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Results Are In! Woohoo

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:08 pm
by readk
AMD 605e
Gigabyte 790xta-UD4
4gb G.Skill Eco DDR3
PowerColor Fanless 5750
Intel 80GB SSD
Pico PSU 150 / 150w Brick (From short-circuit)
Single 600rpm fan
Thermalright HR01 (Fanless)

On my KILL-A-WATT as I post this it says 62w.

Would anyone like to help propose any other stress tests? How high is safe on my Kill-a-watt?

I tried OCCT but under Windows 7 it disables my graphics card tab.

I don't really know how to undervolt but can anyone help me with how I could save some power especially on the video card under load?

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:40 pm
by readk
Okay, I ran FURMARK on Windows 7 for 600 seconds everything maxed including the xtreme burning setting.

For the first 400 seconds the Kill-a-watt said 142w the whole time. After that it slowly climbed up to 149w

The gpu temperature hit 90C at the peak but it was level.

Is a problem? Seems very hot!

Tried gaming, hits about 100-110 max and temp is around 65C during the game and flatlines. Goes back down to 62w / 40C when I quit the game.

600 rpm Noctua is actually audible though, thats kind of disappointing.

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:39 pm
by frenchie
600rpm Noctua audible.... strange.
Is it soft mounted ?

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:59 pm
by frostedflakes
FurMark is an incredibly unrealistic load, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Gaming only uses 100-110w, which should be fine. Like I mentioned in the other thread, though, I'd keep an eye on the barrel plug for the PicoPSU. Make sure it isn't passing too much current and overheating.

For undervolting, go into the BIOS and select manual voltage adjustment, then you can adjust CPU voltage. You probably won't be able to undervolt it much, but even a little bit will help. You might also look into whether it's possible to undevolt the GPU in 3D, I thought there were utilities available to adjust the voltage for ATI chips. Just make sure you do your research before messing with GPU voltage, though. A lot easier to mess something up than it is with CPU undervolting.

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:25 pm
by readk
Hi! Thanks for the help you guys.

I decided I will keep the Pico PSU then and try running it for a while, if something melts I guess I will just upgrade then. It seems safe so far. I will run some more 3D tests tonight.

I don't really game on the machine ever, I was just using that as a stress test. In windows it sits at 59 watts now that I have tweaked it a bit, I undervolted the CPU by .05 watts but I can't figure out how to underolt the video. MSI Afterburner has a voltage slider but it's empty/locked-out. There are some bios options for the NB and SB voltage, but most of them have no descriptions:

SATA Volt
CPU Volt
CPU PLL Volt
DDR VTT Volt
NB Volt
SB/HT Volt
NB/PCIe PLL Volt
CPU VB Vid Volt


I'm a bit worried about gpu temp and the temperature of the brick though. Do you think continuous use on the brick is safe? It gets hot!

My Noctua fan is mounted on rubber mounts that came with my lian li case but I didn't use the silicone plugs to mount it, I used screws. It doesn't make a fan sound but kind of a low pitched bass hum that echoes inside the case? I can try some more padding in there especially on the bottom, maybe I will try that tonight. It's quiet enough that I can also hear the power brick making a high pitched hum which is annoying too :(