Greenjobs Blog

If you want to save energy (and save money too!) with a new computer you are about to purchase, we will give you some steps to follow. They will help you to buy an energy efficient computer so you can save energy when using it. By saving energy you can also save money because of a lower energy bill.

1. Do you really need a desktop computer?

Laptop use less than half of the energy a desktop computer use, and they produce less heat too. So your room will be up to 4 degrees cooler while you save valuable energy. A laptop must be enough for office, Internet and middle requirement work, so if you don’t need serious horsepower consider buying a laptop.

2. Buy an energy saving processor

One of the components which use most energy in a computer is its processor. i7 and Phenom II quad core processors are very nice and very powerful, but they use too much energy (more than 120W). Try to buy a processor which suits your requirements with the lowest energy consumption possible. Two processors which use very few energy are the Core 2 Duo E7200 from Intel and the Athlon 64 X2 5050e from AMD.

3. Can I save energy with RAM, Motherboard and hard disk?

Well, not really, these components won’t make a big difference, but you can follow some guidelines. First, less RAM modules = less energy use, so buy just 2 (to enable dual channel) and no more. Motherboard won’t give you more than 1 or 2 watt saving.

Hard Disks; I would seriously recommend Seagate 7200.12 series, which offer great performance with very good energy consumption. There are some “eco” and “green” models out there, but sometimes they have poor performance and they don’t make a big difference from other hard disks. SSD may help you to save some energy (sometimes they use less than 1W, regular hard disks use up to 5W), but they are very expensive.

4. Graphic card for low energy consumption gaming

Graphic card is the other component which drains a lot of energy in your computer among the processor. Let’s see some tips to choose the most efficient one for you.

First, if you are going to use your computer to play games, the most powerful model I would go for is the Radeon HD 4770 (78W peak), which has a great performance per watt. If you want to play but not too serious, I’d go for the GeForce 9500 GT (with DDR3 memory, 38W peak). If you need dedicated graphic card but won’t use it for playing at all, I’d go for the Radeon HD 4350 (15W peak). If you don’t want to play games, just buy a motherboard with integrated graphics card.

You can check graphic card energy consumption here.

5. Energy efficient power supply

Now you have a general idea about which pieces to buy for your next computer to save some energy, you must choose a very important part, the power supply. Always look for efficient ones (80+ certification).

There are some brands and models you can trust, they are not just efficient, but very good quality PSUs: Corsair (VX 550, HX 750), OCZ (Stealthstream 500), Seasonic… For an efficient computer, 550W must be more than enough. You may want a list of efficient PSUs. Check it and look for PSUs with 90% efficiency if possible.

In two years you will have saved the cost of a good PSU in energy saving and lower energy bills. Consider avoiding bad quality or cheap PSUs as they have very poor efficiency (70% or less).

Now you have an idea about what to buy to get an energy efficient computer. Coming soon, how to save energy by optimizing your laptop and enhancing its battery life. Also valid for desktop computers.