HDPLEX H1-S and ASRock mini-ITX

[Vicotnik]

I recently replaced my HTPC and main system with the latest Haswell goodness. Decided on the HDPLEX H1-S case for both and I don't regret it.



The picture above is from the HD-Plex gallery. My own crappy pictures below.

Putting the stuff together was time consuming, as always with the heatpipe cases. Even the power button required assembly. Built the HTPC first and everything went fine. Messed up a bit with the main system and ended up having to take the system apart and reassembly due to insufficient contact between CPU and heatpipe block the first time. The internal USB3-cable was a little bit to short, have ordered an extension.

Due to the heatpipes not all motherboards fit in the H1-S. There's a hardware compatibility list on the HDPlex site. The ASRock boards works fine, but a USB3 extension cable is needed for the B85M-ITX.

Specifications, HTPC:
HDPLEX H1-S, silver front
ASRock H81M-ITX
Pentium G3420 @ 3.2GHz
G-Skill Sniper 4GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9 1.25v
Intel X25-M G2 80GB
picoPSU 90-XLP and Meanwell 60W brick
Idle 11.2W AC
Linux Mint 15 + XBMC

Specifications, main system:
HDPLEX H1-S, black front
ASRock B85M-ITX
i3-4330 @ 3.5GHz
2 x 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP CL9 1.35v
Intel 520 120GB
picoPSU 160-XT and Meanwell 80W brick
Idle 13.9W AC
Linux Mint 15

[Abula]

Impressive passive pcs, thanks for sharing them.

Maybe you could answer a couple of questions,

1) is the idle watts on your signature are with a monitor, mouse and keyboard attached? Or any other perif u using while measuring the consumption?

2) what your idle and load temps? I'm interested as I might move my download station to something like it.

Thanks, and congrats on the really cool passive setups.

[Vicotnik]

Thank you Abula.

1. Idle is empty desktop a few minutes after startup. Monitor/TV connected, mouse, keyboard and NIC.

2. Idle temps are low 30s on both systems. On the HTPC if I start mprime temps jumps to low 40s then slowly rises. On my main system the temp jumps quicker, high 50s and slowly rising. Don't know where it would max out but I'm not worried about temps, these systems will not be used for any heavy stuff.

[CA_Steve]

Very nice

[Abula]

Thank you Vicotnik for the answers.

More and more im starting to like AsRock, from their very good prices to their new PWM bios fan control and lately i seen builds with very good consumption, thinking that Intel legendary consumption motherboards will be discontinued for the future, i see AsRock as their sub, for all the reasons above, hope they continue their trend of maintaining all this things that makes them very appealing.

I tried to build on MSI, as i seen also good comments on them about consumption, but at least their Haswell line isn't as efficient, my Download station lowest i was able to reach was 13W, while with my old Intel Sandy Bridge, im hitting 10W (i can swear i saw a 9.9 at some point but might be my mind playing tricks on me), while the difference isnt big, comparing between both its like 30% increment.... totally unacceptable for me since this is a build that maintains itself in idle or very low power tasks most of the time. So from now on i'll give a shot to AsRock at least for the low power builds when they need replacement.

Thanks again for the answer Vicotnik, really appreciate it.

[Vicotnik]

Very nice

Thank you! No anti-static bag used during installation this time btw.

Thank you Vicotnik for the answers.

More and more im starting to like AsRock, from their very good prices to their new PWM bios fan control and lately i seen builds with very good consumption, thinking that Intel legendary consumption motherboards will be discontinued for the future, i see AsRock as their sub, for all the reasons above, hope they continue their trend of maintaining all this things that makes them very appealing.

I tried to build on MSI, as i seen also good comments on them about consumption, but at least their Haswell line isn't as efficient, my Download station lowest i was able to reach was 13W, while with my old Intel Sandy Bridge, im hitting 10W (i can swear i saw a 9.9 at some point but might be my mind playing tricks on me), while the difference isnt big, comparing between both its like 30% increment.... totally unacceptable for me since this is a build that maintains itself in idle or very low power tasks most of the time. So from now on i'll give a shot to AsRock at least for the low power builds when they need replacement.

Thanks again for the answer Vicotnik, really appreciate it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Abula.

Moving from Intel DH77DF and i3-3225 to ASRock B85M-ITX and i3-4330, idle power consumption went from 13.5W to 13.9W AC. Would have loved a mini ITX board from Intel this generation, but alas.. ASRock seems like the next best thing as you say.
My plan was first to keep the hardware unchanged and just replace the case. I really like the esthetics of the HDPLEX H1-S and also wanted front USB 3.0 ports. But the DH77DF didn't fit very well and since I was happy with the H81M-ITX I've just used in the HTPC I decided to get another ASRock board.

I like the Intel DH77DF so much I don't want to part with it. I will keep the Intel DH77DF and i3-3225 in the Streacom FC-8 as a spare system. I prefer Intel NICs, for no rational reason, and the PCIe mini port is nice to have on a board this size.

[ggumdol]

Moving from Intel DH77DF and i3-3225 to ASRock B85M-ITX and i3-4330, idle power consumption went from 13.5W to 13.9W AC.

Thanks for your experiments shedding lights into low-power ITX systems. However, I just can't seem to understand why the "idle" power consumption increased from 13.5W (Ivy Bridge) to 13.9W (Haswell). Did you make sure that ALL the Cx States in Asrock BIOS are "enabled" rather than set to "Auto"? I noticed through tinkering that explicitly "enabled" Cx States reduce power consumption slightly. It might also depend on the PSU. Lastly, I seem to have seen some posts about the subtle connection between Windows 8 (or 8.1) and better utilization of Cx States, which means you might be able to save further in Windows 8.1.

[Vicotnik]

It's the board, not the CPU. Intel is more efficient. And no Windows on my boxes unless I really have to (I dual boot on my gaming box). Windows 8? I think not. :p

[ggumdol]

Hi Vicotnik. Coming back to C States issue, can you just check in Asrock BIOS whether you indeed set C6 State and C7 State to "enable" instead of "Auto" and compare power consumption? I'm curious to know the difference.

[Vicotnik]

Sure, just tried it. Auto or enabled doesn't seem to make any difference with regards to idle power consumption in Linux Mint 16 at least. The CPUs already idle at about 5W or less, it really is the boards that make up the difference here.

[leem]

Thanks for the info, the AsRock boards do seem to be energy efficient (for instance see Anandtech) and get good reviews.

Does anyone have any experience with the AsRock Z87E-ITX as in the Anadtech review? This board features an mSATA on the underside, and my main concern is that this may get too hot hidden away below, especially on the HDPlex H1.

[xan_user]

Thanks for the info, the AsRock boards do seem to be energy efficient (for instance see Anandtech) and get good reviews.

Does anyone have any experience with the AsRock Z87E-ITX as in the Anadtech review? This board features an mSATA on the underside, and my main concern is that this may get too hot hidden away below, especially on the HDPlex H1.

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g8/c487 ... _Tape.html

[bbalex]

The power consumption drops even more if you use the Intel HDD driver instead of the Microsoft one. Don't know why, but that saves around 5W. I've seen it in a build done by a PC magazine, and confirmed it by myself with another ASRock board (the Z87M Extreme 4).

[Jay_S]

Reviving an older thread...

@ Vicotnik, how did building in the HD-Plex compare with your older Streacom?

[Vicotnik]

A bit easier with the HD-Plex, but the Streacom case I used was an older model. They make small enhancements all the time so there's not much difference between the two.