Most energy efficient and quiet?

[Perfectionist]

Is there any way to know which ones use the less juice and are quieter too, the tech specs don't really mean much to me as I know what the parts are roughly but don't know how they would be together
I read the thread about replacing PSU etc but I'd like to avoid all that hassle and just buy one straight off that is as quiet if possible

[DeludedGuy]

Your post is a little confusing, is it a PSU you are looking for? If so Enermax are great, the modu82+ is very quiet, quieter than my Corsair HX 520 which is also quiet.

[Perfectionist]

No it was about the systems mentioned in the FAQ, and maybe other systems elsewhere since that seems to be mainly for one manufacturer/site

[nightkhaos]

No it was about the systems mentioned in the FAQ, and maybe other systems elsewhere since that seems to be mainly for one manufacturer/site

What FAQ?

[Perfectionist]

It's stickied... small form factor faq (and drivers)

forums.hexus.net/small-form-factor-portables/544-updated-13th-june-2004.html - possibly out of date...

[peterb]

Those specs are a little out of date now - they are about 5 years old.

Since then there lower power processrs have been developed, some for laptop use, but some are being used for desktop or embedded applications. Perhaps the best known is the Intel atom, although there are others.

Generally, power consumption increases with clock speed, so the lower power processors tend to have a lower (but still acceptable for general use) performance than their higher power consumption counterparts.

The CPU isn't the only power hungry component - the GP power. Again the higher performance of the GPU, the more power it will take. However unless you are into some of the more demanding games, relatively modest GPUs give good performance for general use or video playback. For HD you need to up the performnce of course.

As a form factor, mini-itx is becoming popular. I recently built a file server using a mini-itx board - it has a 1GHz processor and has a power consumption of just under 40 Watts. (and t has 2 2.5" drives in it!) Minii-itx cases and mobos tend to be a little more expensive than ATX, although some mobos are sold with the CPU fitted, so they are not quite as expensive as they might appear.

You might want to look at these sites for some ideas:

ITX warehouse

Lin-itx

[Perfectionist]

Oh, I wasn't looking at even having a GPU fitted, it's not for games, I am buying a watercoololed machine for system intensive stuff, but I was thinking I should get a lower powered one for when I know I'm not going to be doing much else to save (probably quite a lot?) energy - I read that these systems while having more powerful components can be actually more efficient than an old PC (example 1Ghz pentium)?
I basically just want something really efficient, quiet and small, possibly to use as a firewall also (or get 2)

Thanks for the ITX warehouse link, I remember seeing that website before and forgot about it

You should probably unsticky the FAQ if it's basically useless, I saw the date on it but I thought it might still be relevant somehow since it was stickied (e.g. mod approval)