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Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 1:39 pm
by TigerUK
Really impressive little box, and exactrly what I was looking for.

This was posted on another forum, source: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showth ... t=18360592

The parts

* Streacom FC8 - Awesome case for the money (£130 fanless case http://www.streacom.com/products/fc8-fanless-chassis/)
* 120w pico psu
* Asus F1A75-I, Fantastic board has some fancy power gubbings which really helps this setup idle at super low watts.
* Tri core Llano A6-3500 @ 3.65Ghz
* Geil 4gb (soon to be 8) running at 2100Mhz
* Crucial M4

I need to state that this is not mine. But I'm pretty impressed by the build. The guy even managed to over clock it and still get good performance out of the box.

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Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:43 pm
by Jim G
Hm! That is an impressive and clean build. Thanks for sharing that... it really makes me want to put one of those together myself.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:50 am
by Vicotnik
Nice. :) Planning on getting that case myself. Any chance it could cool a 2500k? The product page says "Recommended CPU Thermal Design Power: 65W" and the 2500k is 95W. Ivy Bridge should be cooler though.. Might wait until then.

And 19.5W is not that impressive really.. ;)

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:46 am
by Bigsy
As the guy that built it ;-) I would say that 19.5w is very impressive, show me something as powerful which can idle at less?

I have Celeron SU2300 1.2 CULV (actually uses less watts at idle than an atom) running at stock speed coupled with ION running on a pico psu and that can't even match the idle power consumption here.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:52 pm
by Vicotnik
Well, Sandy Bridge beats Llano right? I'm at 16.4W with my system and that's not very impressive either since others can do better.

Atom is not very impressive at idle. It's low power at full load though.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:59 am
by Bigsy
But what speed is that at? 19.5w is with the chip overclocked to 3.65Ghz, ram overclocked and overvolted to get to 2100mhz, and fsb up to 130Mhz

I'm pretty sure if I ran at stock with a drasic undervolted on the cpu, ram, gfx and mobo it would come right down.

No doubt Sandy Bridge is power effecient, but given the overclocks, gfx power, plus cost of the llano, it is without doubt impressive.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:59 am
by Vicotnik
I really cannot say since I have little to compare it to. You need to provide some benchmark results. GPU wise your system would win but not on the CPU side I think.

But sure it's impressive how low one can get a system to idle at today. All passive cooling, small footprint and high performance was impossible not that long ago. :)

About that case, I'm a little worried about chipset temp. Mine was a bit high even with air cooling so I put a larger cooler on it. But if it's all passive I don't think that would help as much. Also, I doubt a large cooler like the Xigmatek Porter would fit in that case. Would have been nice to have a heatpipe for the chipset as well.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 7:02 pm
by TigerUK
Vicotnik wrote:Well, Sandy Bridge beats Llano right? I'm at 16.4W with my system and that's not very impressive either since others can do better.

Atom is not very impressive at idle. It's low power at full load though.
sandy runs hot, amd tend to run cooler, that was the whole reason why the guy used amd I think.

For enthusiasts, maybe a chipset heatpipe mod should be inplemented, but from what I read, you need someone good with metal to work with heattpipes, they're hollow with special gas inside them to transfer heat, if they burst then they become usless. so you cannot bend them without special tools.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:23 pm
by Vicotnik
TigerUK wrote:sandy runs hot, amd tend to run cooler, that was the whole reason why the guy used amd I think.
That's not my impression. Or do you mean the motherboard?

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:20 am
by kevral
TigerUK wrote:sandy runs hot, amd tend to run cooler, that was the whole reason why the guy used amd I think.
I'm looking into building almost the same system (m-ATX board in the hifi-format FC5 OD) and unfortunately Intel just won't do in this case. Why? Well, this will be a 3D-HTPC and an AMD A6-3500 has a properly powerful integrated GPU be able to use MadVR, whereas Sandy Bridge doesn't (and can't even output 23.976 Hz). And there is no way I am trying to put discrete graphics into a fanless case.

Re: Pretty cool completely passive <20w mini pc

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:25 pm
by Vicotnik
Ivy Bridge will not be better at 24p either so I'm also looking into the AMD route. It seems like pure 23.976 Hz is difficult no matter what, even with a dedicated graphics card but AMD seems to do a better job at it than Intel at least.

edit: Check this thread on AVS Forum for more details
- http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1333324