Earlier quoted context omitted.
Raspberry Pis may be "green" in that they are cheap, but power efficient they aren't. They have barely any power management support, making their idle power usage higher than even some x86 chips.
> making their idle power usage higher than even some x86 chips What x86 chip can idle on 4W when including RAM and the mainboard? I have some very low power J1900 boards, but even they idle on ~10W.
I have a full x86 system that idles at 1.7W _at the wall_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639929 . This is an off-the-shelf ASUS PN40 mini-desktop, running an N4000, and includes 8GB RAM, a SATA SSD, and Gigabit ethernet, all running and accepting requests.