Upgrading my 2009 boxen

[ro-solara]

I have a lot of computers and I enjoy them thoroughly. Most have good SSDs in them which I have found has given them new life.

The following boxes I want to change the CPUs and run them cool. I am not willing to deal with heat or excess power usage. I want to reduce the heat and power use while not downgrading too much in terms of CPU grunt.
I have found the AMD Athlon X4 630 runs hot, I have two of them and the chipsets get too warm. I'm looking at the 615e which is rated at 45W instead of the current 95W. Any experiences? One will go in a 785g board and the other in a 740g board. The 615e chips are 80$ I have another board which is an 880g running a phenom 925 95W which is throttled if you can believe it. Ridik temps and power usage.

Then I have a Pentium e6300 2.8ghz core 2 architecture in a G31 board. I'm looking at putting in a Q8400s which is rated the same as the current chip 65W. Anyone know if the heat will still be good? My other box has the same board with an E8500 and that runs gloriously. And these days that chip is 20$ instead of 80$ for the quad.
Prices are CAD dollar eBay.

I can upgrade everything for about 60$ to 80$ a box. Just want to make sure I get better chips cooler running. I'm really happy with the AMD 5050e and 4850e chips in my AM2 boxes but I would like more grunt in these.
Only new platform that looks appealing is A8 7600 but I don't want to buy new crap just run my old stuff into the ground.

Looking at getting 3 years out of this stuff and I know my needs, speeds are good right now just want to tackle power and heat. Thanks

[quest_for_silence]

I have found the AMD Athlon X4 630 runs hot, I have two of them and the chipsets get too warm. I'm looking at the 615e

Do not waste your money with those dead chips: undervolt your 630 (and 925) and you should be fine.

I'm looking at putting in a Q8400s which is rated the same as the current chip 65W. Anyone know if the heat will still be good?

Though the TDP is rated the same, the heat produced by a cool Pentium isn't comparable to the heat coming from a quad.

Said that, I'd avoid that crippled quad (for such a price!): look instead for a Xeon, either L or E series (L5430, L5420, E5450, E5440), they can be used with your chipset with a simple mod.

[ro-solara]

Thank you kindly for the reply Luca.

The reason I haven't undervolted is the same reason I no longer overclock, namely I need correct operation more than I need speed or in this case, lower heat generation and power use.

I have found that calculations give the wrong answer, be it with prime95 or with my own code, or with continuous checksum generation when I run CPUs or memory out of spec. So I run everything very conservatively nowadays.

I want to load these boxes continuously, but I have been afraid to do so because they just put out too much heat and the chipsets get ridiculously hot. Everyone talks about how low power a CPU runs when idling but the point here is not to have the box idle, but run continuously at a moderate to high load without me having to babysit temps.

Noise is a secondary concern, heat is number one. Of course they're related. I have been lurking on this site for years and appreciate the work.

Regarding the Intel box, I made a mistake, I was looking at the Q9400s not the 8 series.

I've seen as well that TDP ratings don't tell the full story. So just wondering if anyone has experience with this chip vs the E8400. This box is not as important as the AMD ones, so I've ordered one X4 615e and will test that out and hopefully chipsets temps come down.

Failing that I will go back to dual core in all these boxes. Downgrade.

[Vicotnik]

The only main difference between factory underclocking and manually doing so is the stability testing needed to make sure the system is stable with the new settings. And that is only needed if you touch the voltage. Just downclocking should not really cause any problems.

X4 630 and 615e are basically the same CPU with different voltage and frequency settings. If you can, set the X4 630 to something similar, with a little margin if you want to minimize stability testing.

[quest_for_silence]

I have found that calculations give the wrong answer, be it with prime95 or with my own code, or with continuous checksum generation when I run CPUs or memory out of spec.

Interesting: within which time frame did you get that wrong answer?

I was looking at the Q9400s not the 8 series.

Even in that case, a Xeon L5430 (12Mb cache, 50W TDP) would be a better option than a Q9400 (6Mb cache, 65W TDP).

So just wondering if anyone has experience with this chip vs the E8400.

I haven't data right now, but IMO you can reasonably expect a 15W-20W more power consumption at full load with the Q9400S (over the E8400): the relevant temp is a (complex) matter of case airflow, ambient temp (and humidity) and CPU cooler effectiveness, but if noise isn't an issue you can run the stock cooler always at full tilt (in order to have decent temps).