Hi, I thought I'd do a little write up of my two-year project for getting an energy-efficient NAS and general purpose server running. I say two years, but during that time I only worked on it during the rare moments when I was really bored. ;) Anyway: let me elaborate on what I wanted. The main purp...

Jakoob wrote:I guess the system will idle under 20 Watts, yet the problem will be start, when all drives + motherboard may ask for more than 100 W.

Some drives support Power-Up In Standby (I think WD and HGST drives do). That might reduce your peak load sufficiently to use a 80W PicoPSU.

nagi wrote:Also: Great article, but why take only the i5-2500k and not a newer i5?

And wouldn't it be fairer to compare these AMDs to similarly priced Intels, such as the Core i3-4130?

Very interesting. In one test with the stock heatsink the CPU reached 83 ℃, which suggests to me that some sort of ventilation is still needed with this motherboard.

Looks good, except I could do with a few more SATA ports, instead of an ancient PCI slot.

If you can afford it you could also consider getting two 1.5-2tb 2.5" drives, which usually have about 0.5W idle power consumption each.

These passively-cooled motherboards are really cool. I hope SPCR will be reviewing some soon, because I'm quite interested in how they stack up with regards to cooling (do I need case fans?) and power consumption.

I think the only competitors for Samsung drives are other Samsungs, because other manufacturers' offerings are simply less reliable. (My source for this being review site feedback.) The big competitor for this particular drive is the 840 EVO, which is a budget drive with many good power and performa...

I also tend to the same conclusion as Steve: Antec Eco: I'm an efficiency snob and don't like to recommend 80+ Bronze units when you can go Gold for a few dollars more. :) Maybe for few more $$, you can easily find some 300-350W PSU, a bit better. (and maybe quieter) There are not that many 80+ Gol...

By the way, there are some pictures of the V450S. I expect there are people here who can tell whether this shares Techpowerup's sample's flaws (I certainly can't!)

I also thought about the V450S, but the TechPowerUp review on the bigger V550S and its discussion forum reveals less than desirable quality is discouraging. The Techpowerup editors state on the point of soldering that "normal samples won't have similar problems—their quality will be up to the stand...

Indeed this is a very interesting PSU that stands out from the pack. I can't figure out why Techpowerup stopped measuring at 40W; aren't many Haswell systems designed to idle at something like 20W these days? I can only agree with pod03's comment: I have never seen the need for more than 300 Watts i...

Case: if the budget is tight, this is a big expense. Any reasons for the R4 in particular over something cheaper? PSU: The prices I have seen for the Fractal Design Tesla are quite high, again if the budget is tight, this is a big expense. Perhaps consider the Seasonic G450 instead? Or maybe the An...

Reading your post I get the feeling that no PSU fan is ever going to be quiet enough for you. Perhaps you should be looking at a fanless solution; maybe a PicoPSU+brick could handle your power requirements.

I don't know. Not a huge amount. 200? 2000? 20000? Just a ballpark figure which be a good place to start. Let's say 10,000 then. It would be cheaper to use a taxi any time you wanted to go anywhere that is not accessible via public transport, walking or cycling. There is no public transport nor is ...

The S-plus might make more sense if you did a cost per mile calculation and see if it works out better in the long run. The difference is 2-3MPG. That difference will take decades to make up the $2000-$3000 higher price tag. How many miles will you drive per year? I don't know. Not a huge amount. W...

I really would side with the buying second hand route. There was an episode of Top Gear where they compared spending £7000 on a new car with what you could get second hand and it was obvious what won: £7000 for a 10 year old Mercedes CL600! The UK second hand car market is rather different. You mos...

Maintainance cost for a new model is lower Help me understand how. My only reason for thinking this is that various TCO calculators online indicate that maintenance cost increases with age. The figures remind me of the Fibonacci sequence in the first couple of years. New cars come with a few years ...

Why do you want to buy a new car at all? Because: Maintainance cost for a new model is lower New cars meet more stringent safety requirements Fuel economy has improved in recent years New cars come with a few years warranty Now I would be happy with a used Prius, but that's not the sort of second h...

The i5-3750 is only $215 so I might as well give her quad cores just in case. (I don't need to overclock, so don't need the 3750K.) The i3-3220 can be had for $130, so you're paying $85 extra on this hypothetical. I'd save my money for some flowers. ;) I was thinking you might also prefer a PSU lik...

Did some more searching and it seems that the base model is sold (almost?) exclusively in Arizona and Virginia.

Yes, perhaps the base model only exists on paper in order to draw customers into the showroom. Or perhaps the dealers aren't interested in selling it because they can't earn much profit on it.

In an weird twist, there's a shop (far, far away) that's selling the 2013 model for the same price. Or so they told me when I asked.

In fact I started out looking for a second hand car at this price, but then I (thought I) discovered a brand new car for the same price. It may be false hope.

An odd question, herhaps: obviously you buy a car at a dealer. The twist is that I don't want to buy a car, I want to buy a particular car. However I am not able to find a dealer that has it, even though it is a 2012 model. The car I'm looking for is the 2012 Nissan Versa 1.6 S , also known as the c...

mobutu wrote:Seasonic Platinum Fanless 520 W Power Supply Review
...
Anxiously waiting for Mike's review

Same here; I'm particularly interested how this supply does at low wattages, which hardwaresecrets doesn't seem to have included in testing.

Having said that , I read that Xbit labs measured less than ten Watts from an i3-2100T with the Zotac H67-ITX back in 2011, which seems to me a fantastic figure. So fantastic in fact that I'm starting to doubt the veracity of the number. And indeed a secondary source throws more weight on this susp...

Having said that, the Intel DH67BL draws less than 19W with e.g. the i3-2100. I wonder what sort of power figure is possible with this AMD chip if someone were to build an efficient board like Intel did for the H67. Having said that , I read that Xbit labs measured less than ten Watts from an i3-21...

Very interesting. Clearly AMD is trading some performance for better power characteristics. Did it hit the right spot? According to the review their testing system draws 27W at idle, versus 31W with the A8-5600K. Given that SPCR measured 22W from their system with the A8-5600K, it is to be supposed ...

Either way, even with slighly high assumptions/conjectures on the internal temperature, my point still stands on the capacitor lifetime issue, which really was all I wanted to say. It certainly does provide one with a solid argument to buy the Seasonic G360 over this Super Flower (or similar design...

Any chance of you guys sticking a temperature sensor on top of a capacitor and seeing how it does in various situations?