Sheffield-based Very PC is readying to launch what it describes as its greenest PC to date - the Bonsai - and claiming that it will be the greenest in the entire PC marketplace when it starts shipping on December 1!
Just how green is that? Well, according to the London Environment Centre (a London Metropolitan University spin-off) it tested a prototype of the Bonsai and was astonished to find that the base energy consumption was only 29W.
Although that makes it more energy efficient than many notebook PCs, it doesn't mean that the Bonsai is any kind of slouch - though nor is it a top-flight gaming system.
Instead, the Bonsai, measuring just 202(w) x 97(h) x 273(d) mm, looks like a very interesting option for a home theatre PC.
It centres on an AMD Athlon X2 BE 2350 - a dual-core AMD CPU running at 2.1GHz - and features an integrated ATI X700 graphics processor with HDMI, plus 1GB RAM, a 120GB low-power hard disk HDD and a DVDRW burner.
If supplied with Windows XP Media Center Edition, that configuration will cost £520 including VAT.
Among the available upgrade options are 2GB RAM (£35.25); a 250GB HDD (£82.25); and a slot-loading DVD burner (£46).
Very PC is keen to stress that the unit checked out by the LEC was a prototype and that it expects energy consumption of the shipping version to be even less because it will be fitted with a passive PSU-cooler.
This should save a further 3W or 4W, giving promised power consumption of 26W at idle and 62W under load - with a typical (90% idle) average of 29.6W.
