Painting it Green
In today's environment, it's sometimes important to be able
to say that a computer is "green", by which we mean that it's environmentally
friendly, both in the contents of the components and power usage.
In a computer, there's only so much we can do with the contents
of the components (beyond making sure that they're RoHS compliant),
but there's quite a bit we can do with the power usage. The large manufacturers
also look for HF (Halogen Free) manufacturing methods, but this information
isn't usually advertised for consumer-level components at this time.
Fortunately, the changes
that cause the computer to draw less power also enable it to run more quietly.
Case
The Antec Solo case used in the base system is RoHS compliant.
I see no reason to change it.
The Arctic Cooling fan being being used appears to be RoHS
compliant, but doesn't advertise this on their product web page.
Power Supply
Due to the lower power usage of the Green version of this system,
the power supply can be smaller. The selected power supply is the SeaSonic
S12II 330 Bronze. All the power supplies in this series are RoHS compliant.
Motherboard
For a green motherboard, we can select the board
that has the least wasted energy. In this case, it would be the Supermicro
C7X58. This motherboard is RoHS compliant.
The selected chipset cooler is manufacturered by Thermalright,
who claims that their product is exempt from RoHS compliance.
CPU
The CPU should be selected from the "L" series of
Xeon (specifically, the L5520 and L5530).
These are more costly that the "E"
version of the same CPU, but they have a TDP of only 60W. The E5520 that
was initially used has a TDP of 80W and would be acceptable where the budget
is tight. The Intel CPUs are RoHS compliant and Halogen Free.
Heatsinks are exempt from RoHS compliance, so it's not all
that easy to find a commodity heatsink that is RoHS compliant. Both Thermalright
and Thermolab claim to be exempt, and provide no additional information (1).
Memory
The selected memory should be as fast as required for the CPU.
In this case, it means we can replace the DDR3-1333 memory with DDR3-1066 memory.
It should also be RoHS compliant. Most DIMMs sold by the major
manufacturers are RoHS compliant, but not all of them. The smaller manufacturers
often aren't RoHS compliant.
Video Card
The video card can be replaced by any of: HIS
HD 4650 iSilence 4, HIS
HD 4670 iSilence4 or MSI
N95GT-MD512Z.
These RoHS compliant cards will have lower performance, and
lower power usage, than the card used in the base system.
The cooling design of these three cards is similar to the
video card used the base system, so the overall cooling in the system remains
uncompromised. For optimum cooling with the component layout used in this system,
it is necessary to have the heatsink on the back of the card.
There is inadequate airflow past the front of the card to safely cool a mid-range
video card.
Disk
The original disk selection was designed to give good disk
performance by using a large number of drives. To move to a green system, we
compromise slightly on speed. We replace the Intel
SSDSA2SH032G1 2.5" 32GB SATA SSD with an Intel
SSDSA2MH160G2 2.5" 160GB SATA SSD (both RoHS compliant and Halogen
Free), and the rest of the disks get replaced by either a Seagate
ST32000542AS or a Western
Digital WD20EACS, both of which are RoHS compliant.
Fans
With only one spinning disk, it is no longer necessary to have
front case fans. The rear fan should remain the same. This fan reduction has
a significant effect on the overall noise output of the system.
Summary
The net result of the above changes will be a system that's
slightly less expensive, quieter, draws less power, and still performs well.
Notes
- I requested information from Thermolab
about the RoHS status of the BARAM. The response I received was:
All products which are made by Thermolab are free from Rohs
Regulations. So, BARAM is also compliant to RoHS regulations.
It is possible to interpret this response as saying that BARAM
is compliant, or that Baram isn't compliant.
Without a clear response, I will interpret the response as saying that BARAM
isn't RoHS compliant.
I also requested information from Thermalright on the RoHS
status of their heatsinks. They told me that their heatsinks were RoHS exempt,
but that they could test a batch for compliance, for a fee.
It appears that heatsink manufacturers are hiding behind a
loophole in the RoHS criteria.
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