World's First Carbon Free Processor

[jpaulb]

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7-d/index.jsp

Interesting

[fos]

It just so happens that my experimental server is running on a Via C-7 processor. You can experience the eco friendly server at:

http://percenthost.com

fos.... :)

[jpaulb]

It just so happens that my experimental server is running on a Via C-7 processor. You can experience the eco friendly server at:

http://percenthost.com

fos.... :)
Why is that company not more popular, 2.0 Ghz 20 watts of power? I know where my next CPU is coming from. Who makes a reliable motherboard?

With that kind of power consumption you could place a solar panel on your roof, tie that to a couple of deep cycling batteries and power your server farm. No worries about power outages.

I ran a tree mark calculation on the AMD 60 3200+ I'm using. I would have to buy up half the county for a tree farm to offset the amount of CO2 generated to keep it running. After seeing Al Gores Inconvenient Truth for the 3rd time, I'm convinced that planting more trees is not the answer. Wasting less energy is.

[fos]

Both Via and Jetway produce mother boards using the C7 processor. The least expensive place I have found is:

http://www.mini-box.com

I buy ram, cases, and hard drives from other sources.

fos....

[danieldk]

FWIW: I have bad experiences with Jetway (mainboard fried itself), but the VIA boards look interesting. Maybe I'll buy a 19" rack with a VIA Mini-ITX board when I have some time.

[fos]

I have both a Via board and a Jetway. The Via board has been running for a year and a half without any problem. The Jetway has done well but not as long. The Jetway seems to be a near clone of Via using all of their support chips. The Via board includes a gig ethernet interface while the Jetway has only a 10/100. The Jetway manual is essentially a carbon copy of the Via manual as well. Subjectively, the Jetway board doesn't seem to be the quality of the Via board.

I posted a quality question regarding Jetway on Directron's customer forum. I didn't get anything but positive responses. The Jetway is about 30% cheaper than Via.

fos....

[bhobjj]

I'm convinced that planting more trees is not the answer. Wasting less energy is.

I think that trees are used as an example because people can picture the mass of a tree in their minds.

Much more biomass is contained in the oceans shelves and shallow freshwater ponds, lakes, swamps, and other wetlands than on dry land. Alga assimilate more carbon than trees, but can the average person understand how carbon is trapped in the zoogleal slime and detritus of these water bodies?

And yes trees have a huge effect too, because of their total mass.

The net effective carbon removal from a single plant is close to zero. The system only works because of the total mass.

[jpaulb]

I think that trees are used as an example because people can picture the mass of a tree in their minds.

Much more biomass is contained in the oceans shelves and shallow freshwater ponds, lakes, swamps, and other wetlands than on dry land. Alga assimilate more carbon than trees, but can the average person understand how carbon is trapped in the zoogleal slime and detritus of these water bodies?

And yes trees have a huge effect too, because of their total mass.

The net effective carbon removal from a single plant is close to zero. The system only works because of the total mass.
You will have to check out VIAs website for their explanation, I just repeated what they wrote about their carbon free CPU.

I did find Inconvenient Truth quite disturbing, it is a *must see* for anyone who plans living in this biosphere

[fos]

You should take anything Owl Gore says with a grain of salt. He is a little out there. Remember, he invented the internet. :) He has never seen a stretch bullet proof limo or chartered 757 he didn't like.

The world is always full of fanatics that think the sky is falling.

I am an environmentalist in the sense that all of us should do our best to use the Earth's resources wisely. I put that into practice as much as possible. If it were feasible, I would ride a bicycle to work everday.

fos....

[danieldk]

The world is always full of fanatics that think the sky is falling.

The problem is that most people don't really believe that the sky can fall. It can, and it happened to previous civilisations, though at a much smaller scale. E.g. it is said that the population of polynesians on Easter island of ten thousand shrinked to one or two thousand, because al natural resources were used. The remaining polynesians showed signs of canibalism.

Anyway, at the moment we have massive environmental problems. There's a lot of polution, and the rainforests are slowly all destroyed. Besides that, some resources are becoming scarce. The scary thing is that China and India are starting to develop rapidly, which means that two billion more people want a fridge, a car or two, a TV set with game console, etc. And a throw-away, greedy culture of three billion people won't work.

This is an interesting article, in this context:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1930244,00.html

[AndreL]

I feel a little "off topic" seeing the direction the thread has taken... :) but, anyway, that looks like a great choice for my living-room multimedia system. I'll look further into that one.

[fos]

We did stray a little on the carbon implications.. :)

The Mini-ITX boards with a C7 processor are a little pricey. The Via versions are $226. I do very little multimedia due to my low vision. I have played DVDs and they seem to do ok but I wouldn't want to stress the system with a lot of concurrent media. Mine handles text to speech easily.

Do some web research before you invest a lot of money. There are a couple of sites in England that have a lot of info. I'm on my Windows box or I could give you a reference. :(

Casetronic makes small footprint cases that look nice. I have found the Hitachi Travelstar laptop hard drive to be very reliable.

fos...

[danieldk]

MyElectronics.nl offers VIA boards starting at Euro 149:

http://www.myelectronics.nl/index.html?lang=en-us&target=d92.html

Quite nice prices, if you live in Europe.