whats a low power core2duo or am2 e.g. mobo and cpu?

[weebroonieuk]

reason im asking is im rebuilding my media center again and want to know the cpu's with the lowest tdp
and a good mobo to support it with plenty sata ports and pci-e , will the 45nm intels be lower than amd's black editions i cant find a place to find the tdp?

basically its a cpu choice as i like high end mobos with good overclocking and underclocking and plenty of feaures esata is a must and any other funky new tech is always tempting

any suggestions would be great cheers

gordon

[freddie]

wolfdales are meant to idle at ridiculously low levels, they are about on par with mid range x2's - but are far more powerful, get the job done quicker.

I'd say

Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H
+
E8200

It's got integrated graphics with some acceleration + hdmi, dvi out

[staffsMike]

Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H
+
E8200

It's got integrated graphics with some acceleration + hdmi, dvi out

It's also got esata but only single channel RAM. That shouldn't affect a media PC too much though.

What might is that the board has no voltage control IIRC so no undervolting or big overclocks which stray from stock volts.

If it does need to be uATX then the Abit version here loses esata but gains overclocking functions.

Does it need to be uATX though?

[weebroonieuk]

hmm no esata is a minor problem but no voltage control is a big no no i love to be abl to over and underclock on the fly ive been doing it for ages with y asus a8n 32 sli deluxe with opteron 165 goin all the way upto 2.8 or down to bare minimum but that system is overkill it was an ipulse buy with the opteron frenzy when they came out

i dont mind using a standard atx case and i dont want to go down the integrated gfx route im looking at the 2600 series amd graphics cards for some future proofing and good hardware decoding of hd sources plus im sure they can be used to help video conversion too

i remember seeing a fatality matx board that had quite the feature set im after but i think i will wait for proper wolfdale report as i remember hearing something of amazingly low idle modes plus it will have more advanced cpu instructions than any other cpu when it comes out so that may well be my route unless amd pull somethin out the bag........... i doubt it

[Webby]

If your looking at the 2600s then you may as well look at the 3650s instead better card overall and about the same price

[staffsMike]

If you're going the ATX route then you have the pick of the bunch really.

What sort of budget do you have for the board?

An Abit IP-35pro would be a good board and offers all the things you could ever really want. I'd wait for scan to have it on today only as it can go as cheap as £90

This seems like a nice board from asus though,

All the overclocking features you might want,
2x eSATA
onboard wifi

[weebroonieuk]

hmm no esata is a minor problem but no voltage control is a big no no i love to be abl to over and underclock on the fly ive been doing it for ages with y asus a8n 32 sli deluxe with opteron 165 goin all the way upto 2.8 or down to bare minimum but that system is overkill it was an ipulse buy with the opteron frenzy when they came out

i dont mind using a standard atx case and i dont want to go down the integrated gfx route im looking at the 2600 series amd graphics cards for some future proofing and good hardware decoding of hd sources plus im sure they can be used to help video conversion too

i remember seeing a fatality matx board that had quite the feature set im after but i think i will wait for proper wolfdale report as i remember hearing something of amazingly low idle modes plus it will have more advanced cpu instructions than any other cpu when it comes out so that may well be my route unless amd pull somethin out the bag........... i doubt it

[weebroonieuk]

i hadnt noticed the 3650 cards its really low power with good performance for hd playback i will look into it later though

and yeh i will probably buy another highend board thats way more suited to my needs , dont need internal wifi but seems are comeing with that anyways id prefer more sata ports or better onboard audio like he good old nforce 2 than wlan as i will be connecting via dual Gbe ports to a switch which will be done the same to a media server as i like things instant !! and i also like to tinker so why not

[Methanoid]

It's also got esata but only single channel RAM. That shouldn't affect a media PC too much though.

What might is that the board has no voltage control IIRC so no undervolting or big overclocks which stray from stock volts.

If it does need to be uATX then the Abit version here loses esata but gains overclocking functions.

Does it need to be uATX though?

Sure I saw mention when Googling that the PVM does have vCore adjustment... I'm gonna go look again!