On Monday, 13 July 2015 18:55:44 UTC+1, tony sayer wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Sunday, 12 July 2015 22:25:31 UTC+1, Adrian wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 21:21:56 +0000, Huge wrote:

The intel core i5 Mac Mini I have on my desk (10g ram, 250gig SSD and
500gig HD, both internal) is not much bigger than a hardback book, if
that.

The vast majority of office desktop machines are hugely overpowered for
what they do.

They're also really quite cheap. Far cheaper than a Mac Mini.

We're getting 30 or so 'new' PCs for my lab, I'd like mac mini's or PC equiv.
because of their small size and low power and low noise, but we'll probbaly be
gettig the standard tower machines. One reason for getting them is cheapness,
another is so they can be easily upgraded, but I'm betting the most important


reason is because they are large relatively power hungry and pig ugly so no one
will be tempted to nick them.

R U saying that a smaller machine is less power hungry?...

Yes, generally speaking, for those I've measured anyway.

In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Monday, 13 July 2015 18:55:44 UTC+1, tony sayer wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Sunday, 12 July 2015 22:25:31 UTC+1, Adrian wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 21:21:56 +0000, Huge wrote:

The intel core i5 Mac Mini I have on my desk (10g ram, 250gig SSD and
500gig HD, both internal) is not much bigger than a hardback book, if
that.

The vast majority of office desktop machines are hugely overpowered for
what they do.

They're also really quite cheap. Far cheaper than a Mac Mini.

We're getting 30 or so 'new' PCs for my lab, I'd like mac mini's or PC equiv.
because of their small size and low power and low noise, but we'll probbaly
be
gettig the standard tower machines. One reason for getting them is cheapness,
another is so they can be easily upgraded, but I'm betting the most important


reason is because they are large relatively power hungry and pig ugly so no
one
will be tempted to nick them.

R U saying that a smaller machine is less power hungry?...

Yes, generally speaking, for those I've measured anyway.




Actually I was asking re physical size rather than the same spec.

--
Tony Sayer

On Tuesday, 14 July 2015 11:16:18 UTC+1, tony sayer wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Monday, 13 July 2015 18:55:44 UTC+1, tony sayer wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Sunday, 12 July 2015 22:25:31 UTC+1, Adrian wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 21:21:56 +0000, Huge wrote:

The intel core i5 Mac Mini I have on my desk (10g ram, 250gig SSD and
500gig HD, both internal) is not much bigger than a hardback book, if
that.

The vast majority of office desktop machines are hugely overpowered for
what they do.

They're also really quite cheap. Far cheaper than a Mac Mini.

We're getting 30 or so 'new' PCs for my lab, I'd like mac mini's or PC equiv.
because of their small size and low power and low noise, but we'll probbaly
be
gettig the standard tower machines. One reason for getting them is cheapness,
another is so they can be easily upgraded, but I'm betting the most important


reason is because they are large relatively power hungry and pig ugly so no
one
will be tempted to nick them.

R U saying that a smaller machine is less power hungry?...

Yes, generally speaking, for those I've measured anyway.




Actually I was asking re physical size rather than the same spec.


Then the answer is still yes. Having smaller PSUs smaller fans
and a better built box does seem to have the effect of using less power.
Partly because the standard boxes sometime use the fact that they have a larger PSU and more power and a higher power graphics card to attract buyers.

On 14/07/2015 11:14, tony sayer wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Monday, 13 July 2015 18:55:44 UTC+1, tony sayer wrote:
In article ,
whisky-dave scribeth thus
On Sunday, 12 July 2015 22:25:31 UTC+1, Adrian wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 21:21:56 +0000, Huge wrote:

The intel core i5 Mac Mini I have on my desk (10g ram, 250gig SSD and
500gig HD, both internal) is not much bigger than a hardback book, if
that.

The vast majority of office desktop machines are hugely overpowered for
what they do.

They're also really quite cheap. Far cheaper than a Mac Mini.

We're getting 30 or so 'new' PCs for my lab, I'd like mac mini's or PC equiv.
because of their small size and low power and low noise, but we'll probbaly
be
gettig the standard tower machines. One reason for getting them is cheapness,
another is so they can be easily upgraded, but I'm betting the most important
reason is because they are large relatively power hungry and pig ugly so no
one
will be tempted to nick them.

I suspect their sheer physical size is the main deterrent to theft.

R U saying that a smaller machine is less power hungry?...

Yes, generally speaking, for those I've measured anyway.




Actually I was asking re physical size rather than the same spec.

The physical size doesn't make a lot of difference - though you can more
easily get away with entirely passive cooling in a bigger box.

If you don't need gaming quality 3D graphics deleting the dedicated
graphics card entirely and using the Intel HD internal graphics makes
for a very large power saving. It is no slouch for 2D work.

There is a slight hit on shared memory bandwidth but unless you have a
very unusual usage pattern it is all but unmeasurable.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown