Low power PC - not sure how low!

[DannyM]

Hey folks,

Basically, my main rig is a power hog (one in my profile)

So it occurred to me, do I really need such a computer these days? I don't game no where near as much as I used to so I'm not too fussed about having a mega-machine, but that been said, I make use of photoshop, dreamweaver and fireworks also MS visual studio, other then that, it's the basics, internet browsing, media playback and other none CPU heavy applications.

I used my laptop to test the performance difference and if I am honest, there wasn't much, it wasn't as nippy without the SSD and video conversion took twice as long. My essential applications ran perfectly.

This lead me to consider something smaller, less power hungry and quieter would be a benefit too

It'd be more or less a straight swap for my main rig, so price wise I think I'd be looking at £300ish.

I really like the looks of the Acer Revo, it ticks all the boxes, but I fear the Atom is stepping way too far down the ladder and it may not be up to the tasks of running my photo/web editing applications.

Any recommendations on a preferably pre-built system? I know AMD is meant to have some tasty chips coming out, should I just wait?

[watercooled]

Hmm, platforms that spring to mind:

Right now, AMD Fusion i.e. E-350 - more powerful than Atom, decent onboard GPU and lower power consumption than Atom. There are plenty of reviews of it, but here's one to get you started: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4134/t...on-for-miniitx As Anand mentions in the article, those power draw figures are with a normal PSU, you'd get much better results with a PicoPSU.
Next notch up, it seems Core i3 combined with H67 has pretty low idle power comsumption, the 2100T is a 35W TDP part but it does carry a premium over the standard (higher clocked) 2100.
Also AMD's low TDP Athlon II chips would be a good choice and would be cheaper than an Intel system.

If you're prepared to wait, AMD Llano would be one to look out for.

Edit: Here are some numbers for the E-350 with a more suitable PSU: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20401/5

[Biscuit]

I think even the E350 might become quite frustrating when you have particularly heavy Photoshop work along with a load of multitasking but it would be better than an atom!

I would have thought an athlon X2 energy efficient model would probably be just about right but i don't know about getting it prebuilt.

How about under clocking your current rig and replacing the graphics card with something a bit more lean on power requirements?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have a Core i3 2100 and it has decent performance and does not consume too much power either. The IGP also is capable of running a few games such as L4D and UT3 at 1280X800 using a mixture of medium and high settings.

However,I would wait until AMD Llano reaches retail. It is basically a 32NM version of the current Athlon II with twice the L2 cache,Turbo Core and a very powerful IGP too. The IGP has 320 to 400 shaders:

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2011/2..._detailed.html

This would mean that the IGP in the highest end Llano CPUs will probably be around the same speed as an HD5550 or HD5570 graphics card.

[DannyM]

I appreciate the input.

The Llano seems a long way off for the moment, however, I did have an intention of getting a new rig at the end of the year for BF3. That probably sounds silly considering I have made this post but the amount of power it's consuming at the moment isn't really ideal I still live with my parents and last months energy bill wasn't right clever, so to do my bit in a house of 6 I thought I'd stop using electrical items beyond my needs.

As for underclocking, I read this:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums...c.php?p=357739

System specs
CPU: Q6600 G0
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3R
Video: ATI X850XT PE
Sound: SB Audigy 2
HDD: 250GB Seagate 7200.10
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 @1.8V

Whole system power consumption
At 1.25V default voltage
Idle (1.6GHz@1.25V): 112W
4x CPUBurn (2.4GHz@1.25V): 165W

RMClock 1.162V for all p-states
Idle (1.6GHz@1.162V): 105W
4x CPUBurn (2.4GHz@1.162V): 152W

RMClock doesn't seem to allow voltages lower than 1.162V so I tried undervolting in BIOS. It was stable down to ~1.03V before Orthos started crashing so I settled for 1.05V.

Bios Undervolted 1.05V, EIST still throttles down to 1.6GHz
Idle (1.6GHz@1.05V): 97W
4x CPUBurn (2.4GHz@1.05V): 134W

Even at idle, it seems v.high. My assumption of an Atom been a suitable candidate seems extremely stupid. The 2100T does seem to sit nicely, uses a lot less power than my current rig, has acceptable speeds with applications and video conversion seems decent too. I'll look at some prices for what I need later. Again thanks for the input.

[Queelis]

An interesting article on Xbit labs, might give you some useful info:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...-i3-2100t.html

[watercooled]

Ah I've been looking for another review of the 2100T. Thanks.

[oolon]

Personally I am waiting for the quite interesting looking Xeon E3 processors, as there are a number of boards with a good range of PCIE slots on an matx board. With interesting processors E3-1260L (2.6gz 45W quad core) and E3-1220L (20W dual core). The processors also do ECC memory and Hardware virtualisation, which I am personally looking for in an always on computer.

[DannyM]

Personally I am waiting for the quite interesting looking Xeon E3 processors, as there are a number of boards with a good range of PCIE slots on an matx board. With interesting processors E3-1260L (2.6gz 45W quad core) and E3-1220L (20W dual core). The processors also do ECC memory and Hardware virtualisation, which I am personally looking for in an always on computer.

I've never had any real use for virtualisation and I have a server running seperately (providing media around the house) so it's not essential for me.

I'm really tempted by the 2100T, going to look at what type of price I would get for my machine and take it from there. I'd need the motherboard, CPU, RAM and to get the best effeciency, a new PSU would be ideal I'd then possibly like a low profile case to free up space in my room, but the essentials first

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I appreciate the input.

The Llano seems a long way off for the moment, however, I did have an intention of getting a new rig at the end of the year for BF3.

It is being released to retail around late June AFAIK. However,Llano is already shipping to OEMs:

http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2011/04/...u-is-shipping/

That probably sounds silly considering I have made this post but the amount of power it's consuming at the moment isn't really ideal I still live with my parents and last months energy bill wasn't right clever, so to do my bit in a house of 6 I thought I'd stop using electrical items beyond my needs.

As for underclocking, I read this:



Even at idle, it seems v.high. My assumption of an Atom been a suitable candidate seems extremely stupid. The 2100T does seem to sit nicely, uses a lot less power than my current rig, has acceptable speeds with applications and video conversion seems decent too. I'll look at some prices for what I need later. Again thanks for the input.

Getting a Core i3 2100T is a false economy for your purposes. My Core i3 2100 is in a mini ITX build and I considered getting a Core i3 2100T but it is not only more expensive but slower too meaning it will take longer to perform tasks. I have a Q6600 myself and the Core i3 2100 in most instances is faster when both CPUs are at stock speeds. However,at 3GHZ I suspect that the Q6600 will still be competitive with a Core i3 2100 for video encoding. Undervolting a Core i3 2100 would be a better way of reducing peak power consumption. However at idle there is little or no difference even when compared to many other slightly older CPUs.

An interesting article on Xbit labs, might give you some useful info:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...-i3-2100t.html

That article is incredibly flawed - there as been much debate on many forums about it. It seems they used an 880W PSU and even by their own admission used the worst Zacate motherboard with regards to power consumption.

The review should have been done with either a DC-DC or a 200W to 300W SFF PSU instead.

For instance look at the power consumption figures for both Zacate and Ion using a DC-DC board when compared to a 610W PSU:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20401/5

The power consumption figures for the Core i3 2100 seem to mirror what Anandtech saw too and it is basically around the same as the older socket 1156 Core i3 CPUs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,the CPU is only one part of the equation too! You need to consider the power consumption of the chipset,graphics card and monitor too. On top of this you need to have a PSU which is quite efficient at lower loads.

If you want a power efficient package I would suggest that the OP uses their laptop instead. The power bricks for most laptops are rated at between 45W to 90W IIRC for the whole system.

Edit!!

IMHO,it is the HD4870X2 which is the main issue here as it has very high idle power consumption.

It seems that the HD6970 2GB only has around 30% of the idle power consumption of an HD4870X2:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/H...D_6970/27.html

Replacing your graphics card would reduce the power consumption of your system quite a bit. If you got an HD5870 1GB for example it would have similar performance to an HD4870X2 with DX11 and lower power consumption:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...D_5870/30.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...D_5870/28.html

[DannyM]

I know the laptop would be the best choice, but it's not really ideal, I do use my laptop fairly often out and about, so it could be a hassle connecting/disconnecting it all the time.

I like the idea of swapping the graphics card out, it does appear to make a large difference and it would prove to be the cheaper option.

Getting an i3 2100T setup is looking to be around £300 as oppose to the £70-£80 difference I would need to put to swapping the GFX out. But as you state, there are many parts to the problem, this is where it would feel much easier to build from the ground up so to speak.

I'll weigh my options up and try to do some comparisons.

[Queelis]

That article is incredibly flawed - there as been much debate on many forums about it. It seems they used an 880W PSU and even by their own admission used the worst Zacate motherboard with regards to power consumption.

The review should have been done with either a DC-DC or a 200W to 300W SFF PSU instead.

For instance look at the power consumption figures for both Zacate and Ion using a DC-DC board when compared to a 610W PSU:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20401/5

The power consumption figures for the Core i3 2100 seem to mirror what Anandtech saw too and it is basically around the same as the older socket 1156 Core i3 CPUs.

Well, I was more referring to the performance of the CPUs (as to point out that the E-350 wouldn't be powerful enough for something even slightly heavier), rather than their exact power consumption (as well as including the chipset power consumption).

Since I run a Phenom X4 125W rig constantly folding when it is on, I just assumed that any of these CPU's power consumption is minuscule in comparison

And even if you could say that a different Zacate board would have a better power consumption, then okay, slash 30% off (which, I assume, isn't very feasible), you get a power consumption around 20W at load, as opposed to, say, 30W of the i3. Even if the PC is constantly on, and even on load, I don't see this as having a big effect on one's leccy bill.

[DanceswithUnix]

From the directly measured power in this chart, an idle i7 2600K takes just 5W.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/21

From the system power charts, an idle i3 2100 takes 1W less, so that would be 4W then.

Building a desktop around something like the Atom or Zacate really doesn't make sense to me, I want the work completed right now and then the system can return to idle.

Just don't get a motherboard with extra firewire, network ports etc that you will never use as they all sup power.

[Biscuit]

From the directly measured power in this chart, an idle i7 2600K takes just 5W.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/21

From the system power charts, an idle i3 2100 takes 1W less, so that would be 4W then.

Building a desktop around something like the Atom or Zacate really doesn't make sense to me, I want the work completed right now and then the system can return to idle.

Just don't get a motherboard with extra firewire, network ports etc that you will never use as they all sup power.

I find a good exercise is going through the bios and disabling everything you aren't using. Never measured how much power it actually saves but iw as lead to believe it was worthwhile.

[watercooled]

Bear in mind you can't just measure power draw from the ATX12v connector, especially with Core CPUs - the uncore part of the CPU draws a fair amount from the 24 pin connection, probably more than from the ATX12v when idle.
http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//i...id=44&Itemid=1

Motherboard/chipset consumption is just as important though, until recently Intel chipsets had awful efficiency.