I'm building a similar setup as the Original Poster, and am wondering which power brick to use. Are there any comparisons/reviews/recommendations for the power brick? The only useful thing found by Googling is this: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=207 I'm in Europe,...

Klusu wrote:HTPC? 4670 or 4650 (perhaps an overkill already)

Not overkill if he wants to play the games he mentions.

Well, depends on how much gaming power you really want. The 5850 is a fine card indeed, but I am considering the 5750 for my HTPC. It's got decent graphics performance, and video playback acceleration should be top notch. Currently, my HTPC has the HD3200 integrated chipset, which plays old(er) game...

Any idea when the "HTPC version(s)" will be released? I mean 5670/5770 or something, successor to the 4670/4770...? Did the 4670 come hot on the heels after the 4850/4870 of the current generation...? Can't remember. I'm not a gamer really but looking for a video card that can play 3D games, too ---...

We always test S3 STR. The only time we talk about S3 is if we encounter a problem (e.g. if it doesn't work, if it can't wake from USB, or if it uses more than 2-3W). If you don't see any mention of it, you can assume it works as it should. Okay, that's great to hear. Even better would be if you co...

Based on the review of the picoPSU, it sounds like the fan only kicks in above 90W, which I believe will be tough to hit with my configuration, so I don't plan to be hearing much of it. :) I'll post my observations after it arrives. That's correct. The power brick is completely silent under ~90W lo...

Just bought this motherboard, and I need some advice before building it. Here's the setup: board: M3A78 PRO PSU: picoPSU-120W CPU: AMD X2 4850E (underclocked at around 0.9V / 1.0 GHz) RAM: 2GB DDR2-800 (one module only) HDD1: 2.5" 160GB PATA (for Ubuntu) HDD2: 3.5" Western Digital GP (for data) + on...

Hello, thanks for the review! First of all I must say I'm very disappointed with the power consumption figures. This was to be expected, though - this chipset is known to be a power hog (relatively speaking). I've been looking forward to building a file server/torrent server/backup box that could al...

I cant find the E7200 around here... Is it a Core 2 Duo? But a Core 2 Duo E4500 2,2 GHz doesnt look too expensive... Are those E-numbers comparable to AMD's 4800+? And is it meaningfull to compare my current 2800+ to a 4800+? I assume I'll also gain something from the integrated memory controller? ...

Well, the 4850E has a maximum of 45 watts, I guess there's not much difference otherwise. (That's why I'd pick 4850E). I don't know much about Opterons, but they are made with the 65nm process as well (afaik). As I mentioned, if you need much horsepower then you will have to go the Intel way. But yo...

By the way Thomas, you should be listening to someone a bit more intelligent than me... see what I wrote earlier: I second my country fellowman's suggestion! That's not English, it's something else... I meant fellow countryman! How silly can one be? :oops: Anyway, back on topic. I checked that artic...

I'm surprised Tkpenalty hasn't opined here as he did on this site (which is where I got my info): http://www.techpowerup.com/57960/First_AMD_790GX_Motherboard_Pictured.html Yep thanks jjhoffma, I read that too. To be honest, I'm not sure whether 790GX will be a better choice for me or not (informat...

Hybrid crossfire doesn't turn off the discrete gpu, at least according the marketting material, it would be called powerxpress. Hybrid crossfire is just crossfire between igp and discrete gpu. Yep that's what I've gathered, too. And I'm not interested in Hybrid CrossFire at all (I consider it prett...

Hold my horses... I found something interesting about the upcoming AMD 790GX chipset... here's a quote from Anandtech's ''NVIDIA 780a: Integrated Graphics and SLI in One'' article : However, AMD does not offer Hybrid power capabilities nor does the flagship 790FX offer integrated graphics capabiliti...

By better I mean any of these: A) significantly better (lower) idle wattage (not likely anytime soon I guess, and I'm not going for Atom or anything similar) B) significantly better IGP 3D performance (Intel perhaps?) C) more intelligent "shutdown-the-discrete-graphics-card-completely" concept (à ...

Thanks for the confirmation amyhughes! I've actually read that thread of yours (and several others on the 780G subject), and am quite confident the setup I'm planning would work very nicely. I apologize --- what I failed to do in my original post is to keep it simple (I tend to blabber all sorts of ...

Hello, I'm building a low power computer. I'm not going to the low extreme, I'd just like it to be under 50W or so when idle (in Windows XP). My needs: * using Windows XP (no need to switch to Vista just yet) * Web surfing mostly * Occasional gaming (*old* 3D games only, so a good IGP is sufficient)...

Well, thanks very much for the tips. My situation is that I'm actually waiting for the Samsung F-series hard drives to appear in shops so I can upgrade. Meanwhile, I am researching my options for the mainboard+CPU combo. At this point, I think I'm going to choose the VIA alternative. There is no nee...

Thanks for all the input, I've been looking at the Sempron alternatives, too - but the VIA really seems better (lower wattage, still enough processing power). So, I think I'm going the VIA way, looking at some Jetway boards, they are way cheaper than VIA boards. By the way, some CN700-chipset based ...

paulka: Although the torrentflux server is idle (no torrents running) at least 95% of the time, I didn't want the torrenting to affect or hinder file/webserving much. According to your post, it doesn't - so I will seriously reconsider the VIA route. I'm not running a GUI either, so I guess I'll be f...

For myself my HTPCs have AM2 Semprons, the motherboards are ASRock AliveNF6G and AliveNF4G respectively. They're pretty decent (and cheap) boards, and allow undervolting to 0.8V in the BIOS (my particular Semprons run at about 1.0V, I forget the precise figure). They have SATA, VGA and GbE onboard,...

Hi there, I'm a long time reader, but haven't been posting much. The SPCR site (along with the forums!) is invaluable :-) And now to the point: I currently have this kind of Ubuntu server setup: * Duron 600MHz * ASUS A7N266-VM mobo (way old mATX board) * 512MB DDR * a hard drive * picoPSU (can't rem...

Well, first of all I must say I'm surprised how nice people seem to be on this forum :) Feels nice! On to the point: Thanks guys for the tips...! But... I think I'll have to bury my hopes of a combo drive as an all-format reader... seems no (?) cdrw/dvd combo drive can read DVD+R discs :( I think I'...

OK, my choices are these two (both CDRW/DVD combos): LG GCC-4480B: http://www.lgeus.com/Product/CD/GCC_4480B.asp Toshiba SD-R1312 EDIT by ADMIN: long link embedded using BBCode to save side-to-side scrolling. Both drives' specs say that they can (only?) read DVD-R(W) discs... no mention of DVD+R(W) ...

Thanks for the warm welcome ! I think I'll try an LG drive then... I can always return it if it starts yelling too much ;) Yes, this is my first post on the SPCR forums, although I've been browsing the main site and forums for a good few months. On a side note, I wish I could find somewhere a list o...

Hi,

Topic says it all, I need a quiet CD-RW-burner / DVD reader combo drive.

I searched for some topics on this forum and found some mumblings about LGs being quiet and not much else.

Should I go for an LG then, any experiences ? and which model(s) is quiet ?

Thanks for any hints

Andru