Thursday April 10, 2008 
James C. Liu's Weblog
Thursday April 10, 2008
A head case over 2 Antec cases
"Too many cases." That's what I thought when I walked into my garage. But I'd like to get more of the right cases.
My latest case obsessions
Last Friday, Fry's had a sale on the new Antec Minuet 350. Regularly, $90, they had them on sale for $70. I already went and checked out the Sunnyvale store. Only the older minuet 300 left. Maybe more coming. But Palo Alto store had two left and I bought them both. This is my new favourite case; this new Minuet 350 now includes a 80+ certified power-supply with active PFC. While efficiency isn't 80+% down below 60 Watts, it's still quite a bit better than lots of cheap power supplies bundled with a case. Plus, because of the efficiency, less waste heat means quieter and cooler PC. It's a low-profile desktop case that only takes low-pro add-on cards, and micro-ATX motherboards, but that's perfect for me, since I've got a lot of microATX and mini-ITX boards.
The sale on the minuet 350 looks like it ended Tuesday, but I would expect it to happen again in the next couple of months and I'm ready to buy a couple more. When I do the calculation on savings over just 1 year for a system I leave on all the time, a good rule is to price it at $2/Watt saved per year. I've put the same board into a cheap case/PSU before and typically have been surprised that the total system eats 75 watts. But in an efficient case/PSU, the total draw is just 50 watts. If I save 25Watts on average, that's $50/yr!. That pays for the difference in just one year over a cheaper case. Makes lots of economic sense to me.
For the folks who want a bigger box to hold full sized/full height option cards, a sale I'd look out for would be the Antel NSK-4480 and NSK-4480B. (Latter one is a black version of the same case). Both are quiet cases and come with an earthwatts 380 PSU, also 80+ certified. And I picked up 2 of these at Fry's in the last few months for just $49.99. Regularly, they're around $89.99, still a great deal, because you'll save money as well and enjoy lower noise.
What to do with the old cases?
I have quite a few cool-n-quiet cases still new-in-box and for a hoarder like me, it's a great feeling. But computer cases are a lot bigger than fishing tackle, so the shelf space they're occupying is very conspicuous and running out. As a volunteer teacher for a Grade 3 - 5 PC building class, I'm actually seriously thinking about giving away the computers at the end of the class. Only, while I do stock a lot of parts, I don't quite have 15 - 20 systems to give away twice a year. But the kids do always ask on the first day if they get to keep the computers. I'm just not sure what a 3rd grader is going to do with a Solaris box. Anyone out there want to help write a bunch of educational software or port EDU software to Solaris? April 10, 2008 10:25 AM PDT Permalink
Comments:
Thanks for the heads up on the case. It does sound like a good deal. I also have a lot of spare ATX cases lying around, and have also been comparing the earthwatts PSU's with older < 80% efficiency PSUs with positive results. With my particular setup, I was saving about 15W at load, and over double that in windows standby mode, with the earthwatts 380 compared to the antec 380 truepower.
I have a few concerns with the Earthwatts for server use, having peeked inside, but I like the idea of increased efficiency and active PFC, which is now a requirement in the EU. The savings will vary geographically, whether amps or watts are being billed, the specific current loads required of the DC rails, etc.
The energy benefits to the user vs grid will also vary, but your calc. of what appears to be $0.11/kwh is a good average, and possibly even conservative for your locale, though it would be high compared to a location say, up near the Columbia river ...
Posted by Ted Matsumura on April 10, 2008 at 11:16 AM PDT #
365 days/yr x 24 hrs/day x 0.001 kWatt = 8.76 kWatt-hr/yr for each Watt saved. At around $2 for 8.76kWatt-hr, that comes to around $0.23/kW-hr. This is about the going rate we pay for second tier usage after baseline is used up. In CA, if you like most families with tier 3 usage, it comes to over $0.30 per kW-hr. So depending on what tier of usage and what the incremental rate you pay, the savings can be greater. And for server-farm/co-lo use, are there companies charging by Watts anymore? I thought it was all AMPs these days for rack space. Yes, you host from home, that's different, but I can still run most web services from a 600MHz equivalent "mythical" box because the bandwidth limitations even at OC-3 speeds just don't justify needing more CPU, since long before that, the NIC has already been saturated.
Posted by PotstickerGuru on April 10, 2008 at 12:43 PM PDT #
Post a Comment:
Comments are closed for this entry.
