Dumb question maybe, but the last system I built was a mATX 780G motherboard with a 45w Athlon 4850e and HD 5450. The TDP at load was around 100w.

Now I'm seeing that people are building systems based on a 73w Core i3 and are using PicoPSU's. How is it possible that this can be done if I could get my 45w Athlon 4850e system to suck nearly 100w, how in the world could a 73w tdp Core i3 CPU work ok on a Picopsu?

Well, my Core i3-530 build uses around 80W full load (AC) so I'm going to take a guess that it doesn't really use 73W unless under extreme conditions - the TDP is really just a guideline for coolers. Besides, the 73W is supposed to cover both the CPU and integrated GPU (H55/H57/Q57 chipsets have pretty low TDP). With your 780G build, you also need to take into account the 780G chipset and HD 5450. Motherboard implementation can also make a pretty big difference. MSI is usually pretty good when it comes to power consumption.

Hmm, also, are you sure your build uses 100W at load? How many hard drives do you have installed? Also, what power supply? Assuming that's 100W from the wall, if the PSU is only 70% efficient, then actual power consumption is just 70W.

No way.

I'm using a Winmate with a 160w brick. System is a Foxconn 780G board with 2GB RAM, Athlon 4850e stock, 1X Blu Ray drive, 1X WD15EADS 1.5TB 5400RPM drive, ATi HD 5450, Big Shruiken, Bluetooth keyboard and USB wifi dongle. Idle it is at about 40w, under real-world load it is at about 70-90w. Under synthetic PSU stress test programs I got it up to 100w. Measuring from the wall with a Kill-a-watt.

Anyway I guess that this thread is less about my current system and more about figuring out whether I would be able to use a PicoPSU to run a Mini ITX system for an HTPC based on a Core i3 530.

Silverstone Sugo SG06B (300W SFX PSU)
Intel DH57JG
Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz
Scythe Big Shuriken
Kingston 2x2GB DDR3 1333 CL9 1.5V
Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB WD10EADS
MCE USB IR Receiver
Lenovo Multimedia Remote with Keyboard

boot: 55W
idle: 30W
CPU Load: 70W
GPU Load: 45W
CPU+GPU Load: 80W

CPU Load: IntelBurnTest (Linpack)
GPU Load: Furmark

Power consumption is measured from the wall (AC) via a Kill-A-Watt.

The mac mini can idle at 8-11w. DIY core i3 have achieved in the 15w range. I'd post the link but it won't let me

Clearly a picopsu is more than enough for these types of builds.

Link for above (finally hit 3 posts ):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... hlight=15w

If you're careful about the components, you can run a surprising amount off a PicoPSU. This member, for example, had an Athlon II X4 and 5750 running off a 150w PicoPSU.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=57219

I'm running a AMD 4200+ 89W TDP chip off of a 120W Pico. Integrated 780G gfx, but it is a Live Diva board, so I'm running the amplifier board off of the Pico as well. Averaging 80-90W when playing SC2

I've not even had the decensy to undervolt the CPU atm, as I need to reinstall Windows soon anyways...

I run an AMD 5050 on a 780G board with 8 gigs of ram, 2.5" drive and a DVD drive. Idles about 35 watts, hits about 90 under max stress (prime95 + furmark.) My Pico 120 watt PS does just fine, it will turn on the fan when stress testing. I will be using a winmate 150 watt (sold by member electrodacus) on my new quad (or six) core build.

For me the limitation is that only the PicoPsu-150-XT and PicoPsu-160-XT have 24-pin ATX connectors, as on most of the H55 or 780G boards I was looking at.

The 90W and 120W PicoPSU are both 20-pin ATX

I am under the impression that most 24-pin motherboards function just fine with a 20-pin power supply. I've seen many reviews where this was the case, and I'm not sure if I've ever seen a review where it didn't work. That said, my personal experience in that area is limited (but worked fine the two times I did it with old hardware in my home).

I would imagine those boards depending on on-chip graphics may be even more likely to support the 20-pin PSU, since (I think?) the GPU power may be coming from the 4-pin CPU header.

Edit: Just saw
http://www.mini-box.com/4-Pin-P4-Power-Cable_2
Does PicoPSU not come with a 4-pin connector by default? This seems like much more of a limitation than the 20/24 pin issue...

There are adapters. And as andymcca pointed out it usually works fine to use a 20pin PSU with a 24pin motherboard without an adapter.

There are adapters for that as well. I like the "modular" approach, since space is sometimes a limiting factor. They could include an adapter in the package though.

Saw the following here:
Edit: forgot link: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=55153&p=528160#p528160

And I think it's safe to assume electrodacus knows his PSU connectors


Perhaps I am over-estimating the fraction of motherboards which require the four-pin connector, but it seems just seems weird that it wouldn't at least come with the connector (with a splitter for the single molex available on many models I'm seeing images of). If my mother went out and bought a PicoPSU, she would have no idea it needed an extra connector. (I base all of my user-friendliness assessments on whether my mother could do it -- perhaps not super flattering to her.. Especially since she knows waaay more than I ever will about certain office software, and reads all of those 2000 page guides for Excel and the like.)
Then again, taking another look at photos on Google, it seems some large fraction of PicoPSUs have the 4-pin ATX12V connector. I just can't tell which models, and the sites selling them don't seem particularly interested in listing the default plugs. Perhaps they all do now, and older versions didn't have them? But who knows?

Thanks for the info, yes it seems the additional 4 pins on the 24-pin ATX are for PCIe cards in high-power systems.

I am looking at the ECS H55H-I, which has max processor TDP of 87W, and will not use a graphics card, so I am assuming that there wont be a problem with a 20-pin ATX connector. However I may buy a TV card, so we'll see...

The PicoPSUs which have a 4-pin 12V connector include the 160-XT and 150-XT (both of which have a header for additional 12V cable set), the 90, and the wide-input car M4-ATX.

I agree the modular route is the way to go...

At this moment I am sitting next to underclocked G6950@1,6Ghz (133Mhz x 13) + GA H55N-USB3 + 2,5inch 5400 HDD .
Powered by PicoPSU 80W(with molex-p4 adapter) +60W brick (industrial grade FSP good quality , but also works with medium quality 50W brick)
Idle :25-28W
2 x FullHD(WMV T2 trailer) : 42W
Max power consumption about 45-47W

only dropped vcore to 0.85V and switched USB3 off

It is still twice as powerful as any given ATOM Sh.t. (even with ION )

It can easily go at 2GHz (16x133mhz) - consuming 48-53W maximum.

When I get picoPSU 90W back , I will check if it works with this CPU at full speed (2.8Ghz). Need to obtain more powerful AC brick.

Probably gonna get Intel H57JG for comparison as well (lower power consumption but sadly no underclocking).

Also got Pico PSU XT-160 and I am 200% sure it will be more than enough for my other system (i3-530 , 2,5hdd 7200 +ssd). Only need to take Radeon 5770 out .

I am planing to get used Xbox power brick (MODEL DPSN-186CB-1 A 12V 16.5A ) , are they any good ? I can get it for about 17$.Anyone using them ? Have heard they have noisy fan inside .

Works for me. Core i3-530 on a Gigabyte H55N-USB3, with a single SSD and no graphics card or CD drive; my peak power usage with a Kill-a-Watt is 80W under full load. Even adding a CD drive doesn't add significant wattage, and if you use a PCIe graphics card with no additional PCIe power cable (like a GeForce GT 240 for example) then that is capped to 25W by PCIe power standard. So a 120W PicoPSU (which is what I have) would be plenty even in this case.