09-02-2013, 09:54 AM
Nothing beats the 26 watts at full load for a mac mini, 10 watts when surfing the web. 
Of course you give up the separate graphics card. My core i5 HTPC with a nvidia gtx460 burns about 124 watts at idle and 180 at full load. The core i7 27 inch imac idles at 80 watts and maxes out at 160, that is really amazing considering that includes a 27 inch monitor and a discreet GPU. Laptop parts really are the way to go if you are worried about power consumption.
Of course you give up the separate graphics card. My core i5 HTPC with a nvidia gtx460 burns about 124 watts at idle and 180 at full load. The core i7 27 inch imac idles at 80 watts and maxes out at 160, that is really amazing considering that includes a 27 inch monitor and a discreet GPU. Laptop parts really are the way to go if you are worried about power consumption.