VeryPC Launch 16Watt Dual Core PC

Info & chat about quiet prebuilt, small form factor and barebones systems, people's experiences with vendors thereof, etc.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Petey
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2008 4:44 am
Location: UK

VeryPC Launch 16Watt Dual Core PC

Post by Petey » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:00 am

VeryPC's 16W Fulwood 75% more efficient than Energy Star (and 4x faster than Atom)

Eco computer company VeryPC announces the launch of a high performance 16Watt dual-cored, ultra small, media centre PC, aptly named Fulwood (after the prestigious suburb of Sheffield). At over four times faster[1] than Intel atom based Green PCs and at almost half the energy consumption Fulwood offers extremely high performance and flexibility while retaining its environmental standing. Whereas a normal PC will consume 85W-210W.

Brief specification:
The Fulwood, the size of a mac mini, despite its meagre power draw doesn’t fall short on features, which include an Intel P9500 2.53GHz dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Intel x4500HD graphics, DVDRW, remote control, Windows Vista Premium, Gigabit Network card, DVI (with DVI-VGA splitter for dual screens and HDMI adaptor), and surround sound audio (with SPIDIF optical interface).
Like with all VeryPC machines the Fulwood is fully customisable. Available options include internal WiFi, internal digital/hybrid TV tuner and internal Bluetooth.
VeryPC hopes the Fulwood will become one of the first PCs to be seen on the new European Energy Star List and the Energy Saving Trust’s Recommended List with impressively low power consumption figures of 16Watts idle for the base model, 19Watts idle with all the available upgrade options, and only 2Watts in ‘sleep mode’. These figures are 75% below the in use threshold of Energy Star 4.0 category B, which requires 65Watts or less at idle in Windows desktop.
Pricing and availability:
The Fulwood will be available to pre-order from the 25h September on a deposit basis, and will be available to purchase online at www.very-pc.co.uk from mid October.
Prices start from £868 (inc. VAT) for the standard model and go up to £1104.5 (inc. VAT). All prices are for the PC only, and exclude monitor, keyboards and mice, and delivery.

See more at www.very-pc.co.uk

Layla
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:29 pm
Location: Slovenia

Post by Layla » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:46 pm

Interesting! :)

Has anyone tried these? How quiet is it?

& what does it mean '1x Firewire (Not Functional)' ? :) I take it (from a review) you can add what you need, either PCI or FireWire...? (just one?)

also interested in graphic card & soundcard used...

Is this kinda like Mini Mac, but for PC Users mainly? (& with a bit bigger specs) & are cheaper prices for less than 250GB still going to be available?

Computers using less & less energy is a great trend!

Just curious, to what extent is it recyclable? (if anyone knows?)

Big Pimp Daddy
Posts: 175
Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 11:26 am
Location: Sunny Swansea

Post by Big Pimp Daddy » Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:06 pm

Yeah, I've heard of this company, had a look on their website after they got ripped to shreds on Dragon's Den. Unfortunately it's just the same over-priced over-hyped stuff that a hundred other "environmentally friendly" suppliers claim to have cornered the market with.
The fact is that most of the measures that very-pc claim to make it "environmentally friendly" are half-arsed at best, and claims like 75% more efficient and 4 times faster are blatant half-truths and manipulations of data. (4x faster than Atom, what 6.4Ghz?).
Whilst it is admirable to see any company aiming to reduce energy consumption or increase efficiency I abhor people who profiteer from the naivety and lack of technical knowledge of others, and this is what very-pc appear to be doing.

Petey
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2008 4:44 am
Location: UK

Post by Petey » Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:10 am

Atom is single core, 1.6GHz, this is dual core, better architecture 2.53GHz and a huge 6Meg cache.

I believe in a benchmark it would be 4x faster than atom.

Also 75% less than energy star, energy star requires the machine idles at 65W (www.energystar.gov), this machine idles at 16W (PC Pro have a review that says it idles at 17W, with a tv tuner and wifi)
75% less than energy star sounds right to me?

kel
Posts: 100
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:32 am
Location: Switzerland

Post by kel » Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:43 am

Nice idea, but this seems awfully pricey...for the same money you can get a unibody Macbook*, which idles at 15W and that includes the screen, offers very similar performance (probably even better 3D performance), you can also hook a usb tv tuner if you still need that and you'll end up with a portable device to boot...

Or am I missing something here? low power is good, but for this kind of money I'd expect rather something more...

*Macbook used for comparison as I know the numbers for that one, there's probably plenty of laptops with similar performance/price/wattage figures out there.

m^2
Posts: 146
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:12 am
Location: Poland
Contact:

Post by m^2 » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:15 pm

Big Pimp Daddy wrote:claims like 75% more efficient and 4 times faster are blatant half-truths and manipulations of data. (4x faster than Atom, what 6.4Ghz?).
Frequency matters only with very similar CPU architectures, which is not the case. Atom is very slow for a 1.6 Ghz CPU, it can be easily 4 times faster @2.53 Ghz.
-CUT- //mistake :P

Post Reply