Intel has produced, in 2007, a specific low-power-consumption solution aimed at the desktop. The Little Valley computer board, largely sufficient for running either Linux or Windows XP. The board permits building system units that use around 25 Watts, leading to computers using less than 45 Watts.

You can find more information on the Little Valley in its official page. An interesting article compares it to a couple of VIA processors (Esther 1.5Gh and C7), and to the AMD LX850. You can also follow some discussions about it in the Docunext Technology Blog here and here. There has been some discussion about its video drivers for Linux in Ubuntu, here is how it works.

The Little Valley II board (D201GLY2), probably available next year, will reduce this consumption by 50%, trading it by a 10% reduction in speed (reducing clock speed from 1.33 to 1.2). This new fanless solution will allow smaller system units with lower maintenance. Look at it.

Intel is also participating in the improvement of Linux, for it to use less energy in its CPUs. The results are available in the Less Watts website.