"I wonder what Carmack uses now? Whatever it is, he could probably have several of them hooked up to a machine each running at 1920 x 1080 and still come nowhere near close to drawing 180 watts."
That's a little optimistic. The 27" and 30" TFTs which are becoming increasingly commonplace consume upwards of 100W, at least at or near full brightness so you'd only need about 2.
I guess when you're talking about the 27" and 30" displays that's the case, but 24" seems to be where the very low power use can be seen. LG has a display it claims only consumes 28 watts, so an array of 6 of those and you'd still have some watts to spare on the InterView.
That's true for the U2410. The new 24" Ultrasharp (U2412) uses an LED backlight and has a typical power draw of 38W. Contrary to popular belief, LED backlighting doesn't lead to a better picture. It is significantly more efficient than CCFL backlighting though.
On a sidenote, and apart from the gains in efficiency, the new Ultrasharp doesn't seem like much of an upgrade, at least at first glance. What a shame/thank god I don't have to buy a new one.
I've got an Acer monitor at work, it claims to draw only 20 watts when in use with the default settings which is to turn the backlight down quite a bit, I turned it to full brightness!
That's a little optimistic. The 27" and 30" TFTs which are becoming increasingly commonplace consume upwards of 100W, at least at or near full brightness so you'd only need about 2.