Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air
Apple's Mac mini tops chart of 'green' computers
The sust-it website, which provides rankings of energy usage and annual energy cost for thousands of appliances, home entertainment devices, and computers, has announced that Apple's Mac mini fills the top four spots for the most efficient desktop computer in their latest listing.The 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mac mini is at the top of the chart, sipping just .94W when turned off (power still goes to circuits monitoring the power status of the computer), 1.71W when in sleep mode, and just 12.6W when turned on but in an idle mode. sust-it calculated the energy cost per year for the mini (without a monitor, of course) as US$5.51 when calculated with the average US electrical rate. It's interesting to note that this model is no longer produced by Apple, and that the new 2.26 GHz mini is even more energy efficient. Apple's own environmental report for the mini shows that the revised model uses only .80W when turned off, 1.39W in sleep mode, but 13.4W while in idle mode.
Not surprisingly, other Apple models were near the top of the charts in both the laptop and all-in-one computer categories. The 1.86 GHz MacBook Air was barely edged out of first place in the laptop category by the HP Pavilion DM3. Although the two laptops had identical annual energy costs (US$2.39), the HP model had lower sleep and off power consumption than the MBA.
In the all-in-one category, the top iMac came in 6th behind eMachines, Acer, Asus, and MSI all-in-ones. Although the sust-it site is citing an iMac model that is no longer produced, even the new iMacs would be a bit behind the list-leading eMachines EZ1601.
If the power consumption and CO2 footprint of your computer is of concern to you, the sust-it site is a good place to make comparisons. Be aware, however, that due to the fast-paced changes in the computing world, the lists may be inaccurate at any particular point in time. In addition, it doesn't appear that sust-it looks at the total lifecycle energy consumption of the computers, something that Apple provides in their environmental reports for each model. When energy consumption and CO2 production are factored from raw materials at the beginning of production to recycling of an obsolete machine, Macs may very well lead the pack in all categories.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Level 5 said 5:37PM on 11-27-2009
These comparisons are largely stupid and irrelevant. If you've seen my posts, you know I'm not a fan of Apple's computers (moreso of the iPod/iPhone); but there's a few glaring holes in the arguement that would easily tip the scales in Apple's favor
1 - Are we looking at comparable processors in these all-in-ones? If we are not, then the article becomes irrelevant. That's like saying your 1.8L 4 cylinder Toyota Corrolla gets better gas mileage than a Corvette but it gets you to 60mph in 3x the ticks on the stopwatch. In the case of the MBA vs the HP, a middle of the road 1.86ghz C2D E6320 (which I would assume is close to or is the chip in the MBA, I don't know what chip it uses admittedly) runs all over the HP's SP9300. It does take more power, but it's a faster chip. In the case of a Core 2 Duo vs any of those Atom based, this is ridiculous. In NO MACHINE do these Atoms deliver the performance of a Core2. Not even in the ballpark. Not a PC vs Mac debate, it's common sense. The Atoms were made for low power usage and battery longevity for notebooks; and they're thusly slow as shit. As a matter of fact, the iMac is the most frugal dual-core machine in that list.
2 - Are we looking at comparable displays for the all-in-ones? Same sizes? IPS displays in the other machines that are being compared to the iMac? Again, saying my 17" widescreen in an MSi Machine yields lower power results than a 20" or 24" iMac of last generation is a no brainer. Bigger needs more power in this generation.
3 - Power supplies? Video hardware? Again, no brainer. Crappy power supplies are usually going to be less efficient, more powerful peripherals would also need more power
So if you REALLY want to look at the facts, the iMac and Mini blow away the competition in power usage because they are SEVERAL TIMES FASTER for a negligable power draw different in light of the machine speed. I mean I get what the article is trying to convey, but it's not that black and white really.
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obo said 5:56PM on 11-27-2009
sust-it doesn't look at performance-per-watt in any appliance category, just overall power draw. It's a reference site with data, not a review site with information.
Besides, you're attacking them despite them finding that the 2GHz mini had a lower overall power draw than Atom-powered ION-less nettops _despite_ packing all those extra features.
Quit flaming someone for handing you golden data that supports your assertions just because they don't support them _enough_. That's insanity.
crsh said 6:12PM on 11-27-2009
"Green-washing", especially for anything that resembles electronics or vehicles, is getting scarier by the day. There's nothing clean about computers, some are just a little less worse than others; that's like holding a contest for morbidly obese people and picking which contestant is the slimmest of the bunch.
It's all just PR, you're not saving the planet.
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Level 5 said 6:24PM on 11-27-2009
obo
Your little tirade still doesn't stop the data from being incomplete. If you had READ what I wrote, you'd notice majority of my criticism was with where the iMac was placed, being a clearly faster machine by a factor of several TIMES the Atom PC's, yet still able to rank among them. The mini's position over Atom based nettops is even more remarkable; but they simply do not tell you the machine is faster, or offer a link to benchmarking. I have a hard time believe I'm the only person who would think this is suspect.
To go back to my car analogy, the iMac would be akin to seeing a Corvette get about 35MPG on the highway with 435HP vs the Corolla's 120HP, and saying "Oh, the Corolla get's 3 more MPG". You don't see a shootout between different engine categories in car mags, because that would make the results inaccurate at best, worthless at worst.
The lack of data on the chip speed or differences in display size is a huge omission because it EXISTS on other product categories on this site, namely LCD/Plasma TV's. Why weren't these machines divided by processor type or screen size? Awfully fishy to me.
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robogobo said 6:45PM on 11-27-2009
calm down.
robogobo said 6:48PM on 11-27-2009
calm down.
Naes said 1:31AM on 11-28-2009
Seriously, Level 5, you're the only one going on a tirade.
Relax a little bit. It's just some eco-rating website. A new one of these comes out every week.
It's obvious you hate apple computers and all people who have anything good to say about them.
Blizaine said 10:42AM on 11-28-2009
I think it's pretty awesome that the mini does so well with power usage. Also, you have to go down the list pretty far before you hit a CPU as fast as the mini and even further to find a machine that has a better GPU. Most of those all have Intel GPUs.
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Don said 1:35PM on 11-29-2009
In light of Climategate, I think it's time to stop worrying about CO2. That was obviously faked science.
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EnergyGuy said 12:54PM on 1-10-2010
RE: Energy Star Figures - Sust-It Website
I quote from the source website - "Based on estimated annual power consumption using data published by ENERGY STAR TEC. Usage is defined by these criteria."
Note ESTIMATED ! - Also the Energy Star data that is used is that submitted by the manufacturers - not independantly tested.
In my opinion, that is going to lead to some fishy claims..... confirmed by the example below....
"Consumer Reports tested a number of Energy Star® labeled appliances, with interesting results. They found one Samsung refrigerator that used 890kWh annually, compared to the 540kWh reported by the company on its Energy Star® tag. Another, noted above, used more than double its claimed amount with its ice maker turned on (the EPA later withdrew the Energy Star® from this product)."
Read more at Suite101: Energy Star® Ratings: Are They Really Accurate and Reliable? http://energy-conservation.suite101.com/article.cfm/energy_star_ratings#ixzz0cEVFlzW0
Just so that everyone knows !
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