Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

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Daox
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Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Thu Jun 30, 2016 5:04 am

I'm considering upgrading my home desktop. The last upgrade was done about 2011 with a lot of carryover parts from 2008. My wife is going to be doing more work from home, primarily office & internet based work. So she'll be using some office applications as well as a small amount of photo and maybe a tiny bit of video editing. If I do upgrade, I'd like it to be a fairly efficient PC as well as something quiet (efficient and quiet were goals from the previous builds as well). I'm considering an entire new build, simple upgrades, or possibly just using it as is since the tasks aren't too demanding.

The current specs are:

Athlon II X3 455 3.3ghz 95w w/ passive cooler
MSI K9N2G Neo-FD AM2+/ AM2 (only sata3 support is probably limiting my SSD)
Radeon HD 6870 (this could possibly just be removed in favor of onboard video)
G Skill 4GB DDR2 800 (PC6400) 2x2gb
Rosewill Green 530W 80 PLUS certified
OCZ Vertex 3 Series MAX IOPS 120 gig
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250gb - suspended mount
Samsung EX2220X 21.5" LED LCD
2x ancient optical drives that rarely even are plugged in
Running windows 7
Cable internet 2 meg download / 1 meg upload

I'd love a few suggestions. I've been out of the computer building game since... well 2011 (last build). I'm not sure if throwing a bit more ram in there would help out or not. I took a look at a couple builds and it seems like 4-8 gig is normal for an office computer. Perhaps I won't even see much of an improvement in performance for just office apps? I'm also considering upgrading my internet speed. I have cable and I've been using their lowest or 2nd lowest package with 2 meg download, 1 meg upload. I'm thinking that upgrading that will definitely speed things up, but its fine right now for casual browsing. The next step up is 6 meg / 1 meg and the non introductory price is 4x what I'm paying now. I'm also considering Windows 10. So, those are my thoughts. I'm not sure how accurate they are.

Your thoughts and ideas are quite welcome. Thanks!

quest_for_silence
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:24 am

I got two similar rigs a while ago (x4 605e and X3 425e): though rather efficient for the time (and I undervolted and overclocked them) they simply can't match contemporary entry level Intel CPUs with reference to power efficiency (those things max out at about 40W for the whole rig).
Those CPUs would be a tad snappier too, but not by a huge margin, and they're perfectly adequate for office/internet: some of them offer a very good IGP too.

If you're interested into efficiency gains, but you didn't want to build a new rig, performance wise you might add 8Gb of more DDR2 (second hand I suppose) and a passive GTX 750ti which will improve the whole rig energy efficiency a tad.

AFAIK until mid july you may switch to W10 for free: if you weren't satisfied, performance wise, I guess you may revert to W7, but please check as I'm not interested into that offer.

Abula
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Abula » Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:25 am

Some questions,

1) Do you have a budget?
2) What case do you own?
3) Does she have a preference into a big or small PC?
4) Will you be fine without optical drive?
5) How much time do you plan to use this computer? for example do you plan on using it 6 years
6) How much storage do you need?

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:38 am

Thanks for the replies guys!

I don't have a specific budget. I'd rather not go over $1k. Lower is of course better. I just want my upgrades to actually make a big difference. The last few times I've upgraded it hasn't been a super night and day difference. I don't want to spend $500 and not see a performance increase. If that is what it comes down to, I'll just keep running this machine for another year or two.

The case is an old Rosewill ATX case.

No preference in big or small really. Whatever works. There is plenty of room.

I'd prefer to have an optical drive just in case. I'm not opposed to purchasing an external drive for the rare occasion I need it.

As for the time, I'm open to a lot of things. My last build was 2011, the time before that was 2008. It needs to run office applications and lot of web stuff. That'll be the main focus. Image editing is secondary with possibly a little bit of video.

The image and video will likely require additional storage space. My two small drives are fairly full but also could be gone through to clean stuff up. I like the idea of a ~500gig SSD with a 2TB or so HD for storage.

Thanks again for the help.

khaakon
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by khaakon » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:39 am

Buy for a smaller future; get mini-ITX now. H170 or Z170 chipset, M2 slot for SSD, and USB 3.1 with a USB C connector onboard. WiFi for convenience. Preferably HDMI+DP for your monitor(s).
My search leads me to; Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI /Z170N-WIFI or GA-Z170N-Gaming5. ASRock Fatal1ty Z170.

For CPU have a look at Intel Core i3 6320 @3,9 GHz - it's half a i7 6700 at half the price. Should be enough for daily tasks. It has the same HD530 built-in graphics. Or i5 6600(K) for good bang for the buck. 16GB of 3GHz DDR4 is decent value these days, and then hopefully next gen Intel CPU can be a dropin for longer system life.

SSD format; M2 or 2,5"SATA ? I won't draw any conclusions for you. But it can be useful to read up on it.

Your next case/PSU can then be quite small and neat.

Abula
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Abula » Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:26 pm

My first suggestion is "nothing", if all is working great, and you don't have any complains from the wife, and her load will be suficient on the current pc, don't do anything. If it aint broken don't fix it.

That said, if in fact you looking for a more efficient build, thinking the workload of your wife is very light, i would recommend to build around a Pentium G4400 or at the most i3 6100, the G4400 should handle all that i read you wife does, and its a very cheap CPU and efficient to what its going to do, it will be very easy to cool down and you can even power with very low PSU.

I have two suggestions though, either going small or big.

Small,
Case/PSU: Antec ISK110
Motherboard: ASRock H170M-ITX/DL
Memory: HyperX FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) HX421C14FBK2/8
CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 / i3 6100
SSD: SAMSUNG 850 EVO 500GB / Crucial MX200 500GB
HDD: Seagate Samsung Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 2TB
CPU Cooler = Noctua NH-L9i

Large,
Case: Antec Solo II / Fractal Design Define R5
PSU: Seasonic G360
Motherboard: AsRock H170 Pro4
CPU: Intel G4400 / i3 6100
SSD: Samsung 850evo 500gb
HDD: WD Red 3.5 2tb
CPU Cooler = Scythe Kotetsu

The small should be more efficient, specially because of the PSU and the 2.5 mechanical, and would take very little footprint of your desk or since its vesa compatible you can place it behind the monitor.
Last edited by Abula on Thu Jun 30, 2016 5:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.

CA_Steve
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Jun 30, 2016 1:19 pm

The cool thing is Intel enabled QuickSync and AES-NI on Pentium and [url=even the last gen Pentium will outperform your Athlon[/url]. For office type tasks, any modern CPU is good enough.

For photo and video editing, it comes down to how much more do you want to spend and how much faster do you need it to be? For light duty work, The Pentium is fine. If she does a lot of it and it's a work productivity issue, then bump up to an i3 or even i5.

internet speeds: for single user or even few user web browsing, 2 down and 1 up is ok...until the ads start trying to load video. Streaming videos needs more. Netflix 1080p likes to have 5-6Mbs otherwise it'll downgrade the stream quality.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Jun 30, 2016 2:44 pm

Abula wrote:My first suggestion is "nothing", if all is working great, and you don't have any complains from the wife, and her load will be suficient on the current pc, don't do anything. If it aint broken don't fix it.
Well, 4Gb isn't that good...

Abula wrote:CPU: Intel Pentium G4400

The G4500 has a better GPU.

Abula wrote:CPU Cooler = Noctua NH-L9A
Typo, I suppose (NH-L9i).

Abula
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Abula » Thu Jun 30, 2016 4:57 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:Well, 4Gb isn't that good...
Depends on the OS, but yea i agree 4gb is cutting it close. I even might even suggest to go with 16gb in terms of his upgrading cycle, in 6 years 8gb will not be sufficient and in mini itx with 2 slots, would be better to simply get now the 16gb.
quest_for_silence wrote:The G4500 has a better GPU.
Personally i don't see it so great, the G4400 is $65, G4500 $95 and i3 6100 $125. If i wanted the intel igpu 530 i would probably do the effort toward the i3, to me the g4500 should be $75 to be a good option, but to each to their own.
quest_for_silence wrote:Typo, I suppose (NH-L9i).
Yup, ill edit my post, i was posting from work didn't had much time to crosscheck it, thanks for checking.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:15 am

Necro thread update! I am revisiting updating this setup.

With your guys suggestions I went ahead and put another 4gb of ram in this machine bumping it up to 8. This added a bit more pep to the machine and allowed additional multi tasking (which we do a ton of). I added a 2nd 24" monitor which I absolutely love for all the office applications we use on it. I also upgraded to 6 meg download 1 meg upload for my cable internet.

Here are the current specs:

Athlon II X3 455 3.3ghz 95w w/ passive cooler
MSI K9N2G Neo-FD AM2+/ AM2 (only sata3 support is probably limiting my SSD)
Radeon HD 6870 (would love to go to onboard video, but need it for dual monitors)
G Skill 4GB DDR2 800 (PC6400) 2x2gb + Kingston KVR800D2N5K2/4G DDR2-800 4GB
Rosewill Green 530W 80 PLUS certified
OCZ Vertex 3 Series MAX IOPS 120 gig
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250gb - suspended mount
Samsung EX2220X 21.5" LED LCD
Acer 24" LED LCD
2x ancient optical drives that rarely even are plugged in
Running windows 7
Cable internet 6 meg download / 1 meg upload


However, lately I am now doing a lot more with the computer as well. I have a home business and in the next year or so I am hoping to move on from my 9-5 and work from home. This means the computer will be run quite a bit more and I would like to get some more performance and also drastically cut the energy usage. As it is right now, the whole setup (monitors, speakers, laser printer) consume about 190W at idle. Of that, I think about 27W or so is the monitors, 5W is the speakers, and 18W or so is the printer. That means the box itself is using about 150W at idle. I've done nearly everything I can think of to reduce power consumption of the machine. I have enabled all bios and windows power saving features. I've unplugged all optical drives since they're virtually never used. I even use a smart power strip to completely kill power to the monitors, speakers, and printer when the computer isn't on. I also adjust my monitor brightness down to reduce power consumption as well. Additional tips are welcome, but I think I've squeezed this rock for almost all its blood.

So, its been about a year and a half since I looked at upgrading last. Since then the Ryzen and now Coffee Lake processors are out. If I upgrade, I want:
A noticeable increase in performance
A drastic decrease in power usage
A quieter machine
A machine that will last about 5 years

The current performance isn't horrible, but the less time I can spend doing work at the computer the better. I primarily use this computer for office applications (tons of multitasking and internet browsing at once). I also do a little bit of 3d design work at home for 3d printing.

A drastic decrease in power usage is probably the main reason I'm considering doing something. 150W is a good bit of juice. I imagine a modern desktop for office work would consume 1/4 to 1/3 that amount.

A quieter machine would be quite nice. Its not a noisy machine, but its definitely could be quieter. The graphics card is the worst part of it. I currently have some fan control software to slow it down, but its still the noisy part. Improve each iteration right?


So, I need some suggestions. I'm in no hurry to buy, I am just doing my up front research. My budget is $500-$1k. I'll probably hit this years black friday deals. For something with integrated graphics plus good efficiency, I'm thinking Intel is the way to go (correct me if I'm wrong, please). I'm thinking the new coffe lake i3-8100 would be a good pick. I was psyched about the Ryzen, and was looking at the 1500X, but I'm not seeing options for integrated graphics out there? Am I wrong?

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Fri Oct 27, 2017 9:06 am

I just talked with a coworker about AMD's APU line of processors with integrated graphics. I saw the A12-9800e which is a quad core 3.1 ghz but only 35W thermal design. Is it just a downclocked A12-9800, or will it actually idle lower? In any case, its intriguing, and the price is alluring. Though, I imagine its performance would be a fair bit lower than the i3-1800. So is the cost though.

Thoughts?

CA_Steve
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:33 am

The AMD APUs are ~3 yr old tech. Ryzen mobile was just announced with onboard graphics, but no word on desktop versions...maybe sometime down the road, someone will take these laptop CPUs and put em in a small form factor desktop...but, that's a question for the magic 8 ball.

Everything you want to do, except one NEW thing, can be down with a bottom of the stack Pentium. Then, you added 'I wanna do 3D modeling'. :) That's a CPU (and possibly GPU) high horsepower task - or long rendering time. What's your s/w...maybe we can find some hardware benchmarks.

your current gpu: Note that AMD gfx cards of that era may not downclock when 2 or more monitors are connected. So, 2D load...but running like a 3D load...hence more power used. <shrugs> would need a kill-a-watt to determine for certain.

Yes, Coffee Lake was announced and a few CPU models released...but not the lower end of the stack (like Pentium)...and not the cheaper motherboards...and my usual caveat of letting 2-3 months pass after release (~ December) to let the bugs/firmware updates settle out.

So, without knowing what your 3D modeling program needs, here's a price and horsepower pecking order:

Kaby Lake Pentium G4620 (Kaby Lake) $70, $100 H170 mobo, integrated gfx. Can use integrated gfx to drive multiple monitors.

Intel i3-8100 (Coffee Lake) $130, Z370 mobo $125-140, integrated gfx. Marginal performance over pentium above.

Intel i5-7500 $180, $100 H170 mobo, integrated gfx. Good CPU performance.

AMD Ryzen 5 1600 $200, $80-100 mobo, and $120 GTX 1050 gfx card. Great CPU performance but need gfx card.

Intel i5- 8400 $200, $125-140 mobo, integrated gfx. Great CPU performance.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:58 am

Thanks for the reply Steve! I really appreciate it. There is so much info and so many reviews to wade through.

That is too bad to hear about the APUs. It looked like a nice alternative.

Would updating to the Pentium really be a boost in performance? Obviously it'll reduce power consumption a ton. But, I'd like a step up from the X3 455. I think that another core would be nice, and the Pentium is going to 2 cores. I was watching some steaming Amazon prime video and all 3 cores were at about 50% load while not really doing anything else.

I'm wondering how much of a benefit I'll see just from going to a much newer motherboard with sata6, and all the new fast booting goodies too. Boot time is around 30 seconds if I recall correctly.

I'm not sure what you mean by s/w? As far as 3d modeling, I use SolidWorks. My current video card handles the program pretty well until parts start getting very complex. I think it may have more to do with the CPU than GPU though.

I would like to stay with integrated graphics if possible. I don't do much 3d modeling, and I would really like to keep the power consumption down on the machine as it by and far be an office app runner.

Thanks again!

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:51 pm

For a simple average comparison:
X3 455 Passmark 2771. G4620 Passmark 5314.

So, twice the horsepower for half the watts..and a gpu. Remember, not only is it 6 years of advancement, it's also got hyperthreading.

Boot times for simple Windows setups should be in the 10-20sec range for a recent gen SSD (really depends on how many tasks are set to load at boot).

Some 3D modeling software uses gpu acceleration to speed up tasks, some don't. For example, Solidworks Visualize 2017, does use it for rendering. Here's what Puget Systems found. I don't know what version you have...but it'd be worthwhile to investigate and see the performance tradeoffs...how long your render times take now, how much do you want to pay to improve them and by how much...

Same thing with CPU core count..more cores generally will help many of Solidworks' tasks.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Fri Oct 27, 2017 1:26 pm

Wow, I didn't realize that there was THAT big a difference between the two CPUs. Thanks! I haven't seen that site before. Its so hard to compare such old technology to so much newer stuff. That site has a wonderful catalog to help with that job.

Solidwork's core program and functionality is mainly single threaded. They've multi-threaded a bunch of it over the years where they could, but I don't tend to use those things much at home. I don't render, run FEA, or do drawings at home. Just modeling. I checked their forums and it sounds like the Pentium should suffice for that. I suppose worst case I pick up an inexpensive graphics card if I'm horror stricken with the performance.

For booting, I have very few programs set to start with the computer. I like to run a fairly barebones system optimized for speed and efficiency.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:09 pm

I use MSI's afterburner software to spin down my graphics card fan from being obnoxious. I checked out the program again and turned my GPU settings all the way down. This turned my 130W idle down to about 116W. However, I can't seem to get voltage control through this program. Anyone have any suggestions on different software?

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Derek Semeraro » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:18 pm

If it's working fine, then keep using it. If not, then Keep your power supply and Sell your other parts. A 10 year old PC is really pushing it. At some point, you'd be spending more upgrading it than it's worth.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:05 am

I posted this in the power supply thread I have, but I wanted it copied here for future reference.

I did some digging on my power supply. It seems its efficiency is better than what I thought. At this point its not worth replacing as long as its works.

Per this info:
Efficiency at 100% 82.01%
Efficiency at 50% 85.61%
Efficiency at 20% 84.72%
Not too shabby for a 10 year old power supply!

Now... I just have to look into quieting it down a bit more.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:05 am

CA_Steve wrote:For a simple average comparison:
X3 455 Passmark 2771. G4620 Passmark 5314.

So, twice the horsepower for half the watts..and a gpu. Remember, not only is it 6 years of advancement, it's also got hyperthreading.

Just for kicks I compared the A12-9800e 5506 and the Pentium G4620 5314. Their ratings are quite similar. Yet the A12 has a much lower TDP rating? Thoughts on that?

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Oct 28, 2017 12:25 pm

Intel places CPU models in a few broad TDP buckets. Take a look at the G4620, i3-7300T, and i3-7320. Other than clock rates and cache size, the two i3's are the same as the Pentium. However, the higher clocked i3-7320 is still in the 51W TDP bucket, while the slightly lower clocked i3-7300T goes in the 35W bucket.

It's a marketing thing: If you want "cheap" buy Pentium. If you want "low power", buy the T part. Same parts, higher markup.

In reality, the Pentium will probably run close to 35W. Tom's Hardware, in their review said:
The Pentium G4620 averaged just 29W during the stress test, and the G4560 dipped to 24W. In comparison, the Core i5-7600K averaged 46W, and the Core i3-7350K consumed 29W
Haven't seen any reviews of the AMD part to provide real numbers for comparison.

Daox
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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Sun Oct 29, 2017 6:21 am

So basically the only way to really know how much a CPU will idle down to is to find someone who has actually tested it. TDP just gets you into the general area of what max power draw may be? Or, do all chips tend to idle at around the same power draw, their max TDP shows how much power they draw when loaded?

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Vicotnik » Sun Oct 29, 2017 6:37 am

Thermal Design Power, helpful when you design a cooler for the system. Then you need to know roughly how much power the cooler will dissipate. Is it 10W or 100W. It matters.

When Intel sets the TDP for a given part they don't measure it. Marketing gets involved and pretty soon you have something that's not helpful at all, just confusing.

And it's supposed to be some kind of worst case, ether theoretical or practical. It doesn't even pretend to say anything about power consumption while idle.

Today a modern CPU idle at 5W or something. Why do you care? :) Myself I care a lot about system power consumption at idle, but the CPU is just a small part of that.

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:53 pm

Thanks Vicotnik.

I figured the CPU was the main power hog of the system (assuming you don't have a video card). What else should I be looking into?

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Vicotnik » Sun Oct 29, 2017 7:27 pm

During load it is. If you are limited by a weak power supply, or have size constraints then a low TDP CPU might be important. The low TDP parts (from Intel they are the -S or -T parts) are just normal parts limited in their max performance (and thus max power use). This makes sense in a few special cases, mainly for very small systems.

If you are building a normal desktop system you should probably ignore TDP, or look at it very late in the process. First I suppose would be to decide on AMD or Intel. If you are like me and want a system that draws as little power as possible during idle, then the choice of motherboard matters more than the processor really. Simple "non-overclocking" boards with less features tend to draw less than the boards with many bells and whistles and many power phases.

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Olle P » Mon Oct 30, 2017 3:04 am

CA_Steve wrote:... Ryzen mobile was just announced with onboard graphics, but no word on desktop versions...
Word is that desktop Raven Ridge will be available next year, possibly (probably?) in Q1.

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Mon Oct 30, 2017 5:17 am

Vicotnik wrote:First I suppose would be to decide on AMD or Intel. If you are like me and want a system that draws as little power as possible during idle, then the choice of motherboard matters more than the processor really. Simple "non-overclocking" boards with less features tend to draw less than the boards with many bells and whistles and many power phases.
You are correct, I'm looking for something that draws as little as possible at idle. Under load, I'm not too worried as it is an office machine and the majority of its life won't be spent crunching, and I do want performance and some longevity.

I would imagine that an Intel CPU will in general draw less than a comparable AMD?

After that, what should I be looking at? A specific chipset, or just any motherboard with no frills?

Size is no constraint. I am thinking I'd like to make this next build caseless just for fun and something different.

I checked out your builds and your idle numbers are very impressive. I had no idea that they could get that low. I was anticipating something in the 40W range. My current idle is around 116W.

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:13 pm

So I've been reading and poking about. I am interested in a Pentium setup, so I was looking for the recommended H170 motherboards with no frills. Then, I stumbled across MSI's eco motherboards. They made them with the H110, B150 and H170 chipsets. They claim no performance loss, and insinuate in their video up to 25% energy savings (which seems a bit much). There doesn't seem to be a ton of info on these motherboards and I was hoping someone here might know about them?

MSI H170M Eco
MSI B150M Eco
MSI H110M Eco

Toms Hardware article

I know the 100 series chipsets are a bit older, but the 200 series really don't seem to have a TON of added features from what I've seen. The B150 Eco is a really cheap motherboard too (as it probably should be, its really stripped down). I also don't think that these motherboards support the kaby lake processors which kind of stinks.

Thoughts?

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:44 pm

Hardware-wise, not a significant difference between 1xx and 2xx class chipsets for your use. And, yes you can use a 1xx mobo with Kaby Lake - as long as the mfgr has updated the bios for it (so, be sure to look up the mobo support page and the biod downloads to see if they did). However, it tends to be the non-Intel improvements that make things interesting, like newer/improved analog audio path or more important - improved fan controls, etc.

MSI Eco is mostly green washing. The trick to lower idle power motherboards is to have less stuff on it and optimize the VRM circuitry. Really, if you want to compare mobo power use, search for reviews/compilations. Here's one roundup of 2xx boards. That said, you may not find much on the lower stack products as mfgrs tend to ship reviewers the bling products...

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Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Olle P » Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:15 am

Daox wrote:... I'm looking for something that draws as little as possible at idle. Under load, I'm not too worried as it is an office machine...
I would imagine that an Intel CPU will in general draw less than a comparable AMD?
Intel systems seems to draw less (than AMD counterparts) on idle and more at load.

Daox
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Location: Wisconsin

Re: Old desktop - new build, simple upgrade or nothing?

Post by Daox » Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:02 am

CA_Steve wrote:The trick to lower idle power motherboards is to have less stuff on it and optimize the VRM circuitry.

Would you recommend looking into mini-ITX form factor to have even less stuff on the board?

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