![]() ![]() When conversation turns to the relentless progress of computer technology, you will often hear 'Moore's Law' quoted. This law states that the number of transistors that can be packed into a CPU will double every year or two, and so far this seems to have held true, resulting in the exponential growth of computer performance. Gordon Moore is the co-founder of Intel, so this may be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Low power consumption - and therefore cool running and quiet operation - does not appear to have been a design priority with Pentium chips, while the equivalent AMD processors, such as the Athlon, run even hotter. ![]() The Power PC chips used in Macs are said to run cooler than the equivalent Pentiums, but they too are often fitted with fans. PC cases are now available ready-fitted with acoustic material.The C3 processor might not be as powerful as some other chips, but it runs cool.A typical contemporary computer has a CPU fan, a power supply rated at 400 Watts or more which has another fan, a fan on the graphics card, perhaps a fan cooling the high-speed disk drive which has a whine all of its own, and maybe a couple more fans to blow air in to the front of the case and out of the back. ![]() This kind of computer makes so much noise that subtle judgements about sound can be impossible without turning up the monitor amplifier to potentially ear-damaging levels. It's one thing to sacrifice those 'golden ears' in a lifetime of service to rock & roll, but to waste them because of badly designed equipment would be a tragedy. Unfortunately this kind of computer is all too common, because most manufacturers don't believe that the mass market is interested in ergonomic issues.Īpple's G4 Cube, with its large passively cooled heatsink, was perhaps the closest a mainstream manufacturer has got to a silent system in recent years. It wasn't available for long, being launched in the summer of 2000 and discontinued one year later. ![]()
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