just curious if anyone has tried the non-reference xfx 4770. I'm wondering if the idle power consumption is better?

a portion of the molex connector from a 24-pin female motherboard plug will fit the DA-2. The rounded pin on the DA-2 fits fine in the square of the other, and the rest of the pins are the proper matching shapes. Only issue I ever had with this method was voltage loss. I had a huge loss of potential...

I thought I read before that the newer ATI cards support mkv meaning no need to install video codec before playing .mkv movies ... is this not the case? Did I read it wrong? You're correct, if the video player supports it, and you don't have any other codecs for h.264 content installed that will ta...

Not quite that far south, or west, I'm in the Lawrence area.

Once a year I let myself get impulsive...ok, twice, once for the main system, a second time for a video card.

I'm actually in Mass now, probably be easier for you to just come over and take it, that way I'll at least not lose money to shipping.

lol..i still dont get it.. is it the heat? what is it about the chip u have that really bothers you? Is it too hard to cool quietly? the fact that you spent alot of money on it sucks, yes, but now thats in the past and you sure as hell arn't gonna get that money back. I guess i just dont see why yo...

I dont know what kinda capabilites that board has, but have you tried any underclocking/undervolting? That would not only cut down on power, but it would bring down the heat output of that chip. In a world where technology is moving at the speed of light..there is little room for downgrades. As it ...

um..quick question.. why? you didn't really give a reason for your desire to downgrade. Is the q9400 running too hot? or are you just wanting to buy something? I often catch myself looking at computer parts, and then I think..wait. my computer works perfectly, and is faster than i would ever need f...

I'm not sure I want an X3...I don't like the idea of it being a disabled quad core, and I like the idea of a lower power dual core, even though there have been different reports on the 250. If I did get an X3, I'd probably spend the $20 over the X3 710 and grab the BE.

I've got a Q9400, and I'm semi-content, but I've always wanted to jump back to AMD. Purchasing the processor was actually a bit out of character, considering it was over $250. I usually limit myself to <=$100 chips. Well, I want to go to AMD, and I wand the DFI JR board that was recently reviewed. I...

Lostcircuits tested the power consumption here, http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=7 , 30W before the VRM for the 250. Also, Anand tested the power consumption of the chips here, http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=...

I don't know if anyone has done this, or could do this, but I'm curious about total system power draw at idle with the 4770 vs a 3870. I'd be curious also to see how reduction in RAM clocks change things. W1zzard posted some numbers at xtremesystems.org heh, I know, I actually posted in that thread...

I don't know if anyone has done this, or could do this, but I'm curious about total system power draw at idle with the 4770 vs a 3870. I'd be curious also to see how reduction in RAM clocks change things.

greenfrank wrote:very interesting rig, unbeliavable low idle power consumption.

But how can picopsu provide enough power to a Quad?!

the Pico is enough for my Q9400, it's when I add a video card that I needed to splice the wires directly from the power brick.

I read somewhere that someone installed an S1 by bending all of the fins on the end 90 degrees. I haven't seen any pictures of an install yet... Anyone here try this yet? It's four posts above yours. might it just be better to cut the fins? When they're bent like that, there's no room for airflow b...

we need some testers! I really hope we can get some low power states to at least match the idle power of the 38xx series, if we can with reference/premium reference designs, then I'll be upgrading.

Ya I'm just confused why their numbers are generally so low. It seems like somehow this measurement may not be capturing all the power usage because in general, most websites show the 4770 having higher idle than the 4830. I can understand how they measure power at the pcie power connector, but how...

Xbitlabs used to measure the power consumption directly at the power connectors and the slot. dunno if they do that anymore. Their old method will of course show a lower power consumption than what a Kill-a-watt would tell. i dont understand your statement, can you elaborate on your reasoning?

I was really, really hoping that ATI would get the idle consumption fixed, but sadly, this does not seem to be the case. The 17.4W from XBitlabs would be okay with me, but 30W ? While it just sits there, doing nothing?( Just do a separate 2D profile with reduced mem speeds for the card . I don't ga...

two reviews, not in english,
http://www.informaticaeasy.net/le-mie-r ... octua.html

http://www.pcsilenzioso.it/forum/showthread.php?t=9994

skimmed through a few reviews, bit-tech also seems to have a lower idle power card, at least with respect to their 4830 sample, http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/04/28/amd-ati-radeon-hd-4770-512mb/13 idle 4770 system 170W 4830 system 180W ....Most reviews seem in-line with SPCR though, ...

btw ati drivers suck big time. ( ms framework? + 47 services? FU CCC) Sorry to hear that, I've never had a problem with them outside of BF2, and I don't even remove them when upgrading, I just let the new driver package do it's thing. I would like to know why it's so hard for them to match the idle...

Anand shows this... <snip> ...I added another one from their review. Freshen up on SPCR Forum Rule 14 . hhmm...never have I seen anyone give me any grief about that...and I see plenty of images hotlinked in other threads and not a single mention about those either. I can take them down and post the...

Those power numbers are awful...From all the reviews I'd read it seemed the 9xx series Phenom II's were a lot closer to Intel in power draw. Anand shows this, http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/amdphenomiix4955_042209194837/18914.png For intel they used an x48/x58 board, and for AMD 790gx/Fx, they d...

I would like to know this as well, but those specifics might be hard to find for this board. I imagine all 790gx boards would have similar power consumption, so reviews of others might be a good starting point.

If you're up to it, you can still use the Pico with systems that need more than 120W. I do. Just let your brick feed any video cards(6-pin pcie power) and the processor(4-pin atx power) directly. This alleviates some of the 12v load on the Pico, and you also don't have to worry about soldering direc...

Nice to see another sff cube build. I'm running one also inspired by AuraAllan, though not as cleen. With a Pico120, and a 220W brick I've also been able to power a decent system- Intel Q9400 @ 3.0ghz HD3870 1HDD no ODD 2x2gb ram 6 USB devices Uses ~115W under CPU load. Pico is quite versitile, as a...

I am also curious. I also wonder how long it will be until WD releases 500gb platter 1tb drives.

I think it's an interesting idea, one that should be looked at by those who control the standards. While I wont say it's impossible, it will be hard to keep the same size boards, and still offer 5-6 PCI expansion slots. A couple of things come to mind -Board complexity for two types of RAM as well a...

But how much did the combo of brick and PicoPSU cost and what modifications did you have to make to the brick to get it to work? ~$70 for the brick and the PicoPSU. I did shorten the brick's power cable, and wired 12v directly to the video card/CPU. But in a file server system, such modifications s...