Power drain q's

Thinking about making a new rig. will be a 24/7 server, just wondering if the below would work on 80W... Undervolting & clocking could be an option if it gets to the bios :surprised:

J&W MINIX 780G-SP128MB, AMD 780G, AM2/AM2+, DDR2 1066MHz, SATA RAID , Mini-ITX, HDMI/ DVI/ VGA £83.95 £96.54
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 Energy Efficient 1MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £50 45W
1GB Samsung DDR2 SO-DIMM PC2-6400 (800), 200 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered £6.95 £7.99 *2
160GB Samsung HM161JJ Spinpoint MP2, 2.5", SATA II, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 11ms, with FreeFall Sensor £32.26 £37.10

This is the case i'm thinking about with the 80w ext adaptr. Any advise on a cpu cooler would be appreciated also =]
Akasa AK-ITX01BK-UK Enigma Mini ITX Case 80W Ext. AC Adapter (full range 110-240V) and Int dc £49.89 £57.37

CPU takes 45W ( i guess at full load) so would the other components take less than 35W?

It shouldn't use any more than 70W at peak load, probably an average of <20W with PM tweaks.

There are some good article on power consumption of the 4850e on the 780G chipset below (with Cool'n'Quiet enabled) that might be worth reading...

toms hardware - 42W idle, 73W load
AnandTech - 57W idle, 84W load
Techware Labs - 76W idle,
Hothardware - 79W idle, 129W load

Then have a look at Neoseeker - LF2 Atom 330. This is the board I am running and it is a superb little system (Specs here). Total build cost &#163;192 and produces next to no heat and is silent. 41W idle, 49W load, 8W tdp.

Another option available to you is to hold fire and wait for NVidia ION platform to be released, that coupled with the ATOM, will have a far lower power consumption than anything available atm...

interesting stuff... I don't need the rig for at least another month so I may hold off for an ION when I get to see some benchmarks =]

will you have any CD drives or fans or anything in the case?
those sort of things will actually make a difference at the sort of power usage you're saying.

Hi, no cd drive... only to install windows. fan on the cpu and 1 on the case i guess.
bare minimum components really, just the stuff i listed above + keyboard mouse. Just need the rig to post really, can underclock it cos I don't need much power.
I might swap to a micro-atx board and case instead + pico psu, probably cheaper that way.

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Originally Posted by matty-hodgson

will you have any CD drives or fans or anything in the case?
those sort of things will actually make a difference at the sort of power usage you're saying.

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Fans draw so little it's not worth mentioning.
CD drives are also very light on power usage.

They really are some of the last things that need to be considered with power usage.

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Originally Posted by baka

Hi, no cd drive... only to install windows.

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If thats the case, then you'll be better of using a USB stick. reformat it as FAT32, and copy the contents of the windows disc onto it using xcopy. There is a basic outline here of the process, step #12. I'm running the windows 7 beta on my itx system (LF2/Atom330) and it is fantastic.

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I might swap to a micro-atx board and case instead + pico psu, probably cheaper that way.

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You can easily go down to mini-ITX, for your needs the Little Falls 2 board with ATOM330 is more than sufficient, and as mentioned earlier, when the ION platform is released, you'll be looking at picoITX, which is even smaller, more powerful, and uses even less power...

you convinced me, i'll wait for ION =]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agent

Fans draw so little it's not worth mentioning.
CD drives are also very light on power usage.

They really are some of the last things that need to be considered with power usage.

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even when only talking about 40W or so?

a 120mm fan uses about 2w of energy, which is quite a lot.. (acquired by removing a PC fan from my PC and noticing a 2W drop at the plug, using one of them energy reading things)
3 of them in a case, that's almost 8&#37; of the whole power of the 80w PSU.

I think my DVD drive is 0.5-1 watt plugged in & idle.