Atom motherboards show idle of around 20W in SPCR tests whereas Atom netbooks typically consume around 10W idle (and sometimes with screen on). Any idea on the potential sources of this 10W difference? dual-core vs single-core Atom, 4W 2.5" HDD vs 3.5" HDD, 3~5W power supply inefficiency Is it poss...

Is it the video driver that does the throttling, or does the video hardware do it all by itself? I find that my NVIDIA 8600GT even though more powerful than integrated GPU in 790GX/890GX it just uses too much juice. Unfortunately, I believe throttling is done through drivers. Indeed, you can change...

You'll find most stores want you to buy more expensive power supplies with higher wattage. Granted, there are a lot of no-name 500W power supplies that won't be able to handle that rig but something like the Antec EA-380 should do fine.

I'd still recommend a CPU upgrade to, say, a Celeron E3300/E3400 instead of a GPU upgrade. From experience, Wolfdales have very low idle power consumption. I replaced my Celeron 430 1.8 GHz with a Pentium E5200 2.5 GHz and my idle power consumption even dropped a couple of watts. Another advantage o...

I was a bit surprised that the benchmarks I cited didn't show the Pentium dual as being a bit more powerful than the Celeron. Artifact of the benchmark? Should I spend a few extra bucks and go for the Pentium? Would the bigger cache (or something else) be worth the $15 or so difference, at least fo...

Newegg shows both Celerons as having VT support, which is a plus. The Pentium that Newegg sells does not (although there is a version with it). Nah, all current Pentiums should have VT-x support. The older SSPECs of some Pentium E5x00 models didn't have it but anything that's shipping now probably ...

You don't really need to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo if you need to replace the CPU with something better. I reckon any of the Core 2-based Celeron or Pentium Wolfdales would suffice. Starts at $50. I actually got a Celeron E3300+Biostar G41 combo from Fry's for $30 a few months back. Now that's cheap. ...

This is not to generally say that Zotac is bad, I have a the ITX GF9300 board as well. It works very well. But I got this like 6 months after the first release. Maybe one has to wait this long before purchasing a Zotac board. Meh, I've had three Zotac boards act up. 2 ION-based and 1 GF9300. RMA is...

ha, you put a honking video card on that itty bitty mobo... 55w is very good, does the NVIDIA card throttle when idle? Yep. If the video card didn't, there's no way it'll use just 55W idle. Haven't really put it through my usual battery of tests (Furmark, IBT, etc), though. I don't think the GTS 45...

As you already know, there's no way to get integrated video with the i5-750/760. Another thing, the 5-series chipsets don't have native support for SATA3 so any motherboard with SATA3 and USB3 support will likely have additional components which would add to power consumption. I think your best bet ...

8GB, I think, is a good idea, depending on price. On Amazon (US), Kingston ValueRAM 2x4GB DDR3 1333 CL9 costs less than $130 now. If prices drop in your area to around that much, I think it's a good investment. Most motherboards support 16GB RAM nowadays (4x4GB) so keeping the other two slots vacant...

That was a typo. The corrected question is: Processing capability wise, do you know how the speed and capability of the Zotac Nvidea 9300 video display compares with the speed and processing capability Radeon 5450 video card? That is, how much faster is the 5450 card than the built in Nvidea 9300 v...

1920x1200 is a standard resolution for a monitor (16:10) aspect ratio back before 1080p (16:9) became popular. I don't have a monitor with that resolution but it has no problem supporting 16:10 resolutions (using 1680x1050) so I can't think of a reason why it's not working on yours. Are you sure you...

GTX 460 should fit. I believe it's the same size as the GTS 450. I think the 300W PSU is probably borderline, though. That's one of the reasons I opted for the GTS 450 instead of the GTX 460. Tried looking for fan control in the BIOS but I think it only works for the CPU fan. Just installed Windows ...

Sugo SG-05B technically, but the only difference between the two is the front fascia anyway. :P Before I received my SSD, I booted the system with just the mobo, i5-760, Scythe Shuriken and GTS 450. I didn't replace front 120mm intake fan. With that configuration the loudest part of the system was t...

SSD is highly overated,expensive and don't have reliable controllers yet.Why would he spend that kind of money when he could get WD Black or Samsung F3 1TB and WD 2TB green for the price one reasonably sized SSD. Yeah, because hard drives never fail... Seriously, I think SSDs nowadays are pretty re...

Started on the H55N-USB3 build yesterday. Waiting for the SSD (should arrive tomorrow) so I can finish. The Scythe Shuriken fits - just barely. There's maybe a few mils (1/1000 of an inch) of clearance. I didn't want to chance it so I put a piece of construction paper between the heatsink and GPU. I...

The X25-M 80GB comes in both G1 and G2 flavors. The G2 version supports TRIM.

120GB (OCZSSD2-2ONX120G), 240GB (OCZSSD2-2ONX240G) Gotta have part numbers to do a proper price search as Onyx 2 gets you junk results of the old Onyx drives. These seem to have popped recently on Amazon.com OCZ Technology 120 GB Onyx 2 Series SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) OCZSSD2-2ONX12...

Don't really have any hard measurements but from subjective observation, noise characteristics seem similar to the Big Shuriken. Can't really comment on cooling performance since I'm using it to cool a different processor. For what it's worth, it's keeping the Pentium E6300 cool at 50C full load (IB...

Scythe Shuriken Rev B? 64mm tall and I think 10mm smaller on the sides compared to the Big Shuriken (uses 100mm fan instead of 120mm).

There are, but unfortunately, with the M350, stock's pretty much the tallest you can go.

The Zotac GF9300-G-E (or similar variation) is, I think, your only option if you want to go Mini-ITX. None of the Intel LGA-775 Mini-ITX boards support processors with higher than 65W TDP officially. The Silverstone SG05 will probably provide sufficient ventilation, although you might have to eschew...

Are you just looking for a smaller case or do you also want HT equipment-like form factor? If it's the latter, the Silverstone Grandia GD04 and GD05 are pretty decent options. If you still don't have the motherboard and other parts, you might want to consider selling that Q6600 and going for a lower...

Atom isn't worth pondering unless you're looking to replace your current P4 with something that performs similar to it. The Atom's not an upgrade, it's a sidegrade at best, if not a downgrade. The only benefit to Atom is lower power consumption and heat output. Any reason you're not considering AMD?...

Agaska_ wrote:I agree, I think a jump to a Quad Core would certainly be really great. The i5-2400 really looks interesting, any idea on the MSRP?

Around $200, probably less. I think it'll be close to Core i5-650 pricing.

From previous roadmaps, LGA-1156 always appeared to be a transitional socket. That's one of the reasons people were advocating LGA-1366 Bloomfields even when Lynnfields became available. LGA-1155, I think, will be longer lived than LGA-1156 and I think chances are good that chipsets and motherboards...

Is the difference between my E4300 and the i3 540 much greater than the one from E4300 to Sandy Bridge? AKA, it is really worth waiting? At least 10% faster, but the biggest difference is that GPU which is much better. I'd wait. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins...

From this, the HD 2400 XT consumes 22.9W with Furmark while the HD 5670 consumes 63.5W (both DC power, I believe).

That depends on what your full load is. Realistically speaking you probably won't reach 150W during normal workloads. Benchmarking with IntelBurnTest/Prime95 + Furmark, though, might put you close to 150W. My suggestion would be to go with your original parts list and run some benchmarks. If the bui...