http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/ Engadget Comments for Marvell chip claims to make PCs more energy efficient http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/Nov 6th 2007 10:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/
An ambiguous choice of words with "The chips... effectively determine the amount of power an application will need and optimize accordingly", and maybe that's where the confusion lies. When they say "application", they don't mean Excel or Photoshop, they mean the computer is the application.
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http://www.marvell.com/products/power/pfc_controllers/88em8011.jsp ]]>Nov 6th 2007 11:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/
AC power has a cycle to it, this cycle repeats at 60Hz. If a system needs power, it would do best to draw it the peak of the cycle where the most voltage is available. But instead, due to various factors, most devices typically end up drawing a bit after the big peak. And thus there is less voltage available. And with less voltage available they draw more current. This means they draw more current than they need to.

You aren't really charged extra for this extra current, as you pay for power and you're not taking more power, just more current. So the electric company has to produce more current but without getting more money. More current also means they have to put up more wires (more capacity).

So it maximizes system efficiency if your devices are all power factor corrected, so they draw at the best times. The EU requires all computer power supplies to be power factor corrected, but in the US it is optional. Good power supplies in the US are PFC, cheaper ones are not.

I believe to get the Energy Star rating now a device has to be power factor corrected. A good power supply will be over 95% power factor corrected (99% is not uncommon), a non-corrected one will be as little as 40-60% PFC, meaning it draws about twice as much current as it needs to.

To those above, you don't have to firmware update this, it has to be in the power supply, and right now (until NVidia's new ESA), your computer has no communication with the power supply, so there would be no way to flash it anyway.]]>Nov 6th 2007 11:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/
On a side note, most of the PDA/cellphone chargers are non-PFC and are typically in the 40-60% efficiency range.]]>Nov 6th 2007 12:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/Nov 6th 2007 11:58AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/06/marvell-chip-claims-to-make-pcs-more-energy-efficient/Nov 6th 2007 9:08PM