The website sust-it is specialized in studying power consumption of electronic components and devices usually found in our homes. They are looking at the energy cost of our Blu-ray player as well as our dish-washers. Differences are sometimes huge and illustrate how unreliable information from manufacturers can be. For example, for a BD player, the equivalent CO2 production may vary from 14 kg to 60 kg depending on the model.
When looking at desktop computers, Apple is leading the pace and trusting the first 4 positions with 4 Mac mini models:
Of course, this is not really surprising, the Mac mini being based on notebook components specifically design to reduced power consumption it should not drain a lot of energy. However, if one look at the model raked 5th, it is a EEE Box-type computer powered by an Intel ATOM CPU, much less efficient that the Core 2 Duo found in Mac mini. The reason the Mac mini ended up first, is their low power consumption in idle mode.
It shows how Apple and its engineers are working hard on controlling energy cost linked to computer models. Maybe Greenpeace should add this parameter in its panel for evaluating the Greenest computer manufacturer.
