Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/06/16 21:26 (GMT+0200) Per Jessen composed:
I don't the efficiency of a desktop PC is really much of a topic. When we're talking about computational power per unit-of-energy, it's not very useful to talk about a system that is idling and in power-save mode most of the time. In fact, I have to wonder if average power consumption on the desktop really is up - I would have thought power-saving measures have become so much better in just the last 2-3 years, that average consumption would have gone down.
I don't see how anyone could infer our discussion applies to systems in power saving modes.
You were talking about desktops and/or workstations - the usual work profile for such systems is tied to how people work, and there is plenty of opportunity for a system to reduce power when not in use. Reduce CPU frequency and what have you. An vanilla openSUSE installation comes with powersaved which is AFAIK meant to govern some or all of those measures. (CPU frequency scaling for instance). AMD CPUs also have very good built-in power management features.
I've never see stats to translate theoretical power saving improvements into what happens in real life.
In large offices, modern PCs with various kinds of power saving measures have reduced energy consumption considerably - not just the energy needed for the PCs, but also the energy needed for the airconditioning.
The only way to know is probably to put watt meters on similarly little used old and new systems side by side.
Yep something like that would work. On the other hand I just need to check my electricity bill to see that my newer systems use less. /Per -- Per Jessen, Zürich (16.4°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org