Dell Energy Calculator and Thin Clients

Dell have an Energy Calculator to estimate electricity consumption by their desktop computers and CO2 emission. Also they are offering a thin client system with 100 diskless Dell OptiPlex 745 or 755 desktop units running from a Dell PowerEdge 2950 server, Gigabit switch and PowerEdge 2900 storage server. However, taking the hard disk out of the OptiPlex desktop machine does not make it a low power thin client computer. With a 275W power supply, the OptiPlex can consume about 10 times the power of a reasonably sized system. Much greater energy savings (and lower cost) could be achieved with genuine thin client devices.

Dell are also offering a desktop computer, complete with LCD screen for AU$698. This is a Vostro 200 slim tower desktop, with Intel Celeron 420 processor, Windows XP Home Edition, 1 GB of RAM, 80 Gbyte hard disk and a 17 inch LCD monitor. This is offered as a business computer and is not offered to home users. The lowest cost home Dell appears to be AU$848 for the Inspiro 530 with an Intel PentiumDual-Core E2140 (1.6GHz, 800FSB, 1MB), 160GB disk and 19 inch LCD and DVD burner. The business unit comes standard only with a DVD-ROM drive (it can't write DVDs).