Gigabyte steps up 'green' efforts

While countless information technology (IT) and consumer electronics companies have jumped on the "green" bandwagon, few are showing as firm a commitment to being green as Gigabyte, the global manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, which has initiated an approach that could save South Africa between R50 million and R250 million a year -- if all PCs in use were based on it.

As Sebastian Isaac, marketing director at Rectron, explains, Gigabyte's practical new approach - which is called Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) - is being implemented in all new Gigabyte PC motherboards, and will provide power savings of up to 70% and up to 20% improved power efficiency "with the simple click of a button".

"Gigabyte's solution is controlled completely by a revolutionary chipset solution that actually allows multiple power phases of the PC to be controlled with software that can distinguish between light and heavy loading to give you maximum power saving with the most efficiency," he points out.

Isaac sees Gigabyte's DES initiative as a "revolutionary leap" in power consumption to the desktop PC. Besides potential cost-savings, DES-enabled motherboards help to reduce the impact everyday computing has on the environment, since less power consumption means less energy is needed to be produced from coal-burning power plants. This cuts down on carbon dioxide output, a by-product of burning fossil fuels for electricity and a known component of greenhouse gasses.

"The Gigabyte DES initiative is also extremely important in South Africa, with the problems that we have with power," he says.

Isaac estimates that some five million PCs are in use across the country.

"If all these PCs had to use this technology, then the amount of savings per year can be anything from R50 million to R250 million per year," he explains, adding that he believes the DES initiative is only the start of even better things ahead in terms of energy saving, with key players all getting in on the act.

"As PC components get smaller and more powerful, the trend has been to reduce the power consumption of these components - especially CPUs," he reports.

"If you look at Intel's new Atom CPUs, as an example, some can consume as little as 8W - and in some cases as much as 32W - for an entire system, compared to a traditional desktop CPU, which can consume as much as 60-100W. Some high-end systems can even consume as much as 1000W."

Isaac notes the transition from Pentium D to Core 2 Duo saw power consumption almost halved, from about 130W for the Pentium D to about 65W for the Core 2 Duo.

"Energy consumption is clearly decreasing as technology improves," he says. "With the Gigabyte DES solution, the aim is to reduce this consumption even more, since it is designed to regulate the entire desktop PC system's power consumption, not just one component."

Gigabyte first embarked on a greener design in its technology a few years ago, when it became the first motherboard manufacturer to implement a higher-quality, all-solid capacitor design in its motherboard. In 2005, it rolled out the world's first ROHS motherboard based on the popular Intel 945P Express chipset.

And in 2006, it launched the Gigabyte Ultra Durable motherboard series based on the Intel P965 Express chipset and featuring all-solid capacitors with better power efficiency than old style electrolytic capacitors.

In 2007, it further raised the bar with its Ultra Durable 2 design, which it says featured the highest-quality components for the most durable, stable and lowest temperature platform. Following the availability of Intel's innovative Bearlake chipsets in May 2007, Gigabyte's new Ultra Durable 2 series of motherboards used environmentally-friendly solid capacitors from Japan, Low RDS (On) MOSFETs that run cooler and Ferrite core chokes that helped reduce the amount of wasted electricity from the power phases that feed the CPU.

Then, at the beginning of 2008, it further committed itself to greener motherboards and VGA cards by pushing for 20% better power efficiency across all new motherboard product lines, including X48, X38 and P35-based systems.

"Gigabyte's Dynamic Energy Saver represents a truly amazing revolution in motherboard development," said Johnson Lin, Gigabyte CEO.

"With one little click, users are able to take advantage of up to 70% CPU power savings without sacrificing computing performance. Imagine the potential for power savings on a global scale if every motherboard in the world was able to provide similar power savings."