Is an AMD 760G board and a Athlon II X2 240e good enough for blu-ray + HD?

[scaryjim]

Does cool and quiet work well (at all?) on the Evo board with the undervolting?

Works beautifully - voltage drops to - IIRC - 0.762V while idle, fan speed drops well below 2000rpm (I can have a run of SpeedFan later this week and give you a more accurate figure if you want) and the CPU remains steady at ~ 30degrees in a case with next to no airflow.

As an aside, the stock cooler with the Sempron is surprisingly small and has a very low profile but is whisper quiet. It has a decent PWM-controlled fan on it too - even when I ran a wPrime 1024M test a couple of weeks ago it didn't ramp the fan up much above 2200rpm (iirc!) keeping the CPU in the mid-30s. The whole system, even with the aging HDD and DVD, is barely noticable above background noise. I wouldn't be surprised if an undervolted 45W Athlon II could be passively cooled in a case with reasonable airflow...

[kingpotnoodle]

I wouldn't be surprised if an undervolted 45W Athlon II could be passively cooled in a case with reasonable airflow...

My 65W 240 is passively cooled by an Sythe Mini-Ninja in an Antec Fusion... the 2x120mm fans are right next to the cooler though.

Temps sit in the 20s most of the time according to CoreTemp :-)

[scaryjim]

My 65W 240 is passively cooled ... the 2x120mm fans are right next to the cooler though.

This is clearly some unusual new use of the word "passive" of which I was not previously aware

Good to hear though. I'm afraid my HTPC case is too small to get a decent sized cooler in or I'd be tempted to give it a go...

[arthurleung]

I haven't got any links to back it up, but I think I've seen people say that the atom + Ion boards are ok as long as the IGP does offload. As soon as you have a codec not working properly though, it can fall down. I honestly don't know whether that's true, but it worries me. It may not be rational (and almost certainly doesn't match with my low power aspirations), but I guess I just feel a 'proper' cpu will hold it's own for longer. Or at least a board that doesn't have the CPU hard wired to it will give me options later on.

But the bigger problem, from memory, with the atom/ion boards is the lack of sata ports. Long term, I'd like space for maybe 4-5 drives - I suspect video will expand to fill the space, especially if I start buying and ripping blu-rays. I think the newer revision zotac boards are supposed to have more sata ports, but certainly I haven't seen the revised s775 zotac 9300 board surface yet. EDIT: there are 2 dual core atom + ION boards on Scan, one Zotac and one Asus, both have 3 sata + 1 esata. Most of the micro-atx boards I've been looking at have 6 or maybe 5+1 esata.

I guess I'm trying to tick too many boxes at once, so I'll have to accept a compromise somewhere. Just got to choose where to make the compromise...

Use USB drives for storage. Blu-ray bitrate is well under 50Mbps

My 65W 240 is passively cooled by an Sythe Mini-Ninja in an Antec Fusion... the 2x120mm fans are right next to the cooler though.

Temps sit in the 20s most of the time according to CoreTemp :-

That is certainly not "passive". Really in reality the only way to do passive cooling is either by running the system in open air (i.e. no case), or use the case as a heatsink.

TBH I wouldn't bother with any single / dual core and go straight for the X4 620. I saved more than enough from a 2nd hand board to make up the extra cost of a "real" quad over a dual that is unlockable.

MA780GM-UD2H + Athlon X4 620 1.05V + 500G Seagate 7200.9 + LG BDROM + 2x2GB DDR2 DDR2-1000 + OCZ 400W

Idle: 50.6W
Full load (Prime95 x64): 99.7W

[GaryRW]

OK - I think I may be getting somewhere. maybe....

Re motherboard and my original post, I have continued looking and it seems the MSI 785g boards are low power. They may be higher power than the particular 760g biostar board mentioned in my first post, but SilentPC (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article967-page7.html) suggests the MSI was about 45w idle, and is about 14w less than the Asus evo board that I think ScaryJim has got. You can also underclock the MSI board further as well. The lower idle power figures seems to be backed up elsewhere as well e.g http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...48&cid=6&pg=10 - never come across that site before, but again shows the MSI as much less power. Actually, looking back at http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...oundup/16.html from my earlier post, again the MSI board is the lowest idle figure. It may be higher idle than that 760g Biostar board, but I reckon I can live with that.

So looking around to actually buy one, Scan have an AM3 board (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/MSI-7...Board-Graphics) at £51, but it's out of stock and no ETA. This seems to be near identical to the E65 that SilentPC reviewed, but without sideport memory and no firewire iirc.

Or there is an AM2+ board that is in stock (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/MSI-7...Board-Graphics) & also slightly cheaper at £48.42.

Basic question I know, but am I right in thinking the main/only difference between AM2+ and AM3 is between DDR2 and DDR3 memory? I think Jim and Cat's comments above fit with that, and as Cat has pointed out, DDR3 will be slightly lower power (but it all helps ).

So anything obviously bad about those boards? No-one (including Jim and Cat) seemed to point out anything truly horrendous in this thread (http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...mobo-50-a.html) so I think I should be ok??

ps apologies for the constant linking to pages - As above, if nothing else it's helpful to keep track of things for myself, but I am perhaps trying a bit too hard to show I am doing at least some of the work myself

EDIT: and am I right to assume this from that MSI 785GTM-E45 manual should mean it can unlock cores:

EC Firmware
This item allows you to select the EC Firmware for Advanced Clock Calibration. For
unclocking the additional cores, you could set it [Special] and then set Advanced Clock
Calibration [Auto] in order to be able to activate the processor cores.
Advanced Clock Calibration
This item is for overclock. Setting to [Enabled] allows you to set the CPU Ratio higher.
It is available only when the processor supports this function.

Oh, & can I just say again, thanks for all the help

[GaryRW]

Use USB drives for storage. Blu-ray bitrate is well under 50Mbps

I honestly hadn't thought of that! I am still worried about Atom + Ion though for HTPC duty. I feel far more comfortable with the idea of the 785g + a decent dual core.

I would also guess external USB drives may not be as power efficient as running all the drives from one PSU ??

[arthurleung]

I honestly hadn't thought of that! I am still worried about Atom + Ion though for HTPC duty. I feel far more comfortable with the idea of the 785g + a decent dual core.

I would also guess external USB drives may not be as power efficient as running all the drives from one PSU ??

External USB drives use up to 20W of power, 10% difference in efficiency is about 2W. Given that those PSUs are plastic cased, passively cooled and doesn't feel hotter than say 45'C they certainly don't waste much power.

Many external drives have idle power down anyway. If you really want absolute minimum power usage, ditch all your drives and go for 2x WD20EADS. That will give you minimal power per GB of active storage.
Or you can always switch USB drives off from the mains.

Unless you're overclocking or unlocking extra cores, having ACC is useless. Certainly you'll be able to find a cheaper board that doesn't have ACC but then give you more budget to buy a CPU that does not need unlocking. That is unless you think you're getting a better deal by unlocking the cores.

Really there isn't much difference if you're only going to playback video files. 65W CPU is not picky about board so you can just pick the cheapest one. CPU I would recommend at least 3Ghz Dual Core for software 1080p decode, or better any Quad Core. I always find hardware acceleration very picky about the file, and that I lose the filtering available if I use CPU (ffdshow).

[spac3d]

jenniferzhu85 seems like a spammer to me.

[GaryRW]

OK - I've been thinking things through. I am pretty much ready to order .

This is for a HTPC at the moment - the NAS/HTPC is on the back burner (but I am keeping it in mind when making choices for this build)

The case is already bought - a Silverstone GD04 - the only case that would fit where it needs to go. So matx boards

Boards/Memory - I've narrowed it down to the 2 MSI boards in post number 37 - the AM3 E51 board with 4 DDR3 sockets at £51 but out of stock or the AM2+ board with 2 DDR2 sockets at £48 and in stock

Board choice obviously ties in with memory and I was shocked to see the prices that ram has shot up to. I'm sure I was looking at around £50 for 4gb a few months ago . so....

• With the price, is 2gb enough or should I bite the bullet and go for 4gb? If DDR2, 2gb will really have to be enough as with only 2 dimm slots, it will be annoying to have to strip out both 1gb sticks to replace with 2gb sticks.
• Any I being stupidly impatient to get the ddr2 board just because it's in stock, or should I wait for the AM3 board to become available again. Having found boards that seem ok, I would prefer to order asap as I've seen boards before (s775 9300 based boards) that seemed ok but then disappeared off the face of the planet. There seems plenty of AM2+ compatible processors that would be more than good enough if it did need more umph.
• Has anybody seen any good deals on memory or specific recommendations?

Taking these 2 together, I think I will order the AM2+ board, but with 4gb memory as they'll be no upgrade path other than replacing the dimms.

PSU - Really not sure what to do. I really want the HTPC to be as silent as possible. So I would order the 330W Seasonic S12II. SilentPC says it's quiet, and it seems pretty efficient. But out of stock and no ETA . There is the Enermax PSU cat recommended, and ebuyer have a 350W Be Quiet Pure for £30, but I can't find any detailed info about noise for either of those 2.

So I am really tempted to just order this FSP DC-DC board with adapter @ £60 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/150w-...-Power-Adaptor). Should be pretty efficient - I think FSP are ok & spec sheet say minimum 88% efficient though that is just the DC/DC board. Should be silent, and as a bonus almost all the heat will be outside the case. So... is 150W going to be OK for this build? Should be, shouldn't it??

HDD Right now I'll stick a 1.5tb Samsung F2 ecogreen in. About £70 on scan. When the NAS box is up and running, I might stick a laptop drive or an SSD - either should be lower power and quieter.

CPU - right now, It'll be the Sempron 140. I'm not planning on getting a blu-ray drive just yet (i've an old dvd drive kicking about that will do for now), & the 235/240e's aren't about yet. Who'd have thought it - the processor is the cheapest bit of kit!

Any comments on the plan before I order will be very much appreciated.

[GaryRW]

All ordered and built I thought I'd update just in case anyone's looking in. I might get round to doing a proper build thread at some point as obviously this thread has evolved somewhat... If a mod could change the title to something like low power HTPC build that would be great.

I went with the plan in the last post - so the DDR2 4gb + MSI785GTM-E45 board, and the FSP DC/DC psu.

I've only just got it up and running so I'm still experimenting. There were a few problems in getting the PSU board connected as the leads were too short - the 4 pin CPU plug was only about 2-3 inches of wire from the 24 pin ATX plug. To be fair Scan do list it as a mini-itx psu, so I guess I can't complain. Maplin's sorted me out anyway

It's currently sat idling at the desktop with the second core unlocked and drawing only 40/41w at stock voltage. I will stress test with it at stock voltage first and then I'll try undervolting. Only problem is that with the second sempon 140 core unlocked, I can't get a temp reading at all. Core temp says 0c, and speedfan lists one as 100c (which I'm hoping is wrong...).

EDIT - AMD overdrive utility lists the 2 CPU temps as -265c. Isn't that approaching 0° Kelvin?

ScaryJim - just in case you look in, did you manage to get any temp readings on your unlocked Sempron??

[Domestic_Ginger]

Unfortunately unlocking switches off the core temp probe.

There are motherboard sensors which have to be used instead. Gigabyte mobos use the following setup, TMNP1 is system, TMNP2 is CPU, TMNP3 is northbridge. Not positive about 3! 1+2 are identified in easytune; GBs overclocking utility.

Using a single core setup you sould be able to get a correlation between TMNP2 and the core temp. Mine is 6-8 greater at idle and 10-11 at load for a dual core P2.
Then when you go dual you 'should' get a similar ratio. Hope that helps!

[GaryRW]

Thanks

I think I'm getting really low temps - compared to my Q6600 anyway. I think a workaround is that HW monitor shows the fan speeds, and percentage of the full fan speed. I've set the MSI board to try and keep the CPU temp at 40c. As you say, there seems to be a 8-10 c difference between CPU and core temp. The Fan speed is still well below 100%, but does ramp up slightly from 62% to 71% when bore cores are at 100%. So I think I'm ok

The pc is amazingly quiet. I can't hear it at all next to my main rig. It might be because the 3 case fans are apparently only running at about 450rpm - I think running all three from the same motherboard fan header may be splitting the voltage between 3. So possibly an unintended (but welcome) voltage mod ??

I am shocked by how quiet the stock AMD heatsink fan is - 80mm and apparently running at around 2-2500 rpm, but I'm not at all sure I can hear it!

[arthurleung]

Thanks

I think I'm getting really low temps - compared to my Q6600 anyway. I think a workaround is that HW monitor shows the fan speeds, and percentage of the full fan speed. I've set the MSI board to try and keep the CPU temp at 40c. As you say, there seems to be a 8-10 c difference between CPU and core temp. The Fan speed is still well below 100%, but does ramp up slightly from 62% to 71% when bore cores are at 100%. So I think I'm ok

The pc is amazingly quiet. I can't hear it at all next to my main rig. It might be because the 3 case fans are apparently only running at about 450rpm - I think running all three from the same motherboard fan header may be splitting the voltage between 3. So possibly an unintended (but welcome) voltage mod ??

I am shocked by how quiet the stock AMD heatsink fan is - 80mm and apparently running at around 2-2500 rpm, but I'm not at all sure I can hear it!

The fan header have voltage control, that is why it is only 450RPM. Splitting the voltage between 3 doesn't work this way unless you messed around chaining the cables in serial (which is definitely not the case with standard connectors).

It is not really the AMD fan that is quiet, but rather how little heat is produced by the CPU, compared to a Q6600, which you can't really compare consider it is a quad.

If you undervolt the CPU as low as possible, you might be able to just remove the CPU fan and the CPU will still be fine, perhaps running 20'C higher which is well within the spec.

[GaryRW]

Ahhhhhh!

You can't adjust the CPU vcore on the MSI 785GTM-E45

I've updated the bios (which I always hate doing) and I can now change the integrated GPU frequency, but still no vcore adjustment. I couldn't find any detailed reviews of the E45 model, but reviews of the other models in the same series had vcore adjustment so I stupidly assumed you could do it on the E45. Now I've searched specifically for that, it seems no you can't. Stupid, stupid me!!

(to be fair, it is a lower model number board, so I guess it's not so unreasonable. But I couldn't see much difference on the specs other than missing firewire iirc).

Still, cool and quiet (touch wood again) seems to be working and the voltage is dropping down to about 1.05v on idle. Don't suppose anyone knows any programs that will log vcore on the 785g chipset so I can see what it does when watching tv?

The fan header have voltage control, that is why it is only 450RPM. Splitting the voltage between 3 doesn't work this way unless you messed around chaining the cables in serial (which is definitely not the case with standard connectors).

One splitter is plugged directly into the motherboard fan connector, with one fan connected to one connector, and a second splitter on the second connector. I think I' assuming the reported fan speed may be entirely wrong as a result, but the main thing is the temps (I think) are low, and the case is quiet, so on that score I'm happy.

It is not really the AMD fan that is quiet, but rather how little heat is produced by the CPU, compared to a Q6600, which you can't really compare consider it is a quad.

True, but the fan is still turning at >2000 rpm so I'm still impressed it's as quiet as it is. Given the low temps I could volt mod it to run slower, but TBH, I'm happy with the noise levels, especially as it'll be tucked away when properly in use.

If you undervolt the CPU as low as possible, you might be able to just remove the CPU fan and the CPU will still be fine, perhaps running 20'C higher which is well within the spec.

Even without undervolting, and ignoring everything I've just said about being happy with the noise levels, I am still very tempted to try this

[DanceswithUnix]

ta

ps - I saw a thread on silentpc that had the idea of using a light bulb to gauge how accurate a plug in power meter is. The meter I've borrowed didn't do too bad - Out of 3 energy savings bulbs, 2 were spot on and one showed slightly under the rated wattage. So I figure it's roughly accurate (I'd seen suggestions they could be out by 25-50% quite easily.)

& yes, I know I need help.

Problem is, a lightbulb draws power over the whole of the sine-wave of the mains voltage. Computer PSUs can pull nasty tricks such as only draw during the peaks which makes working out average power over the full sine wave much harder and hence the cheap power meters can't always cope.

Still, it gives you a ballpark and if you mess with things without changing the PSU then you get to reliably see if the power draw goes down (or up!).

[DanceswithUnix]

From that thread on SilentPC, and my very basic understanding of such things, I think one advantage of the biostar board was that it doesn't support high TDP processors, so has fewer phases (?) on the power side of things which means it draws less power. Does that sound right to you, and does non-support for high wattage processors probably mean a lower power draw for the board?

Rather late, but I will comment anyway

Life is never so simple. I went for as many phases as I could get because it gives better control of the CPU supply voltage. At load you get less noise/spikes and hence less heat generated in the CPU.

So for undervolting, although you might get a slight increase in switching losses from more phases, I suspect you could dial a lower voltage on the CPU and get that back.