC (things like vmware help too), then you get amazing savings (this Core 2 Duo replaced 3 old boxes on its own -- a desktop, a box that was encoding nearly 24/7 and a vmware server). And more often than not, the upgrade pays for itself in power savings.


3 years? I see talk about Celeron 633's in here and P166's. Those would be 8 and 12 years old respectively. That's near eternity in the PC world. Besides, even if you upgrade a lot, you don't necessarily throw away every part every 3 years (psu/case/hard drives/dvd-rw/etc are usually kept), and old parts can go in other computers (reused) or sold (makes upgrading even cheaper) or given away. Again, little to no impact on the environment.


Much the inverse, especially with all the boards now with all solid caps and all that.


And that makes it less durable how?

I guess that applies to you guys in North America who rely mostly on coal fired power stations but where I live we have mostly hydro-electricity. In Germany they have an extensive solar network and push people to install solar in their homes (I got the flag right didn't I BenoitRen?), but no doubt they still use coal too. Whilst energy savings add up in dollars, they may not necessarily equal environmental savings. I think BenoitRen was suggesting that Zxian's perspective doesn't necessarily include the pollution caused by manufacturing new parts (which is significant if you look at the cycle from mining raw materials through to disposing of the end product at its end of life). Whilst the new products may use less power (which depending on power source may or may not help the environment), if you look at the bigger picture it may not (depending on many factors). Because the old parts exist already, the energy and pollution required to produce them has already been used/created.

To go back to the car analogy suggested by Zxian, whilst I agree with his point on safety (and reliability is a clear factor as well), the overall idea is not quite that simple. Back in the early '90s I saw a study done here in Australia (wish I had it handy, I'll have to dig around and see if I still have it) which showed that driving an old car with significantly worse emissions and fuel economy was far more environmentally beneficial than buying a 'cleaner' new car (when you add the manufacturing and production emissions, from raw materials to end product). Obviously the longer the time frame you consider the closer the 2 become. I can't remember the time frame they suggested in the study but it was significant.
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The impact to the environment occurs by buying the new product, this is even more-so the case if the old parts remain in use (if there are energy production emissions involved). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're completely wrong crahak, I'm just saying that the matter is much more complex than it appears on face value. Besides I upgrade fairly regularly myself so I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate really!

Who said anything about throwing computer parts away? All of my old systems have seen their way onto local buy-and-sell programs, or I've even donated a few to a local school that needed office computers. Just because someone brings in the topic of "upgrade", you instantly assume that they just ditch the old parts at the side of the road? How do you think I've managed to afford the 10 hard drives in my file server? ...by selling the 6 that it used to have.

Like I said before, there comes a point when the electrical consumption of an old computer outweighs the cost of a new one (especially if you look at the EEE Box I linked to earlier). From a purely "green" point of view, here are some ideas towards the upgrade: lower power consumption, minimal packaging (and I mean minimal - the EEE Box is shipped in a box that's not much larger than that of your typical ATX motherboard), better usability (ever tried editing 10MP photos on a PIII? It's painful), etc.

Chances are, the EEE Box will serve a much longer useful life to most people than a PII did. Computer development is slowing down, as much as Intel and AMD don't want to admit it. How much more processing power do we all really need? How much lower power consumption can we really get? When the "next-gen" parts come out after this, it's really going to be counting peanuts compared to what we have today. Replacing that 125W beast upstairs with a 50W machine? Now that's a significant upgrade.


True, but on the otherhand, look at how many companies are advertising "green" these days. To be honest, the degree that the world has advertised their "environmental friendliness" is getting a bit out of hand. "Green hosting" from Dreamhost? Comon... I doubt that they've completely re-worked their infrastructure just to make the world a cleaner place.

Incidentally, where I live in Canada, a good portion of our electricity comes from hydro power as well. It's why our local electrical company is called BC Hydro. They've been working a lot on reducing energy waste by replacing light bulbs with CFLs, having people monitor their energy usage, etc etc. Solar and wind power electricity generation have their effects as well - they take up a lot of land. While this might not be a significant factor in BC or Texas, it certainly is in Europe where things are much more crowded already. Oh... they kill birds too. Hooray for being green! (tongue-in-cheek)

Yes, but the amount of raw materials that goes into a car is considerably more than what goes into a computer. In Canada, companies can claim depreciation value on computer equipment that they've purchased. The value of this depreciation is 30% per year for 3 years. Essentially, the government is saying that a computer nearly all of it's value after 3 years.

Yes, you are playing devil's advocate here, and doing it well. But arguing that using a computer made in the era of Windows 98 is being "eco friendly" is a bit extreme. Not building/buying a newer, more energy efficient system today is working on plain hypocrisy.

Firstly I'd like to acknowledge that we've pretty much hijacked ryaxnb's Linux thread and taken it off on a wild green tangent. Sorry dude! Having said that.................

Also many manufacturers are using less toxic substances in their manufacturing processes and factoring in recyclabilty (did I just make that word up?) of their products. Recycling of tech parts is becoming more efficient and accessible too.

Very good point!

I agree 110%. As people's environmental consciousness has been raised, the 'green' label has become a marketing tool. I think the green credentials of many companies are somewhat suspect. Even big players like Toyota, on one hand producing the extremely fuel efficient and popular 'green' car, Prius. But simultaneously lobbying governments around the world to water down minimum fuel economy standards so it can still supply thirsty SUVs to those that are willing to buy them (with minimal R&D costs)!

I didn't realise that BC had significant hydro power (though I guess it shouldn't be too surprising). CFLs are another interesting point of the complexity of 'green' issues. Whilst they are more energy efficient and last longer (thus use less raw materials), they comprise of lots of nasty heavy metals that are often released when disposed of. You just can't win!

Fair call.

Hehe, my girlfriend delights in reminding me of one time when she accused me of hypocracy and I turned to her straight faced and replied "I never claimed not to be a hypocrite!". Enough said!

Why would they use your already-old-and-not-so-green hardware when they could buy themselves newer, greener, etc. hardware, huh?

It all looks exactly the same to me: my neighbor has a good job (while I'm unemployed, BTW) and when he buys himself a new computer, he gives the old one to me instead of dumping it. So why bashing the people that are unfortunate enough not to afford a shiny new x-core machine, for using whatever they can get?

Anyway, going down the 'energy saving' path, the way I see things is manufacturers have no intention whatsoever to produce longstanding pieces of hardware, because the competition (I'm not gonna debate what kind of competition this is) would drive them to bankrupcy. So they keep producing cr*p that many times doesn't even reach (not to mention exceed) the warranty period.

Along this line, people that cannot afford new hardware every x months/years would be much happier with older but more reliable hardware that would hold for years, than being able to use newer hardware for a limited amount of time and then suddenly find themselves with just a pile of rubbish on their desks. For I've seen too many modern mobos with gonflated capacitors (I've replaced a few myself), while a couple 286 boards (probably 15-20 years old) that I keep around were still working a few months ago when I tested them just for kicks.

In my opinion, the amount of energy, resources and everything wasted in this manufacturing process is way higher than whatever the end user could potentially save by using these 'new' products.

As for Linux, all Knoppix mirrors I've checked at the time were only providing DVD versions of the 5.3.1 - the rest was 5.1.1 which I've already downloaded but have not yet burnt to disk. And to be honest, the only time I couldn't install Windows (XP) was a Tualatin CPU that wasn't well supported by the mobo although the manual said it should; Win98SE installed and ran just fine though. On the other hand I already had multiple failures at installing/running different versions of Linux, incidentally (or not???) on branded machines such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

I think nobody can blame me for not trying...

Mostly on the basis of cost. In BC, the education system is strapped for money as is, and last time I checked, the school system doesn't have to pay for electricity like the rest of us do. Accepting used hardware for free, while getting electricity for free, which comes from hydro sources (about as green as it gets).... that's a pretty good deal.

If that's all that you can afford, then that's one thing. However... I'll suggest again that you look at your electricity bill (if you pay it). You'd be surprised at how much it costs to run everything in your house. It might cost a bit up front, but in the end, chances are that you'll save a bit of money.

Not always true. There are good brands and bad brands. I can't count the number of dead MSI or ECS boards that have passed through my hands, and yet names like ASUS or Gigabyte keep on going strong. A friend of mine is running a previous system of mine with a ASUS CUV4X motherboard and PIII 1GHz. I managed to strip that down to the minimum so that it pulls 80W at load before giving it to her. For what she does (internet, documents, email), it works perfectly well and still manages to keep power consumption low enough that it's not worth the upgrade.

That might be your opinion, but it's nowhere near the true facts. Manufacturing processes have been locked down due to environmental and health reasons. Unused silicon at Intel is now recycled, whereas before (in the Pentium days) they would simply throw away the parts of the wafers that didn't make the cut (literally). Several manufacturers are now moving to simplistic packaging (Thermalright in particular) without the need for fancy logos and plastic packaging. There has been a shift back to simple packaging and OEM packaging comapred to before. I bought a network card a few weeks ago, and all it came in was a plastic shell, just large enough to cover the card - nothing more. No paper, no CDs, no printed cardboard. Once the card was installed, I put the package in the recycling. I don't think anyone could fault that system for not being "green".



I'm not dissing the idea of using old computers at all. I'm just saying that keeping an old computer for the sake of not buying a new one (when there are several legitimate reasons for doing so) is just silly. I'd personally recommend that anyone who can, ditch your Northwood and Prescott based P4 systems, since they draw far more power than they're worth, dispite being "only" 3 or 4 years old.

"Replacing that 125W beast upstairs with a 50W machine"
Well, if it runs 24/7 (but I guess turning it off at night would double the figures ), the difference is 75Wh/h, that's 657KWh/year, hardly "thousands". Also at the price of the KWh here (~14eurocents), it's about 137USD a year. Or am I doing it wrong ?

675kWh/year over a few years of lifetime is definitely "thousands". And if you replace a few PCs with a single modern PC (just like I explained I did in my previous post), you're going from say, 3x 125W down to 50, over a few years, it's thousands alright.

And yep. ~$135 or so per year sounds about right at that rate. That's about $400 saved over a 3 year period (or about $1750 if you replaced 3 PCs like I did).

New hardware also often have better power saving support (e.g. S3/sleep that actually works), so you can save money without having to shutdown a lot.

Wow was that a long read to come to this post .

Well, also the "bad" builders are getting less "bad" these days. I´m now using for example Biostar motherboards that come with solid capacitors too in the area where it´s needed and ASRock has motherboards that are completely sticked with the solid ones. But, if we talk about low consumption motherboards than ASUS and Gigabyte would be high in the list indeed; they use good mosfet voltage regulators AND good a written BIOS. You would say that a BIOS doesn´t do much, which is true, but if the power-save function isn´t well written* than systems with for example Cool´n´Quiet or EIST have no use of these functions at all, or at least not that much as it should be.

By the way, when we talk about "green stuff/power" than the only really green solution would be solar power. Hydro dams make big changes in environments too, so animals and plants could disappear from those arias, while, like some said, wind generators in form of a mill also kill birds but with a redesign that could be solved (wind tunnel/capturers).

By the way, fuel cells are now the hype, seen in laptop design and photo cameras for example, any thoughts on that?

(*) And that .

You're perfectly correct about all the numbers, but my mother's computer is a fairly benign example as far as used computers go. Look at every generation of P4 processors from Williamette to Prescott (ignore Cedar Mill... that was a useless version of P4). Each revision consumed more power at idle and at load, and it wasn't until Intel moved back to the Pentium III base that power consumption dropped again (PIII->Banias->Dothan->Sonoma->Core Duo). The recent move to Halfnium based transistors (it's not the 45nm process, it's the Hf) has dropped power consumption even more.

I've measured my friend's computer (P4 Prescott, 3.2GHz) and it draws nearly 200W at idle, roughly 260 at load. My previous iteration of my desktop, which used an E2160 for the processor ran faster, drew less power (140W at load), and would be a measly $70 upgrade for him today. Do the numbers for yourself, but again - it pays for itself after a short while.

Here where I live, the cost of electricity is ~0.10¢ USD per KWH (nuclear+hydro). That means that the 125W PC setup uses 3KWh/day, or 0.30¢/day. Making the assumption it's on 24/7/365, it's ~$110/year. ~$110/year isn't much, honestly, but if hundreds of millions of PCs were made more efficient (say, 25W/day vs 125W == .6KWh/day, or 0.06¢/day, or ~$22/year), we'd save a lot economically as a whole, not to mention using far less electricity (however it's delivered).

Does it save the individual a lot of money, really? No. Does it really help the environment, even when we're generating nuclear, wind, or hydro power? Probably, although it's debatable as to how much.

Should we do it if we can (and not everyone can, but I have a feeling most here can)? Honestly, why would we not?

Shoot... I pay 0.21USD for each kWh .

EDIT: plus 15% tax...

Funnily, one of the 3 PCs my E2160 box replaced was a P4 Prescott (519J), and it ran pretty darn hot too... I'm going to to replacing the last old box we got left around pretty soon (one likely reusing my E2160, upgrading that one to a quad core). But the 2nd box is going to be either a Intel Atom or VIA Nano -- it doesn't get much greener than those two (~20W at full load for the board + CPU iirc).

While I also have cheap hydro power at $0.10/kWh (sorry puntoMX), some of the upgrades still do pay for themselves. A bunch of smaller older hard drives will often use more in electricity over ~3 years than a new bigger/faster drive costs in the first place.

Also, in a lot of places, the power savings are nearly doubled. Yes, during winter the extra watts might be a non-issue, but during summer, it means a higher electricity bill due to AC (I like it cold).

If power's a concern, it'd probably be better to get S3 standby (I know Windows XP/Vista supports it, but probably Linux too by now) set up on most computers on a timer so they will go there when not in use. For what I read, power usage on those go to about 5W. Or simply turn it off when you don't use it. I see so many instances where computers are left on and are unused for long periods of time (overnight or weekends!). And really this doesn't matter how old the hardware is, if it's on and you're not using it, it's burning electricity and is not green, etc. Probably worst is the offices I know of that will leave 100's of computers on overnight. The infrequently used server? There's always Wake-On-LAN.

If one is really that concerned about power usage of a computer, it pays more to watch your usage patterns than it does upgrading.

In our house, have the following:

• A 2004 P4 HT Prescott desktop (3.0 GHz)
• A 2006 Core Duo Yonah laptop (1.6 GHz)
• An upgraded 2000 PIII desktop (? Mhz)
• An incredibly slow 1999 Compaq with an unremembered Citrix processor

The P4 desktop is our main machine, and is on pretty much all day. It's a Dell Dimension 4700, and it sucks a LOT of power, and is always hot. I may pressure my parents to upgrade to an e7200 or at least an e2200, as the savings in power would be worth it.

The Core Duo is my dell laptop, and is usually pretty cool and doesn't sap too much energy, but I always hibernate or put it to sleep when I'm not using it, so it doesn't take that much power.

The other desktop is also a Dell, an old Optiplex GX110. I got it from a friend, and so far it runs really well, and we only use it on those nights when the computers are in high demand. Other than that, it rarely gets used. It's not exactly what I would call power efficient, but we'll probably be replacing it in not too long.

The Compaq is a horrid machine destined for Free Geek ASAP. It was our only computer until we got the Dell P4, and it was slow, hot, and awful. We see no point in using it, so I'm donating it.

Free Geek, if there is one in your area, is a great resource for old computers. They'll take pretty much anything, and if it can be refurbished, they'll do so and then donate it to non-profits and to volunteers. The closest one to where I live is quite a distance, so I don't get there often, but when I do it's great - the thrift store has lots of used hardware for cheap, and often things you can't find elsewhere. Computers that can't be reused get recycled.

Another good thing that was suggested is donating your computers to a school. My school district has a relatively large IT budget, however the cheapest desktop you can buy through the district contractor costs over $900, so the schools can't usually afford a ton of new machines. As such, when a machine gets replaced, we take all the parts we can out of it and use them to upgrade the remaining machines that haven't been lucky enough to get replaced. We also love donations, as usually what most people are getting rid of is what we need more of. So! Ask your local school district if they want your computers, the answer may well be "yes".

i agree a lot with Zxian on this, about the upgrade path.

at the same time, i have a question for someone with an old rig and a way to measure power consumption (no killawatt here). how does an old computers power usage differ if it has a new 80+ PSU under the hood?

I'd love to personally see the results of this, as i have quite a few older computers lying around the house (as well as the newest computer in the house).

may be time to get a killawatt and find out sooner!

You missed the point. Upgrading still means getting rid of older parts.

Well, duh! The "we" I refer to are exactly the people talking about those!

I know, that's why I said "computer parts" and "entire computers".

According a friend of mine who's busy with hardware daily and quite the expert on it, this is not the case. In fact, the motherboard of my secondary PC got busted after only a half year, and had to be replaced.

I'm from Belgium, actually.

Since most people only really need the Internet, I doubt it. Also, I doubt it will last 15 years.

I used to think the same about 5 years ago. But people always need more power. It's like saying "640k ought to be enough for everyone".

I also want to point out that while newer hardware may consume less energy, it's not necessarily what we want. Motherboards of today come with crappy graphics and sound cards. I'm happy with my Sound Blaster 16 PCI, thank you. Also, I wouldn't be able to run Windows 95 on that hardware with supported drivers.

By the way, that failed motherboard I mentioned was one from ASUS.

A couple old AT PSUs crapped out on me few years ago, most likely of age, but one of them probably due to repeated blackouts (5-6 in a 10 minutes' time); replaced them and everything went on smoothly. Those were the times of 486DX2/66MHz (IBM) and PI MMX/200MHz (unknown manufacturer).
This year, there's been a blackout - my neighbor's PSU went down in smoke (3 capacitors literally exploded) and took the mobo with it - Gigabyte GA-7VA.

I've been working in electronics for about 25 years of my life - cross my heart, nowadays' hardware is extremely bad quality. And someone show me mobos built entirely on solid capacitors, coz I'm yet to see any such things over 100µF while on-board multipliers use 1000-1500µF ones typically.

You're entirely correct, and and I have to commend you for this (it's the first of the discussion as far as I know). However... Linux and sleep mode don't always agree. Believe me, I've tried on several systems, and it's nowhere near as simple as "click the button to sleep" as you get in XP or Vista. I'll bet that over 95% of the time, you'll have to fiddle with some sort of config file to get sleep working properly.


You know, there are places where computer parts can be sent for recycling. I can name several reputable locations in my area where I've gone to recycle old dead computer components. Like I said before - I rarely throw computer equipment into the trash, unless it really is dead and not worth recycling (dud optical drives for example). I always send my dead hard drives to recycling, since the metals can often be used in other applications.

Dead hardware can have many factors. The constant blackouts that Drugwash mentioned are one, and faulty PSUs can kill an entire computer (this is the biggest offender I've seen so far).

Your doubts are one thing, but the fact of the matter is that the manufacturing process to build that entire computer is more eco-friendly than making just the PII motherboard of back in the day. Roll the clock back 15 years ago, and there was an enormous amount of waste in all manufacturing divisions (computers, electronics, cars, paper, etc etc). It's only in the past 5 years that we've seen concern for the reduction of energy and waste.

That being said... the internet actually consumes a fair bit of processing power today. Sites are being created with more AJAX and flash than they were before, which do chew up a fair amount of CPU power.


Like I mentioned in the Linux thread... the majority of the CPU power needed on modern distros is because of the window manager. A five year old computer can run XP's explorer without any hiccups, but they start to bog down with the latest KDE or Gnome desktops.

You can't really think that this is reasonable. You're expecting a hardware company to support a 10 year old product on the latest OS? It's the same as asking that a modern product be supported on a 10 year old OS, that the OS developer no longer supports... You can dream for the moon all you want, but it's not going to happen.

I'll show you my mobo. Gigabyte P35-DS3. A few big caps can be replaced by a lot of small caps, you know? Anyway, i never checked the values on them, will do tomorrow and come back with a photo.

I mentioned S3/sleep in post 10


There's plenty of them indeed. I have the DS3R variant of this myself. I'll save you the hassle of the photo, there's loads of them around the web for example, this pic.

Yep. Not one electrolytic in sight. I've seen a lot of those people who "have a friend who knows computers" before too...

Also, getting rid of a couple parts every few years makes very little difference when you look at the huge amount of garbage most people produce. And that's when you get rid of them even, instead of reusing/selling it/etc, and like Zxian says, you can even recycle a lot of parts now. Seriously, just how much pollution do you create when you swap an older CPU for a newer and more efficient one? I'm tempted to say it's FAR outweighed by the power savings.


Not only hoping for the OEMs to support Win95 isn't reasonable like Zxian said, but look at the Win9x market share nowadays, way below 1% (more like 0.01% in Win95's case) and still very rapidly declining. Most people care as much about Win95 compatibility as having drivers for OS/2 2.0 i.e. nobody, except a handful of fanatics or people in the retro computer thing.

But the REAL funny thing here, is what you said about onboard sound/video. You couldn't possibly be more wrong. Even $50 motherboards now comes with something like a decent Realtek codec. I have one of them on my motherboard, and it blows every consumer-level sound card I've have the [dis]pleasure to use (with the exception of a couple M-Audio cards perhaps, but the M-Audio card cost more than the motherboad does, and the motherboard audio was pretty much just as good). It has 7.1+2 channel (yes, it plays a 7.1 movie and a 2 channel mp3 at the same time on different outputs just fine!), it does 192KHz/24bit audio, it has spdif and toslink outputs, it supports every codec out there (AC3, DTS, and even those used by Blu-Ray), it has the SNR of Audigy 2 ZS in case you still use analog outs, etc. Some of them even have advanced features like DTS Connect. I don't know what sucks about that, or what more you could hope for (unless you're a musician and need low-latency multitrack ASIO, or a elitist audiophile who needs a $1000 sound card for his $75000 audio setup). SB16 PCI's are utter trash compared to those (not multichannel, only analog outputs, only 16bit/48KHz -- actually it's probably closer to only 12 bits with the EMI from the case and such, the line in is garbage and the ADC is 12 bit only, low ~90 dB SNR, no spdif nor toslink, etc). Creative are also very well known for very sh*tty drivers, not adhering PCI 2.1 specs and having bad voltages on their spdif ports (notably on the SB live), etc. Any onboard sound nowdays is *miles* ahead of a SB16 PCI. I'll be uncorking the champagne when Creative goes under.

Similarly, onboard video now often comes with DVI and HDMI outputs (and can pass sound in HDMI's case), supports HDCP for when you might need it (e.g. Blu-Ray), often has a half-decent 3D performance (just not enough for the latest games, but plenty for Aero Glass, WPF apps, Compiz Fusion, some games, etc), and in ATI's case will even decode high bitrate high definition MPEG4 AVC video (H.264 @ 1080p) from sources like Blu-Ray entirely in hardware. I completely fail to see what sucks about it, especially when compared to old cards.

I haven’t purchased a new computer in years.

I didn’t upgrade to a Pentium 4.

I’m running a PIII recycled computer with a 250 watt power supply.

I can turn on my computer only when I need it because Windows ME does this in a blink of the eye.

I’m more environmentally friendly than I thought.

AJAX isn't always that resource-intensive. Flash, however, is a pain even on systems assembled in the past 5 years. It doesn't belong on the Internet in the first place. I surf without Flash, thank you.

Yes. And this is because of the catastrophe that is X-Windows.

Of course I'm not expecting that. But the fact remains that it is what I want to run, and recent hardware doesn't really give me the option to do it well.

That's where open source comes in, obviously. Unfortunately Windows 95 is not open source.

Stop spreading this FUD. I just talked to that hardware friend of mine, and outside of a couple CPU series like the Centrino, generally newer CPUs ask for more power, generate more heat due to getting more complex, and need more power for cooling.

If market share actually meant something, Linux would never have had drivers.

Try talking to people who actually work with the hardware. Like game programmers. Especially Intel chipsets are to blame.

Also, since when do all motherboards come with Realtek audio chipsets?

It's not FUD at all. May I recommend switching friend for advice? He seems to be wrong about a lot of stuff.

Many P4's have a TDP of as high as 115W, and right now you can get high-end quad cores like a Q9650 on a lesser TDP (95W), or plain old Core 2 Duo's that still totally beat the P4 in speed, and have a TDP of 65W (about half of the P4).

There's also some products out there that will still run a LOT faster than most old hardware, which will also run on 20W or so (at full load, for BOTH the CPU + motherboard), like Intel Atom and VIA Nano products. That's less than the lowest-consuming P3 CPU (a LOT less if you also count the P3's motherboard).


I've never seen a game programmer say anything bad about Intel chipsets. Perhaps you meant Intel video (not chipset), but that's not suited for gaming at all, and asking game makers about non-gaming business hardware is silly at best. It's like asking a F1 engineering team if a budget 4 cylinder $15 000 car is "good enough" for them. Also, Intel doen't even make audio chips. Gaming aside (3D performance issues obviously), Intel video works great. I've had exactly 0 problems with their drivers in Windows (hard to say the same about ATI & nVidia), and they're by FAR the best when it comes to having stable/non-buggy Linux drivers...


Go look at almost any board by Asus (e.g. their very popular P5K series), Gigabyte (e.g. their DS3 series), etc. Lots of large OEMs use them too (e.g. HP). The vast majority of boards use that. Even the 5 year old P4 I sold last month used that.

Before you call it FUD, do your homework. I'll give you a very basic example of how a modern system can draw equal to, or less power than an old one.

Test Rig:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 processor - 2.53Ghz, 3MB L2 cache, 45nm, 65W
Apack ZeroTherm BTF90 heatsink/fan
Asus P5E3 Premium motherboard - 401 BIOS
Corsair XMS3 Dominator TWIN3X memory - 2x1GB, DDR3-1800
Palit Radeon HD3870 graphics card - 512MB, PCI-E 2.0
Western Digital WD6400AAKS hard drive - 640GB, 7200RPM, 16MB cache, 2 platters
Enermax Modu82+ 625W power supply - 625W, ATX12V, 80-Plus
Microsoft Windows Vista operating system - Home Premium, 32-bit
ATI Catalyst 8.4 graphics driver

Now, the X38/X48 chipset from Intel is NOT a power-friendly chipset. It's well known that it eats joules for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and much more so than the P35 or P45 chipsets do. That above system runs at 82W at idle, and 110W at load. Read for yourself.

If you want to see how low-power some people can go, check out the SilentPCReview forums. I've seen people put together fully capable modern computer systems that draw a mere 40W on idle and 60W on load, and they'll run circles around any old low-power computer you put beside them.


Your "computer-savvy" friend is probably thinking of the Prescott-era P4 CPUs, which yes, were complete power hogs. Once of the MAJOR selling points of Core Duo when it was released was that they drew far less power and therefore ran cooler than their older counterparts.

Why would you need a 625W PSU on that system, then? Don't tell me it came with the case...

Enermax Modu82+ 625W
Quote from here.


mark

If you really worked in electronics for 25 years, you should have known that any power supply only takes as much power from the mains as it is needed to run the circuit it powers. And nobody makes 150W PSUs today, besides, do you think they would throw in the weakest no-name PSU they had?

Agreed, my P1-133, 32MB RAM, onboard ATi Graphics Xpression with 2MB dedicated, 2x 3Com Fast Etherlink XL PCI, uses like what, 20W, if that. But i don't see it doing anything else than what it's been doing in the last 3 years - acting as a router. Older PCs with power consumption lower than today's low-power chips can't serve as PCs anymore.

The PSU is rated for 625W. However, it's the most efficient ATX power supply that SPCR has ever tested!!! Read the review before making snooty comments. I'm trying to have a civilized discussion here, and all you can come up with is "don't tell me it came with the case..."

I've been working at SPCR off and on for over a year, and I can safely say, without any sort of bias that it's one of the most thorough, consistent, and well documented review sites. We're one of the only sites in the world that can properly test 1KW PSUs (not that we do often) to their full potential.

The sister site to SPCR is EPCR, or rather, Eco PC Review. It's been somewhat dead over the past year (never really got off the ground), but SPCR/EPCR has always been concerned about power consumption and eco-friendly manufacturing and packaging. You'll notice, if you happen to read a few reviews, that we do make note of how much packaging a product uses. Mike has also done quite a bit of work into looking at the environmental impact of manufacturing most of the devices in question.

Like I (and several others) have mentioned before - there are always recycling facilities for old or broken components.

And SPCR was the site that convinced me that the Enermax was what to use in my new PC this past week, due to it's efficiency and relative quiet. All around a nice PSU.

I like to (and try to) be as environmentally friendly as possible, but sometimes an upgrade is in order I guess.

I'm looking at the kids' old PC. It's too slow to watch HD movies (and the kids like to watch them too) and it's also getting slow for some other tasks, and it's not particularly energy efficient either. I've been dying to replace the several-years-old aopen case that has poor airflow & design (it runs pretty hot). The old hard drive in it started having SMART errors recently (going to have to replace it soon) and it's not as quiet (or fast) as more recent drives either (it's also the last non-SATA drive here). The ATI x800's fan was replaced ~6 months ago with a $30 aftermarket HSF, and the fan is already starting to sound quite loud. I don't feel like wasting $30 more every 6 months on a new cooler on an old card that's probably not even worth $50 in the first place, and the Linux ATI drivers for it (flglx) suck HARD. I find it's too power hungry too (like 80W). The PSU fan has been making some noise for a while (I slowed it down so it's not so deafening), and the case fans should probably be changed too at this point. Also, the old DVD writer in it is showing its age, and sometimes it likes not recognizing a disc (only like 5% of them, but it's quite an annoyance when it doesn't work). Adding RAM to it would mean getting rid of its existing RAM first (all slots full), and older RAM tends to cost more to buy too...

So I'm going to give away the motherboard/CPU/RAM and crappy creative sound card to someone who needs it (and the crappy vid card if they want it) so no pollution there. PSU wise, I'll replace that fan and keep it (370W enermax, only a couple years old) -- only a fan being replaced (although I could give that away too, and buy a 80plus model). Some remaining parts will make their way to the landfill (mainly fans), and others will have their plastic & metal recycled. It only makes sense fixing up an old PC so much really.

The new PC will play HD movies and other heavy-ish tasks just fine, be better at multitasking, run cooler/quieter/on less power, work more reliably (like read all discs), have better power saving modes and all that. Not sure what vid card I'll use yet though (probably a ATI 3450). I'll also get better sound, more SATA & USB2 ports, gigabit ethernet and other such things out of it. It couldn't really look uglier either. With some luck, the hardware will play nicer with Linux, and as a bonus it should run Vista and likely Windows v7 fine too, and pretty much anything we could throw at it. Edit: it'll also be able to use a x64 OS & apps.

Lite-On please. Otherwise you'll be surprised that after a few months it doesn't read half the discs your old drive handled just fine.

Bah. That's the least of my worries really. I've had good luck with some fairly generic drives before (e.g. LG), just like I had some bad luck with some of those many people consider as the best (e.g. a Samsung drive that REALLY sucked at AHCI and such, it was the worst optical drive EVER -- totally unusable on ICH9R, and a $250 Pioneer that died a VERY early death -- we're talking like a half spindle here). Right now I mostly use an old HP 640b, which even though is "only" 16x, burns faster than my old 18x Samsung (when it actually worked)... No issue at all with it (it's not SATA though).

I have a stack of dead LGs in the corner. All my Teac and Lite-On drives just keep going, and i never ever paid more than $80 for an optical drive.

That's what I'm saying. I had something like a half dozen LG drives over the years, and none of them ever failed (I gave them away, or sold them in PCs, and they still worked great) so I don't have anything against them. Similar story with other "lesser" brands, e.g. I had one AOpen CD burner that lasted a LONG time, it finally died after burning over 250 CDs straight (non-stop, 24/7) -- likely from the heat. This HP burner works great too. Just saying, almost any brand worked fine for me (yet, I had problems with most of the "better" ones, like Samsung, Pioneer, or this one that doesn't read all discs anymore -- a NEC). So I don't really care so much for brand name when it comes to DVD writers, it's much like playing the lottery anyways, and it seems the "better" the brand I pick, or the more I pay for it, and the more it sucks.

And again, it's the least of my worries... The only thing I'm not really sure about, is the vid card. In fact, even onboard video would suffice (as long as it does H.264 decoding in hardware). The main considerations here being 1) low power and 2) quietness. Some 3D performance wouldn't hurt I guess, but it really comes in third (and really not necessary). The main issue with onboard video is, it only seems to come on low-end mATX boards (with like only 2 DIMM slots and such -- limitations I can't live with).

The HD3450 will do fine. Onboard video started to suck since they started using system RAM, and they have sucked ever since. There is a reason they are not present on regular ATX boards anymore.

Suck for gaming and such, yes. But personally (when it comes to 3D performance) I'm perfectly happy with Intel GMA 950 video with 8MB of shared RAM... I was quite happy with Rage-era (pre-radeon) PCI (non-express) graphics too. So onboard video from something like a 780G chipset would already be more than enough (but that doesn't do me any good unless I go AMD, which I probably won't). So I know a 3450 will more than suffice (it's overkill for me really), what I'm not sure about, is if ATI has lower-wattage cards that also have UVD or such, as I don't keep up with all the video cards not being a gamer at all (if there's one thing I don't keep track of when it comes to PCs, it's video cards).

GMA 950? Sheesh. Go away! It can't even support proper refresh rates... It has absolutely no TnL and pixel shaders, so it can't even apply video filters in hardware. Nice. The Rage chips were good, don't compare them to intel's GMA rubbish as they are a heck of a load older yet still had more features (considering their age) than the GMA.

That´s too bad really, they dropped the X2 CPUs more in price and I see 5200+ CPUs fro way less than a E2200 for example and perform better. Too bad there cooler isn´t really top of the notch so to say... The 780G and the 790G chipset perform darn well I have to say, about 60% better in 3D apps (DX 8.1/9.0 and not OCed) and has DX 10, H.264, HDMI (with sound)/DVI, and THG says it has a TDP of less than 1W (RIGHT! remember the 945GC has a TDP of 22W ).

Anyway, we are going into the AMD vs. Intel discucion .

Do you need more than 60Hz on an LCD screen?

Any way, it DOES do TnL hardware and DOES pixel shading hardware too (9.0c even as I remember, just wasn´t enabled in their first release of their drivers). The GMA 950 isn´t bad at all and does run some titles like NFSU2 and HL2 pretty well, ... for real...

Never had any issues with any of that really. It worked just fine under any OS, and did everything I needed it to do: display 2D stuff, and play some videos. Not even once did I wish for something "better". I couldn't care less what it has or doesn't really...

Anyways. They should make more "non-gamer", full-featured ATX boards with basic video on it, much like a Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H. Only AMD seems to get this right (just like having 4 DIMM slots on mATX boards), just too bad I want an Intel CPU I guess.


I considered getting an AMD box really. But when my old $70 E2160 OC'ed benches about the same as a X2 6400+, yet, the somewhat slower X2 6000+ costs $120... Plus, if I go AMD in that one, then I lose the ability to "rotate" CPUs around (if I replace one with a quad core later on, the older "fastest" chip can go to the other rig if they're both Intel) But if you don't look at the CPU, I very much prefer AMD's solutions.

So yet again, I'm left wishing for two things I can't have together: an Intel CPU with AMD board... (Just like I wish I had Compiz Fusion on Vista). And both possible solutions kind of suck: pay more for a AMD CPU (or settle for slower), or pay more to get a video card I don't really want for a Intel box... What sucks less? Wasting $50 extra on a CPU for nothing, or wasting $50 on a vid card for nothing?

Although, there are more considerations. TDP is about the same in both cases. Socket 775 is a dead end I guess with Nehalem coming (of course there will be some more S 775 CPUs for a while) and those will use DDR3 too (I must say it sucks buying something that you know will be replaced so soon). Maybe AM2+ might stick around for longer (who knows for sure) as it's brand new, and they're not going to get rid of HT unlike Intel ditching their overdue FSB and such things. And it's hard to predict just how much Nehalem stuff will cost/how soon it'll be affordable/how much it'll make Core 2 Quad prices drop, or things like is AMD going to have competitive products out in a year or 2? Now excuse me, while I go look for a crystal ball...

Well, there is a negative side on those Intel graphics; they seem to have the 24Hz bug that makes some videos "skip" a frame or two every ones and then but nothing that can be fixed with a new BIOS or driver (Even the G45 has it ).

Okay, didn´t knew you were such an OCer, Intel=OC, AMD=Stock indeed.

Let me have a peek too!

Wow, I see a lot of smart guys around here that consider mounting a V12 engine on a bicycle as perfectly normal.
I'll show myself out of this talk now, thank you.

If you're referring to putting a 625W PSU in a low power system, it can make perfect sense. The key thing to look at here is AC->DC efficiency. The system will draw the same amount of DC power regardless of your power supply. If the efficiency of the PSU is higher, then the AC power draw (which is what matters in the big picture) will be lower. My file server only draws ~150W at load, but I've got a 520W PSU in there, because it's quiet and it has very high efficiency.

Actually, the Zalman ZM1000-HP (rated for 1000W maximum load), has some of the highest efficiencies ever recorded from ATX power supplies - breaking 86% from 200W all the way up to 400W. While most systems never reach these types of loads, it shows that it can be done. I'd guess that the typical PSU in a system purchased 8 years ago (PIII era) barely breaks 70% efficiency.

TnL only enabled in later drivers? That means EMULATION... It only does software TnL and shaders.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.p...amp;postcount=2

As about only needing 60Hz on a LCD, well, the only LCD monitor i have is my laptop's display. AND refresh rate = response time, so your 2ms monitor will be useless if you only give it 60Hz refresh.



That is because your CPU is able to do all the work.



I'm sorry to say, but you are wrong here. As Zxian pointed out, in this case it's not about the power output but the effciency of that particular PSU.

It's not peak wattage, it's efficiency. Hopefully the next time you build a PC you'll do research into which PSU is the most efficient AC unit and use that, not just purchase the lowest wattage unit you can find and assume you're being efficient.

Funny how you're talking about this but don't say a word about the cooling needed.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/12/epic_integrated_graphics/

Well, mine sure doesn't! It's got a SiS one.

Not like this onboard stuff will last long anyway. Sure, built-in chipsets of today are better than a SoundBlaster 16 PCI, but my argument was that instead of buying something decent as a separate card, which meant you could actually decide what you wanted, it's now all on-board as cheap low-end chipsets.

Which is just an example of how you can. Of course you can. But such a rig is not everywhere, and it's not the standard.

Of course. The Core Duo series is based on the Centrino architecture. But there's more than Core Duo out there, and generally the heat rises exponentially the more cores you have on a CPU, which means more cooling, which means more power consumption.

Cooling has evolved. Today's big coolers are big because of the "silent PC" trend, and it's really better that way. I've had 4 P4s, still have a 2.4GHz Prescott clocked to 3.6 in mom's rig, and man does it run HOT despite it having a properly sized cooler fitted.
The Northwoods were alright, but i remember the 3.0GHz HT Prescott. Its stock cooler went up to 5400rpm and sounded like a jet taking off yet the chip ran at 72C in the summer. A ThermalRight XP-90 took care of both heat and noise, and it's a cooler that can cope with any current dual or quad-core CPUs, just that it doesn't fit LGA775 as far as i know. Too bad i sold it a few years back, it would've done a nice job in mom's current PC.

Did you ever see the coolers for the 45nm C2Ds? I thought "man, those look like they were pulled straight from a 486... Yet they're quiet, and they cool the chips just fine at stock speeds. When you're a computer enthusiast and like to squeeze every last MHz from your chip, of course you're going to need big coolers, it's always been that way. But the stock LGA775 cooler can even keep quads within their normal temperature limits at stock speeds. I can't say that about the P4 Prescotts.



You speak about integrated graphics. Intel's integrated graphics is what they always were - RUBBISH. You can't expect an integrated graphics solution to run demanding games. Intel's current CHIPSETS are awesome. Oh btw, your link is broken.



Wow, SiS. Don't remind me how incredibly s***ty those were.



There's nothing stopping you from buying a dedicated audio card if you're not happy with the onboard. And onboard audio has really evolved in the past few years. It's meant to provide a cheap HD-compliant audio solution for people that aren't audiophiles or performance gamers, and does that very well.



The Q6600 eats less power than a P4 Prescott, and that's a FACT. 4 much more advanced cores using less power than a single core. Sure, the C2Q takes up 30W more than the C2D, but it's got double the processing power. And it STILL uses less than the P4 Prescott.

The Core architecture is based on Pentium M. Centrino was a mobile PLATFORM, which contains a Pentium M CPU on an Intel mobo with an Intel wireless card. That once again shows how misinformed you are.

Are you drunk?

Have you even looked at the coolers from a Core 2 Quad? They're smaller and quieter then the P4s ever were. Hell you could hardly even call the regular Core 2 Duo stock cooler a cooler considering is such a small and quiet cooler. I've never seen anything that small and quiet from any previous CPU from either AMD or Intel. Also, the TDP is the MAXIMUM heat output under 100% load. Under regular use then generate even less heat thanks to things like Speed Step.

Umm, you haven't proven anything at all.

Just the fact that you bought a SiS based motherboard already speaks wonders about the greatest of your hardware knowledge.

The on-board chipsets trump anything that was designed in the early 90s. The chipsets that you refer to as cheap can do more, faster, better and with less power then any of your draconian hardware can.

Not the standard? And what do you define as standard? A machine built on archaic technology that's built in a beige box running an AT power supply?

More cores is not the only factor in heat generation. A single core based on a 250nm architecture is going to generate plenty more heat then four cores built using a 45nm process.

I think you're throwing arguments around thinking you're still in another decade. You should catch up with the times because the times obviously left you behind.