Silence with a X2 4850e or Phenom 9100e?

cosmicvibes · Post by **cosmicvibes** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:30 am

Hi all,

Looking to build my first PC for quiet some time.

I'm upgrading the desktop from an ancient Athlon 700mhz system, so performance is not my main aim (anything will feel better) my biggest concerns are low costs and silence, as this PC will be in my bedroom and used often.

With that in mind I had all but settled on a 780G motherboard as the inbuilt graphics and other features are just what I need paired with an Athlon 64 X2 4850e CPU which has a TDP of 45W - I already have a Silverstone TJ06S Case and was hoping to use it's 120mm fans (i will get quieter ones if needs) with the CPU in it's wind tunnel cooled by a Scythe Mini Ninja - my betting is that I may even get away without the fan on the Scythe as the cooling from wind-tunnel may be enough. In any case I will have a decent fan controller and will experiment.

However... just when I was all settled on that setup, I noticed that AMD plan to release a quad-core Phenom 9100e with a TDP of just 65W. At the right price this will be an attractive option.

So my question is will the extra 20W make much difference? Will it change my cooling ideas requiring a different heatsink etc?

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

cjp

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 1:04 pm

Hi, I would guess that the mini-ninja will handle the extra 20w without much trouble. At worst you'll need to run the 80mm fan on it.
SPCRs review of the Mini-Ninja has the stock fan at 5v as ~19dB(A) @ 1080rpm and 0.36Â°C/w. That gives 65w CPU 24Â°C temp rise, say max safe temp is 65Â°C then as long as the ambient around the cooler is less 40Â°C (104Â°F) you'll be fine.
19dB(A) is good so I doubt that would make any difference to the overall system's noise unless you get everything else really, really, quiet.
Seb

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:00 pm

Welcome to SPCR

To be perfectly honest, why are you looking at a quad core at all.?

A modern single core CPU will make your old system look pathetic, a dual core setup will spend 99% of its time @ 1 GHz, whats the point going for another 2 cores you wont be using.

My personal advice would be to spend the extra money you would otherwise spend on a faster (or lower wattage) CPU, on other components to make your overall computing experience nicer.

I would suggest starting with the case, get yourself an Antec Solo, you will notice the difference straight away, and even with a 65W CPU you wont need a CPU fan on a Ninja (non-mini).

I wouldnt bother getting a 45W CPU as most of the saving in power (heat) is when the CPU is ubder load (which it wont be).

Andy

JoeWPgh · Post by **JoeWPgh** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:49 pm

andyb wrote:Welcome to SPCR
I would suggest starting with the case, get yourself an Antec Solo, you will notice the difference straight away, and even with a 65W CPU you wont need a CPU fan on a Ninja (non-mini).

I wouldnt bother getting a 45W CPU as most of the saving in power (heat) is when the CPU is ubder load (which it wont be).

Andy

Good point. The case can be a determining factor. The advantage of a 45 watt CPU is more apparent in a cramped HTPC case, where a big Ninja won't fit, while the Mini can easily handle a 45 watt CPU without a fan. The OP's case doesn't present this sort of challenge. So yeah, there's no compelling reason to go that route. If he were assembling this in a Fusion or similar case, the lower heat from the 4850e/Minja would be a more significant factor.

cosmicvibes · Post by **cosmicvibes** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:14 am

Though this rig will be a replacement for my desktop -I have a modern laptop and work machines. So I least want this rig to compete with that as it will start to take on tasks currently done elsewhere.

This rig's main install will be Linux based, and will likely run a virtual machine or two for development purposes. It will will initial suffer a large amount of music/dvd encoding when I start RIP everything to a storage server I have. I then plan to later press it into a basic audio production desktop.

As such I feel the extra cores would go a long way here....

An the Silverstone case is staying - I love the design more than anything, so I will be working with that.

SebRad - the Silverstone Case has a "Wind Tunnel" which isolates the airflow from it's two 120mm fans across the CPU section of the MB. This should keep the ambient temperature at the CPU well below 40Â°C. However this will obviously have implications for cooling of the top section in the case. There is an extra 80mm fan in this case which can be used to aid this, if needs be I can turn that on - if it's too noisy I can always get a better one.

Now to just decide on a power supply..........

cjp

cosmicvibes · Post by **cosmicvibes** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:52 am

Seems the Phenom 9100e was just a paper launch... I believe it suffered from the B2 stepping issue so AMD scrapped it in favour of launching a 9150e sometime in the near future.

I also read somewhere that AMD's TDP rating of 65W for this processor is actually a "Typical Usage" rating and not a maximum usage rating - which could be higher. Anyone know if this is true?

cjp

dragmor · Post by **dragmor** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:08 pm

cosmicvibes wrote:Seems the Phenom 9100e was just a paper launch... I believe it suffered from the B2 stepping issue so AMD scrapped it in favour of launching a 9150e sometime in the near future.

All the remaining B2's went to the OEM's really cheap.

Only the 9x50 models should be available retail now.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu May 01, 2008 9:34 am

Correct me but wasn't B2-problems mere laboratory things? I've never heard that they would have run that TLB-bug on real life situation... Oh, well... 9150e sounds nice though.

twoscoreandfour · Post by **twoscoreandfour** » Sat May 03, 2008 3:46 am

It's not neccessarily only found in "lab-settings", but your chance of encountering the bug is apparently extremely rare. In the CPU, however, world anything less than 100% stability is pretty significant. The biggest problem is that the workaround affecting the rare bug (BIOS update) will affect performance by around 10% IIRC. So if you happen to require a BIOS update for functionality/stability, and they roll in the TLB-erratum workaround, then you will have a 10% less efficient chip.

You may as well just get the latest stepping which is out now

axle · Post by **axle** » Sun May 18, 2008 6:41 pm

This is really interesting. I've been considering the 4850e because I thought the 45w would be a cinch to cool with a ninja or minja, but I'd be putting in a Word/Firefox machine (ie, never under full load).

Tom's Hardware (here) has the 4850e at 42w idle with CnQ, 74 watts under load.

I'm not an expert; I don't know how big a deal that wattage difference is.

axle · Post by **axle** » Sun May 18, 2008 7:01 pm

Oops, SPCR reviewed this chip. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article807-page7.html

Silence with a X2 4850e or Phenom 9100e?

Silence with a X2 4850e or Phenom 9100e?

Thanks......though i should've been clearer...

Just to update....

Re: Just to update....