[GRLUG] Net-top as server?

[Michael Mol]

Bob Kline wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 1:23 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com 
> <mailto:mikemol at gmail.com>> wrote:
>     There's a small computer shop on the corner of Ivanrest and 28th st
>     that's selling tiny refurbished DeskPros with 2.4GHz P4 processors for
>     $125 apiece.  Might be worth looking into.  I couldn't tell you what
>     their power consumption is, off-hand.  They might be willing to cut a
>     deal if you ordered several of them without an operating system; They
>     might be able to take those keys and use them on something else.
>      
> 
> I think some of the P4's consumed
> 125W.  Maybe the special edition ones.
> But the clock speeds are high, and they
> eat power.  At $125 one could use some
> of the savings to give to the power company...

The NetBurst architecture is pretty bad at a performance-per-watt basis. 
  However, the Atom architecture is no angel; While researching building 
a carputer, I was warned away from Atom-based boards as they "ran too hot."

But, again, if we're talking about simple file serving, your CPU demands 
are going to be very, very low, and the power-consumed-while-idle is 
extremely low for any x86 CPU designed after the Pentium (As in, the 
thing that would have been called 80586 had Intel not lost their 
trademark case against Cyrix), I think.


> 
> One could get or borrow a Kill-A-Watt and
> take it along.  Cyberguys carries them.

Always a good idea, but remember that power consumption depends a great 
deal on workload.