Is there a low TDP Intel CPU which is compatible with ECC memory/board?

[Nezbert]

My curent NAS box is running a Bay Trail Celeron processor and the board and CPU combined use less than 15W power on full load. I'm using standard Non-ECC memory, which could result in a "bit flip" error every few weeks/months and compromise the data in my ZFS pool.

I'd be inerested to know if there's a low TPD Intel Processor that uses under 60W TPD max and supports ECC RAM for on the fly error checking.

[starkyller]

witch intel celeron is it?

[d032sh]

The lowest TDP chip would probably be the G3220T at 35W, but good luck finding one if you don't fancy buying a tray of them.

The normal G3220 is still only 53W however. Both support ECC.

[Biscuit]

The G1820 also supports ECC Ram, however its TDP is also 53w. I don't think i would be too concerned about that TDP for the pentium or the celeron though, i would expect the actual usage to be much much lower than that. With a complete system at idle you will probably see less than 40W and at load perhaps touching, or slightly exceeding 50W, depending on number of hard drives and the motherboard you use with it.

[Nezbert]

It's the Gigabyte J1800 dual core. Plenty power for its tiny TDP.

[Nezbert]

I wonder whether Intel are gonna release a sub-15 watt board and CPU combination that utilises ECC. That would be nice.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wonder whether Intel are gonna release a sub-15 watt board and CPU combination that utilises ECC. That would be nice.

Some versions of Atom do support ECC RAM:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asroc...d-sub-mini-itx

Its "slightly" expensive though.

[watercooled]

I wouldn't get too hung up on TDPs, they're more like a roundabout figure given to a family of processors than being closely matched to the actual specs of the chip.

For example, I've measured a Celeron G540 on a mini-ITX board with a PicoPSU, and got the following figures:
20W idle
37W peak for 7zip bench
38W peak for Truecrypt Bench
45W OCCT CPU stress
54W OCCT PSU stress.

As you can see, in most cases the CPU itself isn't drawing much more than 20W, and even under unrealistic stress conditions not more than about 35W. This is for a '65W' CPU.

The same sort of thing can be seen in reviews of these CPUs; I seem to remember a couple at Xbitlabs.

Idle power is likely more of an issue than max package power in your system as it will presumably be sitting idle most of the time. However, most modern CPUs actually use very little power themselves when idle thanks to things like power gating, it's the platform which is responsible for most of the idle draw, so pay attention to picking things like motherboard and PSU while being careful to not overspend to the point of offsetting any potential energy savings.