Something people often overlook when comparing power usage of PC components, is that you often have to multiply the watt difference by 3x (or 4x) when you factor in cooling (air conditioning I mean, in regards to how to dissipate that heat generation, in your home).
I.e. PC-A might consume 100 watts more than PC-B, but the real efficiency when it comes to you our monthly electric bill is more like 300 to 500 W (in my experience, in a hot area of the country). Those 100 W of heat have to be removed from your home environment to keep whatever Ambient temperature you find comfortable.
Edit-it of course, works in the opposite direction in terms of your heating bill in the cold months of the year (but without the 3X multiplier)
> is that you often have to multiply the watt difference by 3x (or 4x) when you factor in cooling (air conditioning I mean, in regards to how to dissipate that heat generation, in your home).
Where are you getting these numbers from? Typical central air CoP (Coefficient of Performance) even when it's > 100 F outside is at least 2, typically 3-5. Assuming based on current outdoor temp the CoP is 3, it'll remove 100 W of heat with 33 W of energy. So instead of 100 W -> 300-500 W you're looking at 100 W -> 133 W total.
Northern Europe maybe. But A/C is pretty common in the Mediterranean. The only difference is that central A/C is correctly seem as something that makes sense in comercial spaces, not homes.
At homes what is more common are ductless split systems, combined with an architecture where you have windows that can be opened when the weather is not that hot.
It is completely idiotic to cool a whole McMansion when the 3 or 4 people inside are occupying no more than 30% of the space most of the time.
You're mistaken. In most of Europe thermodynamics are still very much applicable, lack of AC doesn't mean your hot computer doesn't make your room warmer anymore, so extra heat from an old inefficient computer still ends up in your house, raising your ambient temperature and making you uncomfortable (in the summer) regardless if you have AC or not.
Lack of AC doesn't make the "hot computer making my room warm" problem go away, it just makes it a better case for investing in thermally efficient electronics because you have no AC to vent it out with.
Yes, but we tend to focus on passive cooling rather than active cooling - your comment was all about active cooling and the extra costs thereof, and passive cooling techniques do not imply an extra power cost.
But yes - modern lower power hardware (Apple Silicon, lower power AMD Zen, etc) can be drastically faster than older hardware, at significantly lower power - and massively lower total power consumption for work done.
You can get wins here by making sure even modern hardware is running in the more power efficient part it's perf/watt curve - for example, ECO mode on modern AMD hardware (105W+ to 65W, for instance), reducing the board power limit on GPUs when doing compute (~420W to 225W, for most efficient on my 3090!), etc. You lose remarkably little performance by doing so.
I.e. PC-A might consume 100 watts more than PC-B, but the real efficiency when it comes to you our monthly electric bill is more like 300 to 500 W (in my experience, in a hot area of the country). Those 100 W of heat have to be removed from your home environment to keep whatever Ambient temperature you find comfortable.
Edit-it of course, works in the opposite direction in terms of your heating bill in the cold months of the year (but without the 3X multiplier)