New System needed with under 60W power usage.

[victorhortalives]

I want to stop using my #2 P182 as it now has less and less stuff in it as I have migrated all the files to a remote NAS and stopped playing games.
( I have #1 P182 for all the busy media conversion work with TV Card, MAudio 2496, 1TBSamsung etc).

I also have an Antec 1380 that I was using as another NAS, that has the 90W Pico PSU with a 60W power brick.
Currently this has an Intel D201GLY2 mobo and 1x 1TBSamsung 3.5in.

It's time to stop using #2 P182 and to move to putting a new system in the Antec 1380.

What mobo should I use as the basis, so that the 60watt power brick and 90watt Pico PSU are OK ? This is where I don't have enough data.

It has to have decent on-board graphics (AMD 780 or 790), HDMI output and GB LAN.

Here's what I will transfer from #2 P182 :

2x Mtron 16GB 2.5in SSDs
AMD BE-2350 with Minja
4GB RAM in 4x1GB sticks (might be changed)

NO CD/DVD unit to be used ! I have a USB Plextor to use when needed or I'll mount ISOs from the NAS with VirtualCloneDrive.

The Antec 1380 already has a Scythe fan with a Zalman controller blowing in through the back opening.

I've used AsRock and Gigabyte mobos with some success.

Any input on forum member power usage experience will be appreciated.

Thanks

[victorhortalives]

Sort of answering my own question, I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H.
It seems capable enough in Graphics and features and with my BE-2350, fast enough for everyday.

Is this going to fit in a 60W power brick limit, or am I going to have to upgrade the PSU/Brick combination ?
I fear that it will require 10W-20W over what I can provide now.

[mgarl10024]

Hi victorhortalives,

Sorry if I've misunderstood, but are you contradicting yourself here?

It has to have decent on-board graphics (AMD 780 or 790)

I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H.

The GA-MA74GM-S2H has a 740?

As a partial answer, I bought this board, and with a 45watt AMD processor managed to get it below 60watt at full load (by tweaking voltages etc). viewtopic.php?t=52809

Hope that helps,

MG

[psiu]

Great timing!

Just got my Kill-a-Watt yesterday and have some numbers you should find useful.

To get hardware out of the way, I have the Asus M3A78-EM board--HD3200 graphics, HDMI, Gb LAN. Athlon X2 BE-2300, 2x2GB DDR2-800, WD 640GB Blue, floppy/card reader, DVDRW. Also 3 120mm fans.

Idle power draw in XP and Vista was 43W at the desktop. In XP various load points were:

Orthos: 82W
AtiTool: 74
Furmark: 81
Orthos + Furmark: 89
CPUburn: 68
Cpuburn + Orthos: 84
Orthos + ATITool: 86

edit: no voltage tweaking either--stock performance and CnQ automagic handling performance.

[victorhortalives]

Thanks for your replies.

mgarl10024 :

Re 740 vs 780/790 - yes, maybe but 740 seems to be almost as good as 780. I have a 780 based Gigabyte already in #1 P182 and it does more than I need. I like the 740 really for the low lower usage.

Since my 2 posts I've found a few more SPCR comparison tables, mostly GPU power and Wattage. I'm trying to preserve a decent level of GPU and CPU power while keeping max power under 60W.

I've also found a new wrinkle - my PicoPSU has a 20pin connector and many of the new boards have 24pin mobo sockets !

psiu :

Looks like you have a likely alternative config for me, also based on a decent level of GPU power. I'll look at it some more. (Just seen that it too has a 24pin mobo power socket !)

If I take out your drive and two of the fans, then it's another 15W or so saved I would think.

What do you have as a CPU cooler ? Is there enough height above the first bank of memory to fit a Minja in ? This was a big problem with my Gigabyte board. I couldn't fit the Corsair RAM in the first bank !

I've also seen some SPCR info that say that I can get below 60W if I underclock a 780 based mobo down to 1.6Ghz from 2.3Ghz or so.

I'm also looking at the Zotac Ion (B version). It's a MiniITX Intel Atom based with very low power - but it just doesn't have the GPU or CPU power - I think (Mike Chin - will you have one to test soon ?). Wattage readings are very good. 20 pin power socket !

It's also VERY expensive. Mini-ITX in the UK has them and with shipping it comes to £ 154 !

So I'm still in two minds :

Expensive Mini-ITX which is just not powerful enough (maybe)

OR

Less expensive Micro-ATX which is probably too much Wattage, unless underclocked down to almost Mini-ITX levels of performance.

Fortunately the Antec case can handle both alternatives.

This is going to be a two pipe problem - as Holmes would have said.

[idale]

I've also found a new wrinkle - my PicoPSU has a 20pin connector and many of the new boards have 24pin mobo sockets !

Actually, 20- and 24-pin motherboard power are generally compatible (so you can plug a 20-pin power connector into a 24-pin socket), the main issue that would come up with using a 20-pin connector is the applications of the extra four pins (I think mostly it goes towards PCI-E power). Hopefully someone else can chime in with specifics, but I would be surprised if you actually had need of that +4 pins in your situation, so your PicoPSU should work just fine (in this case, at least).

[victorhortalives]

I've also found a new wrinkle - my PicoPSU has a 20pin connector and many of the new boards have 24pin mobo sockets !

Actually, 20- and 24-pin motherboard power are generally compatible (so you can plug a 20-pin power connector into a 24-pin socket), the main issue that would come up with using a 20-pin connector is the applications of the extra four pins (I think mostly it goes towards PCI-E power). Hopefully someone else can chime in with specifics, but I would be surprised if you actually had need of that +4 pins in your situation, so your PicoPSU should work just fine (in this case, at least).

Thanks.

I didn't get as optimistic an answer when I asked the Pico PSU people. Maybe they were just being cautious.

[idale]

I didn't get as optimistic an answer when I asked the Pico PSU people. Maybe they were just being cautious.

Most likely, as there's always the possibility of a specific board not liking only having a 20-pin connector plugged in for some reason, or the possibility of you hitting some edge case where the extra pins actually do make a difference yet still being barely within the limits of the PicoPSU (since normally people talk about using high-power video cards and needing the extra pins). But if you're just trying to power a small system, I at least haven't run across anything that looks even remotely problematic. And this shows a picture (around halfway down the page) of a commercial system that actually came in that configuration (24-pin socket, 20-pin connector), if that makes you feel better: http://www.motherboards.org/articles/guides/1487_4.html

[victorhortalives]

Well I made a decision.

I found a less expensive supplier of the Zotac in Germany and actually bought it !

These very small and quiet configs are going to be the way of future General Purpose PCs, so I'll just get on with it.

Now I want to look for a better small case as the Antec is just too big to fit in my bookcase (30cm x 30cm x 32cm). Maybe the Lian Li PC-Q07 or the Silverstone SG05.

Thanks for the info posts.

[mgarl10024]

How exciting!

Let us know how you get on?

MG

[victorhortalives]

I certainly will.

Just found out that the Antec WILL fit in the bookcase - it's only 27cm wide. Great.

I'm going to take out the Intel DGLY board and sell it on ebay and remove the GrowUpJapan 2002c box with the Samsung 1TB drive.

I'll probably post the GrowUpJapan box for sale here on SPCR as forum members tend to be more familiar with it.
Euros 40 plus postage from Northern Europe.

[victorhortalives]

Well, it arrived today - almost next day delivery - what service.

A half hour later and it was installed and working.

Very easy, but with some problems.

The I/O shield is only partly cut - leaving the pressing out of the shapes to the user. Poor show I call it. Especially as some of the shapes are very sharp.
I hope this is not the same mentality as the Hong Kong tailor who made a very expensive suit but used crap thread, so 6 months later the suit was useless.

Fitting all the stuff in the Antec case was dead easy, but I had to devise a way the hold the 2x Mtrons in place - eventually solved by more knicker elastic.
Now though I have a rat's nest of small wires to manage. OK finally.

Anyway, I just transferred over the 2x Mtrons and WinXp booted up no problem. Then it spent a half hour trying to find all the new hardware.
At this point even the USBs weren't working. Eventually it found them all.

Then I discover that there is NO facility for USB booting, so my USB DVD reader was unable to load the Zotac drivers.
I took a SATA DVD reader out of P182#1 and connected it to the 3rd SATA port and all the drivers went in.
It spent a long time telling me there was an Unknown bit of hardware, but eventally this became an nVidia audio unit.

I'm very impressed with the ION graphics. Very hard to tell any difference from the 780 graphics in the mobo it just replaced. (I have to make this change in two steps).

Where I do see a down side is :

1. It's very noticably slower than the AMD 4850e. I only have to get 2 tasks going and the CPU utilisation is up to 100%.
This is a natural result of a 1.6Ghz processor so can't grumble, but I'll be waiting for the 2.5Ghz next version.
2. Gigabit Networking is very varable. In some modes it is only 50% as fast as the Intel PCIe NIC it replaced. In other modes it is faster. Might be a follow on from #1.

3. No USB booting
4. No wake-up from PS/2 Mouse or Keyboard. Since the unit is now 2 meters away from me I have to resort to powering it on by switching on a power plug. (It does allow Restart from PowerOn)

What I have yet to do is to make some Power measurements - bound to be a happy outcome here and do some quantitative tests on the Graphics.

More later.

[psiu]

Very cool. Anandtech just had a writeup and some followup on the Ion Zotac, wake-on-USB is planned for PCB revision this summer.

Pointless now, but yeah, I could fit the memory in first bank on my motherboard with a Ninja rev. B.

As far as the 20 vs 24 pin, or even the 4 pin molex vs 6 pin or now 8 pin graphics adapters, the primary function is spreading out the current flow to keep from overheating and burning/melting individual connectors/wires. Obviously a low power system is generally safe from this.

[victorhortalives]

Yes, I was aware of the lack of USB support for wake-up, but I would have thought that USB booting would be an obvious must have for a modern mobo.

Hopfully the summer revision will fix this.

Experience so far is fine. Power use is 30W or so and, since I have had to reinstall a CD unit, max power is 37W.
It is a bit though like going back 2 generations of CPU as most of the time it runs at 40-60% of CPU usage (I was used to 15-20%) and it's easy to max out with 3 tasks going.

The ION though is fine - I'll test it with the SPCR test progs later.

Small change to plan - even with only one fan (yes, this is an OMPPC also) it made a noticeable noise when sitting in the bookcase (bright surfaces).
So I'm going to keep the P182#1 box and sell the Antec 1380. The P182 sits on the floor with the CDunit at a convenient height and there is no fan noise.

[dyslexical]

Wow! I've had a similar issue with power consumption and that figure in particular is good to hear.

I have both a laptop (MacBook) and desktop system I built myself. I was horrified to find that idling (which my desktop PC does most of the time used just for checking email, browsing web, etc), the power consumption still was around 220Watts!
While my MacBook never went above 40W, despite it doing exactly the same work... Just seems so unnecessarily wasteful.

The only big difference between my laptop and desktop was that the desktop had a dedicated video card instead of IGP. The smaller mobo and specific laptop CPU in the laptop might of made a difference, but I couldn't imagine it making that big a difference.

It still doesn't really make sense to me even taking in to consideration the video card, that there is such a huge difference; It is only a 8800GTS. While I haven't been able to find power consumption charts for the 8800GTS, I did find one for the similar 8800GT, which claimed it's idle power consumption was 44w and maximum draw 111w.

I've wondered what causes such huge differences. I suspect having a 500w PSU doesn't help (when most of it isn't utilized), and I wonder how much of a difference motherboard form factor makes.

I've recently undertaken a Mini-ITX build myself, although I went a different path. I do a lot of gaming and couldn't live without a dedicated GPU, so I got the Zotac 9300-ITX paired with C2D E5200. I'm not expecting to get as low values given the different CPU for one, plus intending to use an add-on GPU but...
The Zotac 9300-ITX supports Nvidia Hybrid SLI which I was hoping would help; Since they claim it disables the video card when it's not needed and just uses the IGP. With the Zotac 9300-ITX and Zotac Ion having the same IGP I'm hoping the power consumption will be on the low end like those results since the only other major difference is the CPU, and E5300 is supposed to be power friendly anyway, so...

Did you say you were using this with PicoPSU?

[victorhortalives]

Hi.

I'm going in a different route as I don't do gaming anymore. But, even with an Asus EN8500GT in my Asrock mobo, I didn't get more than 90W or so when idling.

Now that I've bought 2 mobos with IGPs, the other one (Gigabyte) still does about 90W (has a 1TB Samsung, AMD 4850 and a 520W Corsair PSU).

My first attempt at a low power mini ITX used an Intel DGLY2 board with a 1TB Samsung and an Intel PCI GB NIC - this I could not get below 40W - which seemed poor to me given the low levels of performance - just about OK for a Linux NAS music server.

So I swapped for the Zotac and yes, I am using a 90W Pico PSU running from a 60W power brick. The RAM might be a bit power hungry - 2x 2GB sticks of Corsair XMS2 CM2X2048-6400C4DHX. This was previously in the Gigabyte.

I'm using an Mtron SSD - soon to be replaced with a Samsung SSD and, because of the USB problem, I've reinstalled the Samsung CD/DVD unit.

You'll be wasting power with the 500W PSU but at 200W usage, you'll be wasting less than I was at 90W usage.

My Zotac is now back to the vendor as they sent me their evaluation unit - the mobo firmware can't be updated. HeyHo.

[victorhortalives]

The dealer where I bought my mobo still has his Evaluation unit, so Zotac must be sending out Evaluation units by mistake - so watch out !

Unless there is a real simple method of converting from Evaluation to Real - it will involve a return and replacement.

Not much of an advert for Zotac ?

Unfinished goods ?