Computer Hardware: Meaner and Greener - The Greener Side
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Up until a few years ago, it was all about raw power. Recently we have seen a huge change in the marketing of computer hardware. Before, if a CPU produced 130 watts of power, it sucked but you were fine with it. Now you would look at it and think, "is this worth it?" and it's becoming more common to say no.
I like to think of the technology world as a step ladder. The general purpose of computing changes with the hardware. We started with huge room-sized commuters that weren't useful for many. Then we saw the PC come to light. With these, they were able to shrink that massive computer down into something you could throw under your desk.
The next step up the computing ladder was getting the hardware up to par with what a typical person would demand and need from their PC. Take floppy disks, for example. Originally they were big in size, low in space, not very durable, and slow. We eventually got to the 3.5" floppies that were a little better. Then the Zip disks came and went and now we are left with a technology that appears it will be what the user wants: USB drives.
USB drives are fast, secure, very durable and small. Take for example an OCZ ATV USB drive. It holds 32 GB of data -- that’s almost 3,200 floppies on a single keychain-sized device! It can be thrown, dropped, run over, soaked and still work fine when put into the USB slot. Talk about a major change in technology!
PCs are getting to this point as well. With dual and quad core, we are reaching a point where CPUs are no longer the bottleneck of computers. They now have the power to do what we ideally would like them to do.
My personal example is a media center. To run an operating system, media center, two or three TV tuners and work on encoding/decoding videos would have killed any CPU until recently. Now it is possible with quad or dual core CPUs.
We have the computing power, but once again size comes into play. Sure I could have a full-sized tower next to my TV, but it doesn't look as good as a little box the size of a video game system. This is where the next step is going to take place, and it means a greener step for hardware. The current problem is heat in small PCs. The parts are still too hot to cram into a small case.
Next: Greener Side continued >>
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