Columns Performance per what?

hmm i can give an example of BMW. They make faster engines but with better fuel economy then the engine before that. Infact its a statement they made themselfs.

to go even further on the car approach. What if the US gasoline prices sudenly are european prices. (like 1.46 euro for 1 liter unleaded) So for 1 gallon they must pay 7.40 dollar.

How fast do you think, will the american people ditch their v8 bullcatchers pickups and buy fuel economic "rice" or european cars?

The same is with energy consuming consumer electronics. Over here the electricity bills are rising every year. My bill at the moment is 290 euro a month (that is 391 dollars ) I have a plasma tv and a 24/7 watercooled pc rigg and the usual household stuff like everyone else.

So am i wrong to think about some savings that can be made in the energy hardware is using?

 

i don't think that's right

just because you shelled out for a high end piece of equipment, why should that mean you have to pay more for power, more for a bigger PSU, more for more fans to cool all of this extra stuff

Just because you go out an buy a $50k sports car, OK your not too fussed it uses more fuel, but you are fussed that it doesn't guzzle fuel so fast that the USA cant steal it fast enough

So while i expect high end components to use more power, i don't think its reasonable to expect that the power requirements are completely off the wall

 

Google Peak Oil and scare yourself silly

 

It felt like the article was rushed through; although the main point is clear, the body isn't too interesting, and then kinda irrelevant save the planet sentences are randomly thrown around. Usually your writing style is much better I think, I don't know maybe it just me.

 

anyone notice the "power consumption" section at the end of the recent atricle on the Intel P35 chipset

 

For me I do like to recycle... I recycle to keep Earth nature and it's beutty.
I really do not beleive in Global Warming. Its just a stage that Earth is passing through like the middle age period. Maybe C02 that we product accelerate a bit the effect, but it's something that cannot be stop. Don't think for a second that I say that as I won't be affected. 'cause in case you don't know, I live in a little tiny island called Montreal in Quebec Canada, where we should be under water.

For me it's just some political propaganda that touch world wide. Soon (already started here), instead of saying to the industries that pollute and use a high-quantity of electricity each minute to invest in new machinery and techniques to use less energy, the government will take advantage of this, and tax us even more. Like: tax on the weight of the garbage your trow away, if you use a garbage compactor you get tax discount, buy a Hybird car get xx mount of money off, tax our water, increase electrical bill, ban light bulb (btw, do you know that the energy efficient light bulb has a high concentration of mercury? Well it does, so now it pollutes our water and kill animals), and I can go on with that... well I got more to say but now we go into conspiracy and such, and change the subject.

For desktop, there is no problem with power consumption, for laptop it's IS. It's not normal that a tablet PC doesn't even have 2-3 hours of battery on a heavy 6cell battery. All laptops, tablet PC's should have around 5-7 hours of battery life. I mean isn't that the point, to make it PORTABLE and MOBILE.

For now all I see for Tablet PC's are 2-3 hours of battery life (and that is IF you disable a couple of devices), most models without an optical drive, which is ridiculous, horrible sound card, descent single core CPU (very rare to see dual core), slow hdd, and finally a video card that can't even play a video smoothly, thanks to Intel integrated graphics team that does great work. Now this is for tablet PC's and convertibles ones.

For notebook it is LESS the case, but it's still existent. Why can't we have a decent GPU, that can play some sort of game, and play videos including DVD playback compatible, and not waist so much battery life?!? In same cases I know that Nvidia or ATI video card are better and uses less battery life then Intel crap, but companies still go with crappy Intel... (maybe because Intel pays them or something))

 

Can we please dispense with the whole anti-US sentiment?

Seriously. We have completely different lifestyles and economy than you guys do.

Stop pulling all this holier-than-thou crap about how much smaller and more efficient cars you have.

What I'm trying to get across is that it's not always possible to apply general concepts to a very extreme fringe of something. Across the board, yeah, efficiency is a big issue, but not so much with the really over-the-top make-any-and-all-possible-sacrifices-for-speed crowd.

 

I gotta look up power use on the x800 but if that's 120W @ full load

There are resources scattered around the net with this info and while It would be nice to have a central location for it all things change so fast and manufacturers make so many variations (_/X/GT/GTX/XT/GTO/GS/... plus various overclocked versions plus, plus die shrinks without name changes, plus...) that it's a lot of work for one site to keep the all data up to date - I once found a site that had this but last I looked it was sadly quite outdated.

Still, doesn't sound like a bad idea.

I remember it almost being a scandal when Intel started using heatsinks. (anyone else remember the bit about the guy designing a new toaster? )

- though of course any label on a laptop GPU seems to be an exaggeration at best.

 

Although I'll grant you that average distances in the US mean that cars have to be able to travel a fair stretch, I don't see how that should relate to less efficient fuel economy. Quite the opposite, in fact. For long distances across, say, the Nevada deserts or the forrests in Washington you need lean-burning, highly reliable Diesel engines if anything.

I don't think that differences in "lifestyle" and "economy" are a valid argument. Both are a matter of choice and can be changed --at some personal sacrifice. Whether people are prepared to make it, is another matter... I don't think that in this regard Americans are any more indolent and selfish than the rest of the world, but that like the rest of us, they will start looking at the fuel economic aspects of their next car only when fuel prices are starting to bite.

True, the high-end crowd will simply care more about performance than about economy. However even the Ferrari crowd finds an F1 racing car too impractical...

 

Isn't alot of this 1Kw PSU stuff ect. a case of 'my p*nis is bigger than yours?'

Basically, no-one NEEDS dual 8800 Ultra's. One on a 30" is fine for basically every game out at the mo. Also, most low end C2D's will perform fine in gaming situations ect.

I think the main issue is people will always want bragging rights, hence economy has been pushed to the back of the agenda, while 'mine is better than yours' is number one on the list.

(God, I’m already sounding like a column righter. )

 

Everything was going fine untill those three (3) spelling mistakes!

Now you're down to two, come on Mankz, use that expensive education!

 

(somewhat edited - again)

Just becuase I go to an expensive school doesn't mean I can't make basic spelling and grammar mistakes .

 

The steps for environmental friendliness go

1. Reduce
2. Re-Use
3. Recycle

All this recycling **** is bollocks, quite frankly there is tonnes of packaging out there right now that's just a blatant waste of space

Companies could do a lot more for the environment by making their products with less packaging, used more efficiently, sure when you have reduced as much as you can, and re-used as much as you can, then is the time to recycle

To quote a recent statistic i saw "We Recycled 60% of our rubbish last month"
Well whoopty doo, did you reduce the amount of rubbish you used at all though, because that's what really counts

 

Well as consumers you can only do so much, but changing packaging of companies is for governments to legislate against. You can't just say "they're not doing it so I'm not!"

 

[Off Topic]

still not -erm- right
[/Off Topic]

 

To contradict the article somewhat, the OVERWHELMING majority of devices available on the market today include power saving modes but these must be activated by software. If the total extent of nVidia or ATI's power management strategy extends to enabling and disabling 3D mode they have a lot to answer for. There are always spare bus cycles when the CPU/GPU core could idle and allow the DMA to shuttle data around. Then when the terminal count interrupt is received you wake up, bravo, a full data set, let's get on with it.

Long story short, nVidia, ATi and Microsoft could probably do rather a lot for my electricity bill by optimising their drivers and software interfaces to stop banging the cards at full speed all the time.

 

Anyone remember the Turbo button?

Why not have crap like that for graphics cards and CPUs?

Hell, you could even do better. Have a minimal mode, where you'd be running one core, underclocked, and 2D-only graphics. Then a normal mode, with one core at full clock, with adequate 3D graphics, then a 'turbo' mode, with both cores at full clock, and the graphics card turned all the way up?

Nexxo, it has everything to do with what's considered socially acceptable. In the states, or at least in the suburbs, having huge inefficient vehicles is not only acceptable, it's expected. I don't see folks with children between ages 5 and 18 who don't own minivans. I don't think we can point a finger to why. Is it because that's how the media portrays what is 'normal'? Is it because that's how companies market their cars? Is it because that's what everyone else is doing?

And my comment isn't targeted at those people who can take an unbiased look at things, or who realize that people in different situations make different decisions. I'm just tired of constantly being generalized as a wasteful American pig just because of the actions of my countrymen. Don't think that I don't get pissed off when I see a five foot nothing woman hop out of a 3 ton truck, parked illegally in the fire lane.

What I don't like is generalizations like "all americans drive huge cars and don't care about the environment, because they're lazy" Very rarely is something that broad true. It's just playing off of stupid stereotypes.

 

Already has, and it's automatic...
more you load the CPU or GPU more it will increase speed. Both Intel, AMD (CoolnQuiet) for CPU's and ATI and Nvidia for GPUs has it.

Heres a nice example with AMD CoolnQuiet system with S939 or newer CPU's.
I use this example as this is what I have.
If your computer is idle the CPU is at 500Mhz, if you have Winamp, Trillian, Firefox, it's at 800Mhz. If you browse folders it's at 600Mhz. The mili-second you run a program it jumps at MAX speed, and jumps down. If only 1 core is in use, then the second core is under clocked.
A similar system exist for laptops... but a lot of improvements could be done.

And if your mobo permits, you even have an automatic TURBO button... it can overclock your CPU up to 10% (apparently doesn't not void warranty as the settings are tested with the CPU manufacture as well)

 

GeForce 8800 still runs at full whack (at least according to RivaTuner) when it's idle. At least, that was the case with the card I was playing around with earlier today.

 

interesting, I see a confirmation from a contact I have with someone (engineer) I know from Nvidia.
I'm sure we will tell me as the card it out... stay tuned...