Neal Gompa composed on 2022-10-09 02:32 (UTC-0400):
If we're going to bring up the environment, the computers made more than ten years ago are vastly more energy inefficient and pull more energy than most computers you can buy in the last five years. Recycling those computers and harvesting their base materials to
You really think recycling of materials happens to more than a small fraction of production? I haven't seen any numbers to actually support that theory. It's capacity to produce profit has proven poor so far.
produce better computers would be good for the environment because it reduces the carbon footprint of that person using a computer.
I've seen that argument and am not convinced "carbon footprint" is more than politics. Without carbon their couldn't be life. It's everywhere. We can't materially change the amount of it. All we can do is try to minimize converting it from neutral or positive to detrimental states, such as filling landfills, and without producing collateral damage as this junking of the Core2Duo-class population would constitute. Neither am I convinced of the "vastness" of the as-installed and used difference. I go by my consumption meter, listed by newest to oldest, 0 with discrete graphics cards (except for iMac with integrated 24" 1920x1200 & Radeon HD 2600): Consumption rate/instant|CPU model |Intro | Cores/Threads | Watts | RAM | storage 0.7041KWh/24h, 31W idle: v4 i5-11400 Q1'21 6 cores12 thrds 65WTDP 16GDDR4 120G NVME 0.7281KWh/24h, 29W idle; v3 i3-7100T Q1'17 2 cores 4 thrds 35WTDP 16GDDR4 120G NVME 2X1T HDD 0.4905KWh/24h, 21W idle; v2 G4600 Q1'17 2 cores 4 thrds 51WTDP 16GDDR4 120G NVME 1.0415KWh/24h, 37W idle; v3 i3-4150T Q2'14 2 cores 4 thrds 35WTDP 32GDDR3 120G SSD 2X1T HDD 1.1163KWh/24h, 46W idle; v2A10-7850K Q1'14 4 cores 4 thrds 95WTDP 8GDDR3 250G SSD 0.5581KWh/24h, 25W idle; v2 G3220 Q3'13 2 cores 2 thrds 53WTDP 16GDDR3 250G SSD 0.7082KWh/24h, 33W idle; v1 E7600 Q2'09 2 cores 2 thrds 65WTDP 4GDDR2 250G SSD 1.1345KWh/24h, 48W idle; v1 E8400 Q1'08 2 cores 2 thrds 45WTDP 8GDDR3 750G HDD 1.0490KWh/24h, 46W idle; v1 E8400 Q1'08 2 cores 2 thrds 45WTDP 4GDDR3 750G HDD 0.9752KWh/24h,114W idle; v1 T7700 Q2'07 2 cores 2 thrds 35WTDP 4GDDR2 1T HDD * iMac 1.1314KWh/24h, 48W idle; v1 E4400 Q2'07 2 cores 2 thrds 65WTDP 2GDDR2 160G HDD 1.3409KWh/24h, 57W idle; v1 E6700 Q3'06 2 cores 2 thrds 65WTDP 4GDDR2 1TB HDD I have a twin to the E8400/4GDDR3 above, but with Radeon HD 6450 discrete GPU from Q1'11 that idles @38W, less than with the IGP in use. :p Minimum uptime used to calculate KWh/24h was 120 minutes; my meter only displays 2 decimal places. What I see above looks like much less than a halving of power demands over a 16 year period, a savings somewhere between nil (i5-11400 .7041 vs. E7600 .7082) and 47% (2 core/35W i3-7100T .7281 vs worst Core2Duo E6700 1.3709 for 46.89% savings). Newest vs worst, .7041 vs. 1.3409 for equal TDP produced 48.64% savings. Best of newest vs best of oldest for equal TDP (.7281/.9752) is 74.66% for 25.34% savings. Disregarding TDP, best newer .4905 (which isn't even v3) vs best Core2Duo .7082 is 69.26% for mere 30.74% saving over 8 years of advances. Servers run 24/7. The rest are part time. Most businesses don't run theirs 24/7, or even 9-5/5. Homes I have to guess average under 24 hours per week, depending on users per PC and whether home learning is their only reason to be present. It certainly doesn't look like doubling of capability or halving of consumption every 18 months. It looks much closer to one tenth that; nothing "vast", once actual usage is weighed against the other numbers. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata