I wanted to build something newer than my 3 years old skt775 e5200 rig (full specs and power consumption test).

I've just oredered:
ASROCK H61M-GS
CORE I3-2120
DDR3 4GB/1600Mhz Corsair 2x2GB CL9[CMX4GX3M2B1600C9]
SSD CORSAIR F80 80GB (instead of 7200rpm 320gb Samsung HDD listed above in the old build)

I already know that I can't overclock my new cpu, and that the RAM will probably run at 1333mhz 1.5v.
- Will I be able to undervolt the cpu? (I'm not referring to the UEFI options, but I wonder if anybody actually undervolted it)
- ASROCK doesn't write anything regarding SATA ports bug in any of their motherboards. I don't know if H61 chipset is unaffected or if they just upgrade their motherboards revision without putting a "B3 REV" label on them.
- Will the power consumption decrease respect to my e5200/hd5670 build?


Thanks

I say don't bother as modern Intel desktop CPU's automatically reduce speed and voltage when idle. This feature is called Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST). Forcing the speed and voltage lower than the EIST values usually does very little for additional power savings.
After you complete the build we would be interested to see the comparative results.

The new CPU will give a some more speed but the SSD will likely impress you very much.

Hi there,
I wrote a thread after I built it (link), reporting some power consumption data... speaking in general I saw a 20w drop at idle and up to 40w under full load, compared to the older e5200 build.
-100mV undervolt is all I could do, and it helps saving some 3/4w in idle, and about 7w under full load.
I also undervolted RAMs from 1.5 to 1.35v, but it didn't help much.
Switching from a 7200rpm HDD to a SSD was like night and day, God bless SSD random access time.