X86 machines have had perfectly fine idle wattages for ages now. I’m not sure why people think an x86 machine is sucking 50W at all times or something.
Anecdata: I have a netbook from around 2009 with an Atom processor. Default clock is 1.6 GHz but I ran it at 800 MHz. With an SSD inside, it sips power and ran 24/7 basic web services for years.
no actual data here: no power (Watts) provided for the netbook to enable a fair comparison.
It's great that it did not become ewaste, and a computer you have is better than one you don't have, but people likely shouldn't pick up old netbooks over something like a pi.
I agree. The machine is remote so I don't have it on hand, but I believe the stock AC adapter is rated for 40 watts according to a search online. However, I haven't recently plugged it into my Kill-A-Watt to see the actual draw, especially since I run it at half frequency. I'll bring it with me next time I'm out there for an upgrade to see what it actually pulls. :)
It's because ATX PSU desktops have high idle whereas a laptop, embedded device, or ATX12VO doesn't. People mean different power delivery methods and bundle it all up under x86 vs ARM
You can measure it with an inline USB power meter. They generally run between half a watt idle and 2 watts depending on what you're doing (using a camera, Wi-Fi, and keeping the CPU busy) and if you've shut down things like the video output and LEDs to try to save power.
A lot of it depends on what you use it for, in my usecase I've kept the two Pi's I mentioned as they sip a tiny amount of power. The Lenovo Thinkcentre I've got sits idle at around 7w but it's running a fair few service I use for dev work throughout the day, and the Pi would struggle to cope.
If you used one for something equivilent to a pihole then I think yes it would cost more over time, although we're likely talking many years of 24/7 runtime for it to then become more expensive, the low power x86 chips are a lot more efficient than they used to be.