Overclock Vs New PC
Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:33 pm
I've been meaning to buy a new PC for probably 2 years now and finding this forum has me thinking about which route to take.
Would it be better to overclock my current PC (Celeron 1.2GHz) which idles at about 60W normally, or purchase a new PC and underclock/undervolt it to reduce power consumption? I've read about the amount of waste from manufacturing a PC so I'm not sure if it's worth it. I probably don't need a lot more speed as it's mainly used for web browsing and business applications (running ubuntu) but sometimes it chugs a bit with flash or a lot of webpages open.
As an experiment I've underclocked/undervolted this one down to 800MHz @ 1.05V (the lowest my mobo would go) and the idle power was about 45W but it was also pretty slow. This included changing the PSU for a smaller one (quieter fan which is nice) and swapping the GF4 vid card for an S3 Savage4 which has no fan.
So do I overclock my current PC, use a bit more power but reduce manufacturing waste, or buy new gear and drop the power consumption on that?
Would it be better to overclock my current PC (Celeron 1.2GHz) which idles at about 60W normally, or purchase a new PC and underclock/undervolt it to reduce power consumption? I've read about the amount of waste from manufacturing a PC so I'm not sure if it's worth it. I probably don't need a lot more speed as it's mainly used for web browsing and business applications (running ubuntu) but sometimes it chugs a bit with flash or a lot of webpages open.
As an experiment I've underclocked/undervolted this one down to 800MHz @ 1.05V (the lowest my mobo would go) and the idle power was about 45W but it was also pretty slow. This included changing the PSU for a smaller one (quieter fan which is nice) and swapping the GF4 vid card for an S3 Savage4 which has no fan.
So do I overclock my current PC, use a bit more power but reduce manufacturing waste, or buy new gear and drop the power consumption on that?