low power system recommendations

[tfboy]

Right.

I'm getting seriously annoyed with the lack of power of the Via CN700 cpu/chipset I have running as my home server. The server only hosts files and a small media server, but it's clearly apparent that I can't get anywhere near gigabit ethernet speeds because the cpu and bus just can't shunt the data around fast enough. Add to that its inherent instability with BSODs every couple of days, even when on idle (already sent first board back as it would BSOD as soon as you did the slightest networking).

I went onto the mini ITX format to get a low power system as this is on 24/7 and want something efficient.

If I'm to scrap the whole ultra-low power platform and go for something more mainstream and reliable, what motherboards / cpu combinations would you recommend? I can underclock stuff too if it saves power and obviously the smart throttling you get nowadays must help - I'm hoping that a whole system is only 25-50W on idle.

So there's no need for advanced GPU - onboard is more than adequate. Don't need sound, firewire, a trillian USB ports. All I need is at least 2 SATA ports, and Gigabit LAN which can be provided by means of a PCI NIC I have lying around. I currently have a pico ATX PSU (80W) which would be nice to keep. It's only powering the motherboard and one 3.5" HDD. No second HDD or CDROM.

I have a Fujitsu/Siemens mini desktop at work; looks surprisingly like a mac mini that's a C2D base and can't use up more than about 80W, so something along those lines, ultra efficient but component based would be ideal.

Cheers for any suggestions

Xav

[Webby]

You could always stick with mini-itx and get an Intel Atom board, cheap as well at least compared to Via's offerings

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=847366
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Produ...?ProductID=844

Onboard Lan appears to be only 100Mbit unfortunately but it has a PCI slot to remedy that.

[Flewis]

The intel atoms are also fairly underpowered, the processors are good but the 945 chipset uses too much power.

I would look at AMD's offerings, the nvidia 8200 chipset on mini itx with one of their latest single core processors should be pretty low power. The nvidia chipset uses less power than the 780G chipset:

http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12081
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=788616
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...200-mini-itx/1

[tfboy]

Yeah, there are two main versions of the atom cpu / chipset - one of them's very power efficient, the other not so - around 25W chipset. Unfortunately, intel have only released the non efficient one to motherboard manufacturers. The efficient one is available but only in preassembled products.

Still not sure if it would be powerful enough though.

Will look at the AMD/nvidia option

[Webby]

Not sure what the lowest wattage single core AM2 CPU you can get is but the duels are 45W which will be pushing your 80W PSU to its limits you could always underclock I suppose bring it down to ~1.5GHz and it will draw a fair bit less power. That would probably enable a system less than 80W under load

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...00-mini-itx/11

Power consumption section of review of the nVidia board