We've all seen energy prices ratchet upwards over the past several months -- BI's own provider is raising their rates by an additional 7.5% in January -- so taking steps to slow the drain on our finances might mean the difference between having to choose between Red Alert 3 and Diablo 3, and being able to spring for both. Ultimately finding the time to play both, however, is another matter altogether, and is left as an exercise for the reader.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a hardware geek, not master of the space-time continuum!

Oh. Right.

The two hungriest components are going to be the CPU and video subsystem, each with an appetite for upwards of a hundred watts, and frequently more under full throttle. There aren't a lot of things you can do to blunt this if you're engaged in any demanding tasks, other than try to make use of the newest chips that fit your needs and budget -- shrinking manufacturing processes mean lower power consumption for the same level of performance. A 45nm chip with the same architecture as a 60nm chip will use less juice to do the job, thereby saving energy and putting off less heat; that, friends and neighbors, is a win-win.

Speaking of win, there are some rather nice performance gains to be had for folks looking to build a low-energy system. Chief among them is one of the newest toys to join the consumer space, the solid-state disk (SSD) as a hard drive replacement. Still on the spendy side, but they've come down in price a lot lately, and this is one trend we can all keep an eye on while grinning inwardly.

The other big draw sits on top of your desk -- your monitor. LCDs offer a tremendous savings in terms of power consumption over their CRT forebears, and some manufacturers are pushing the envelope of incremental gains by edging towards zero-watts at standby with some models. That said, billboard-sized LCD displays will still suck down some non-trivial amount of juice -- just not nearly as much as a like-sized CRD or Plasma. At a previous gig, BI used to heat queso on a 17" CRT; our current 27" LCD, despite being able to bathe our entire office in a warm digital glow, won't even keep our coffee above room temperature.

PC manufacturers, hoping to get some favorable attention (read: sales), aren't shy about talking up their green cred, whether it's manufacturing efficiency, cost of operation, or component recycling. This stuff takes energy to make and get rid of, too.

Rock Stupid Tip of the Day:



Rafe Brox spends his days wielding a phone in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. When not causing friends and enemies alike to /facepalm electronically, he can be found extolling the virtues of the weird peripherals in his life, from kettlebells to the Trackman Marble. If you also share an unhealthy passion for PC hardware or know a good place he can get help for this addiction, the target coordinates are rafe.brox AT weblogsinc DOT com.