Vista - bad for the environment, bad for you?

[cheapherk]

Check out this clip.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: 43st
- Benchmarks have shown negligible power consumption differences between Vista and XP, and those didn't included the use of custom low power profiles.

I think the point is Vista will force many people to upgrade to machines with beefier specs - particularly with beefier graphics chips, which use more energy.

1) The onboard video on present-day motherboards takes little energy, and can run Vista.

2) People who are upgrading an older system with a new video card in order to get Aero Glass are not going to buy a high-end card, they're going to buy a cheap card. And cheap cards don't pull a lot of power. Here's a cheap Vista-capable card as an example: Radeon 9600 Pro pulls 9 watts idle, 18 watts at full throttle.

3) You also assume that the upgraded video card takes more power than the video card it's replacing. Which draws more power, an old 9700 Pro or a new 7900GT?

4) the people who will buy a high-end, power-hungry card are probably going to buy it anyway, because they want the performance. Do you really think people will buy a power-gulping US$300-500 card just to run Aero Glass? If you have a problem with people wanting high-performance 3D acceleration, you have a bigger problem than just Vista.

5) at the moment, I am using electric heat to heat my apartment because it is 2°C outside. Any heat that my PC produces is simply that much less heat that my baseboard heaters have to produce. Given a choice, I'd rather have an electric heater that I can play Mechwarrior 4 on (electric heaters that I can cook pizza in are next-best ).

 

[Shawn]

How stupid.

 

[Kappo]

I think my IQ dropped to many points to form a reasonable respose to this article Let me wait a while and see if it is only temporary.

 

[gerwen]

It's been cold up here in Ontario all week.... will everyone hurry up and upgrade already? We need a break from this cold snap.

 

[threeheaddog]

the poster is somewhat right. people and buisinesses do not upgrade their current PCs they buy new ones. this is the attitude that is the analogy for a wasting polluting world.

go buy a stick of 512....