I thought this video was rather interesting, because at 12:27, the presenter crunches the numbers to find out how many years it would take for a new computer purchase to be more environmentally friendly (in regards to total CO2 expended) compared to using a less efficient used model.
Depending on the specific use case, it could take as little as 3 years to breakeven in terms of CO2 if both systems were at max power draw forever, and as long as 30 if the systems are mostly at idle.
Well they’re unlikely to be at max power draw. The moral of the story is use your old crap until it dies instead of replacing functioning equipment with more enviornmentally friendly things- supposedly this rings true for cars also, meaning it has less of a CO2 impact to drive your beater toyata corrola into the ground then it does to buy a new EV, so I’ve read.
From what I heard, it’s best to only get a new EV when you have to get a new car anyway. There’s also the option of getting a used EV but that market is still rather small.
I absolutely run my GPU at max power, and it’s a 300w GPU.
Efficiency is important
No one replaced hw cuz of environmental concerns. It is 100% about how much the energy consumption would drop because of how much the energy costs to use.
This community, Permacomputing, is about trying to reduce computer waste and consider other environmental concerns. Per the sidebar:
That’s why we’re discussing that aspect :p