In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips kony <spam@spam.com> wrote in part:
>>have to be multiplied by a factor reflecting the PSU inefficiency.
>
> True, but if we're going to be THAT technically correct, anyone
> using a faster system will get their work done sooner and turn
> off the system sooner, leave the room sooner turning off the
> lights sooner, etc.

AFAIR, PSU efficiency is ~50%. 70% for some of the best units.
No way a faster computer gets total work done that much faster.

> It doesn't have to. All it has to do is be such a small
> difference in power consumption that it is a bad place to focus.
> However modern generation cards do make a difference in video
> decoding, offloading as much of the power used by the CPU as
> they use themselves, if a lower end card is chosen.

This might apply if vid.decoding were the main task of the comp.
Like watching DVDs. But if it is, a dedicated DVD player is
certainly lower power.

> I'm not trying to pimp video cards, just saying that taking the
> great modern advances in PCs and castrating the whole thing one
> piece at a time is kinda wasteful, we might as well have just
> kept an older system because if we had, there wouldn't be the
> higher numbers for power consumption being listed.

No, older systems have larger feature sizes and needed higher
voltages at lower clocks. Per unit computation, modern CPUs are
_far_ more efficient. You should have seen a 5V Pentium 60!

Undervolting and underclocking is alive and well in the mobile
[laptop] market. Get one of those CPUs. Skipping the GPU
is a similar trade-off. Save 15W of power even at idle,
but lose some capability, especially 3D games. Notice the
low-end video cards are disappearing.

> So it goes for other parts as well, that each one could
> be discounted if we only limited our uses to those which
> didn't need more performance, but that's a bit counter to
> the idea of a PC, it's strength being it's versatility.

Sure. Just add the vid.card if/when you need it.

-- Robert