I think they mean the power consumption. Single board pis and such sip power. Desktops are usually drawing too much at idle to leave running like a pi. i mean you can if you have cash to do that
To save money, they can go the derelict laptop route.
If they get a low tdp board, maybe like an old laptop without a battery, the power difference isn’t going to be too much. Pi can pull 9W at full tilt. And an old Ultrabook with it’s monitor tuned off or unplugged can probably pull 35-45W at full tilt.
So 45W - 9W = 36W
36w x 24hr x 356 = 315,360Wh
315.36kWh x 0.25 cents = 78.84 a year
But that’s assuming everything is running at full speed. For something running 24/7, we can probably estimate idle state is more common. Laptops can idle about 3-4W a pi4 is also idle around 3-4W.
So 90% at 4W and 10% at 45W for the laptop
And 90% at 4W and 10% at 9W for the pi
Gives us 8.1W average for the laptop
And 4.5W for the pi
Giving us a total difference of 31.536kWh. or 7.88 additional a year.
This is also assuming the laptop has the same computational power as the pi, which isn’t true, so the laptop will end up finishing tasks faster than the pi and use more power for a shorter amount of time.
I think they mean the power consumption. Single board pis and such sip power. Desktops are usually drawing too much at idle to leave running like a pi. i mean you can if you have cash to do that
To save money, they can go the derelict laptop route.
If they get a low tdp board, maybe like an old laptop without a battery, the power difference isn’t going to be too much. Pi can pull 9W at full tilt. And an old Ultrabook with it’s monitor tuned off or unplugged can probably pull 35-45W at full tilt.
So 45W - 9W = 36W
36w x 24hr x 356 = 315,360Wh
315.36kWh x 0.25 cents = 78.84 a year
But that’s assuming everything is running at full speed. For something running 24/7, we can probably estimate idle state is more common. Laptops can idle about 3-4W a pi4 is also idle around 3-4W.
So 90% at 4W and 10% at 45W for the laptop
And 90% at 4W and 10% at 9W for the pi
Gives us 8.1W average for the laptop
And 4.5W for the pi
Giving us a total difference of 31.536kWh. or 7.88 additional a year.
This is also assuming the laptop has the same computational power as the pi, which isn’t true, so the laptop will end up finishing tasks faster than the pi and use more power for a shorter amount of time.