HP rp5700 Desktop PC : Energy Saving Computer

The HP rp5700 business PC ($1,299 direct) will help your company with both types of green—saving money and preserving the environment. While green PCs are a trendy topic in the consumer PC space, businesses have thought "green" (in terms of cost savings) for as long as the PC has existed. The rp5700 is the kind of system that will stay with your organization for a relatively long time, and as a bonus, it has less of an impact on the environment than the PCs of the past. It is EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) Gold–certified and meets or exceeds RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) standards. The rp5700 is a general business PC, so it will serve well in companies ranging from small mom-and-pop shops up to the largest conglomerates.

The rp5700 as configured here is certified as an Energy Star 4.0 product, which means it meets the newest, most stringent code for saving energy. Its power supply and other components are efficient and have built-in power-saving features. I connected it up to our Kill-A-Watt measuring device, and under typical system operation the rp5700 actively consumed only 52W to 75W of power. This is roughly as much as an energy-saver incandescent 60Wto100W lightbulb. Another extreme example is the high-end gaming desktop, which uses roughly 500W of power. The system will drop down to a low power state when it is idle (after it goes into S3 sleep mode after a set period of time) where it consumes only a few watts of power to keep the system's memory active. Combined over several (or hundreds, or thousands of) PCs in your company, this translates into a significant cost savings in the energy that's not consumed both to keep your PCs running and to cool your offices from all those heat-producing PCs operating at full power. It's a win-win situation for both your company and the environment.

EPEAT and RoHS are certification programs used in the U.S. and Europe, respectively. EPEAT Gold certification means that the system meets criteria above, and way beyond the government's mandate for so-called green PCs. Likewise, RoHS certifies products as having less impact on the environment. Both call for reduction or elimination of harmful chemicals (mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, etc.) used in the manufacture of components in the PC. Other criteria include recyclability of internal components, energy use, and end of life options (returning the PC to the manufacturer for recycling). As I write this, only four PCs are EPEAT Gold–certified (the others are two Dells and the Zonbu PC), but of course more are coming from other manufacturers.

The rp5700 is designated as HP's "long-life" business PC, which means that HP will be supporting it as a model for at least the next five years. Other computer makers' business PCs are only certified as "image supported" for one to two years. "Image supported" means that the same operating systems and drivers will be available as long as the PC is available for sale. This cuts down on IT time used in testing and qualifying updated rp5700 PCs for your business because the hard drive image need not be retested when new PCs are acquired. It also means that HP will provide pretty much identically configured systems for the next five years, with some updates for faster processors. Over those five years, you can pass the PCs down through your organization, in effect reusing or recycling them internally. What's notable about the five-year promise is that HP will still sell you an identically configured rp5700 PC in 2012 (and therefore one that your IT staffer already knows and that will work with the same operating system disk image your current PCs use).

The "recycling" concept is also backed up by HP's claim that it uses at least 10 percent post-consumer waste plastics in the system's chassis. That's 10 percent that won't go into a landfill or need to be created from (foreign) petroleum. At least 90 percent of the PC's structural components are certified recyclable, as is the system's packaging. That way, you're reducing the need to manufacture more materials both coming in and going out at the end of the rp5700's useful life as a PC.

So aside from all that, how good is the rp5700 as a PC? It's in a standard business small-form-factor case, which means that it will handle most of the tasks you throw at it in a business setting. It has space for two full-size hard drives and a pair of full-size PCI slots. The PCIe x1 and PCIe x16 slots are half-height due to the compact-form-factor chassis. This may be a problem if your business uses full-size specialized cards (like ones supporting laser bar-code readers). The system I reviewed has an optional four-port "USB plus power" card installed, ostensibly for point-of-sale terminal (cash register) use. These four extra USB ports have specialized co-ports that provide extra electrical power to peripherals that support the plugs. (You see USB plus power sometimes in notebooks, where the extra power is to run an external drive or DVD burner.) But there are six regular USB 2.0 ports, a parallel port, and an old-school serial port on every system. There is a pair of 160GB SATA drives in a RAID 1 (mirroring) array, which means that if one of the drives fails, you will still be able to use the computer and get to your data. RAID 1 is a good insurance policy in a system that will see constant use. The chassis is easy to get into, with clearly marked and labeled service points (like hard drive mounts, card slots, and power supply). The case is totally tool-less, so you won't even need a screwdriver to service the system. All in all, it's a well-thought-out business PC.

The Dells with EPEAT Gold certification are Optiplex models, so the rp5700 is ahead of the Dell Vostro 200 and Lenovo ThinkCentre M55e that I've reviewed recently, at least on the environmental front. All three are available with Intel's Core 2 Duo processors, though the rp5700 is a little more corporate than even the ThinkCentre, with its emphasis on long life. The rp5700 is a bit pricier, but it does come with RAID 1 standard, and the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Performance-wise, the rp5700 is good, with numbers befitting its midrange Intel E6400 processor. Scores of 104 overall on SYSmark 2007 Preview are good for the business desktop category. The warranty is a very good three years, for parts, labor, and tech support.

The HP rp5700 shows that the big-system manufacturers are serious about the environment, particularly since "going green" can help both the buyer's and the seller's bottom lines. The system's certified configurations will be appealing to large corporate and government buyers who need to keep stockholders, constituents, and the general public's opinion on the good side. The cost savings over the long run are also appealing to the small operator, since saving a few bucks here and there on energy bills can add up to a lot. If you need goodwill now with the community, or you need to meet green PC requirements, or if you need a PC that will grow with your company over the next five-plus years, take a long, hard look at HP's rp5700.

Src: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2186620,00.asp