The Environmental Differential

It's hard to figure out just how strong the "go green" movement in IT is, but with oil hovering around $140 a barrel, the appeal of cost-savings and environmental benefits isn't going away.

Environmental considerations, as well as a slowing economy, have both consumers and companies enthusiastic about what some are calling a fad, and others, a necessity. The CRN Test Center decided to build a "green" PC—with some components supplied by several vendors and others by Harrisburg, Pa.-based D&H Distributing Ltd.—to see how the numbers add up.

We decided to focus our attention on the power consumption of the individual components used, as this is where the Test Center believes the interest of most SMBs will lie. As we were sourcing the parts, newer, low-power competitors were just being announced, and that trend is likely to continue. The components we used had the lowest draw, relative to their functionality, that we were aware of at the time of testing.

Motherboard
The motherboard we chose is the AsusTek Computer Inc. P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n. Billed as "The Most Energy Efficient Motherboard in the World" (a claim that another Taiwan-based board manufacturer is currently contesting in court), the heart of the P5E3 is the Asus EPU (Energy Processing Unit).

The EPU analyzes the CPU load and dynamically regulates various parameters to optimize power consumption. Asus states that the EPU, working together with its AI Gear 3+ utility, can attain power efficiency and energy savings of up to more than 58 percent.

This particular model of the P5E3 features Intel Corp.'s X38 chipset, which supports CrossFire (should it be used for gaming), includes a remote control and has passive cooling, as well as on-board WiFi 802.11n. In addition to the expected internal and external connections are two Gigabit RJ-45 ports that allow the PC to serve as a network gateway for managing traffic between two separate networks.

The first screen to appear when the board is powered on is the menu for the Asus Express Gate. Express Gate is an embedded, Linux-based, instant-on (approximately five seconds) environment that gives quick access to both the Web and Skype. The user can also choose to continue booting, enter the BIOS or power off. Express Gate will automatically exit and boot to the OS after a preselected amount of time. Because Express Gate is entirely self-contained on the motherboard, it can be used even when a hard drive isn't attached.

Since the P5E Deluxe does not have integrated graphics, we used the Radeon HD 3470 from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s ATI division. This high-definition card is built on 55nm technology that allows it to run cooler and quieter. It is designed with up to twice the processing performance per watt than previous generations of AMD GPUs and utilizes ATI's PowerPlay Technology to dynamically reduce power consumption at idle or low usage.

The HD 3470 is a PCI Express 2.0 card that has a DVI Dual-Link connector and an S-Video port. There also are CrossFireX connectors for the gamers. A large heat sink covers about 90 percent of the board with no fan.

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