Investing in faster, greener technology

It's a sad fact that Eggbox Studios needs to use electricity but there's no reason not to make our impact on the environment as small as possible. Little things like only using equipment that is totally necessary, powering down computers at night, using energy saving lightbulbs and ensuring that all equipment is turned off at the wall rather than just stand-by all help to reduce energy consumption.

We also want to ensure that we can deliver the best quality in the shortest time at the lowest possible price. In order to provide the best service we can, we need to invest in more processing power. It's a difficult balance to strike between the business and our conscience but recent developments in micro-processing and greener technology have made the decisions much easier.

Testing has just finished on the first of our new Intel® Core™ i7 based render nodes. We have seen an average speed increase of over 90% over our current quad-core based Intel render computers whilst power consumption has actually decreased by almost 30%. Over the course of 2009 Eggbox Studios plans to increase the current render farm with several more of the new computers allowing animations to be rendered faster and with increased detail than budgets would currently allow.

The Intel® Core™ i7 based systems were custom built by Sentral Systems.

We have also just invested in a new enterprise storage solution utilizing Western Digital's GreenPower™ Technology. The potential reduction of CO₂ emissions over using standard enterprise drives equates to 242 KG's per year.

As advances are made in more efficient computing equipment, you can be sure that we will be working hard to reduce our carbon footprint.