Lowest power Intel/AMD setup ?

ex.treme · Post by **ex.treme** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:07 am

Push this thread

Hallo and thank you for this discussion. I'm very interesting about power consumption, because its actual. Energy was +12% expensive from y. 2008 an will go more. Second think i don't like power hungry and noisy systems.

Back to Topic. I thinking about low power system or notebook.

Curently i have tested 2. HTTP systems and laptop. See the results :Idle

1. Aopen i975Xa+Core duo 1,[email protected],2x512mb DDr2, Ati x600@200/200, Seagate 200gb Ide 7200rpm 3.5', PSu Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480w = 76 w

2. Msi 915 speedster+Pentium M 1.86Ghz@800mhz(133x6)@0.7v- +2x512mb DDR2 533,IGP Intel i900, Seagate 200gb Ide 7200rpm 3.5, PSu Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480w = 55 w

3. Laptop IBM R40 with i855, Pentium M Banias 1,6Ghz@[email protected], 1x512mb DDR333,Ati Radeon 7500 32mb, 40 Gb 5400rpm Samsung 2.5' = 31w with 17 LCD Samsung 710T. Without LCD i assume 10w at idle

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I don't like the consumption with both desktop. Aopen is hungry i975. But i expected with Msi i915 speedster consumption around 35-40w.

Its possible, when i switch PSU like Seasonic 300w with better efficiency and 2.5" hdd get to 30w?

Second solution is buy used laptop with low power consumption Vga like x700 or similar card. I dont know how will be power consumption then.
I guess 30w at idle ?
But this will be more expensive upgrade and without upgrade possibility.

Any ideas?

Thx for answering.

pteron · Post by **pteron** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:55 am

This is an interesting topic.

I am planning to build a NAS for my home network and the info here is raising some questions that I hope can be answered.

First the spec:
1. 64 bit processor (planning to use opensolaris and ZFS)
2. 4 x SATA (planning to use Seagate 7200 rpm 500GB drives)
3. Small - planning to use this Chenbro case (yes it's expensive but I like the look!)
4. hence a mini-ITX motherboard.

The motherboards I have shortlisted are:
1. Kino 690 S1
2. Kino 690 AM2
3. Albatron 690 AM2

I couldn't find any Intel processor based motherboards with 4 x SATA and at least 1 GbE (I don't count Realtek as GbE

)

I'd like to reduce power consumption as far as practicable, and the posts here discussing using standard desktop AMD processors in ways to get the power down to portable type levels have left me thinking...

Does anyone know if the Kino motherboard can undervolt the processor? If so, what processor would you recommend I use? The ZFS best practices FAQ suggests a minimum of 1GHz proc speed per 500MB/s of data. Assuming I want to saturate both GbE interfaces on the Kino, I need (simplistically) around a 500MHz processor. As the NAS may be called on to do a few other things like SQUID etc, I'm thinking something around 1GHz ish. If I can get more processing power for little more power consumption (and price increase) then I'm interested.

Would it be better (price/power consumption) to go with the S1 based processors?

All comments/recommendations gratefully received!

Andy

Mariner · Post by **Mariner** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:31 pm

I can't say I've even heard of Kino motherboards and it must be said that I'd be very surprised if they supported undervolting in BIOS. Perhaps they support Cool N Quiet? The Albatron board does support CnQ according to the manual but no mention of other undervolting.

Normally lack of BIOS undervolting isn't too much of a problem as various software solutions can usually provide the same ability but I just did a quick search for Opensolaris and it doesn't appear to support CPU undervolting at present.

As regards which CPU to go for, I'd guess that the lowest-power one you're likely to find is the 65nm Sempron LE-1100 Sparta chip which is supported by the Albatron board. TDP is reputedly 45W but I'd be amazed if this measurement was accurate and expect actual power draw would actually be <30W even at stock Voltage.

Those are my best guesses.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:03 pm

Mariner wrote:As regards which CPU to go for, I'd guess that the lowest-power one you're likely to find is the 65nm Sempron LE-1100 Sparta chip which is supported by the Albatron board. TDP is reputedly 45W but I'd be amazed if this measurement was accurate and expect actual power draw would actually be <30W even at stock Voltage.

AMD's 65nm chips aren't really all that efficient. Let me say my Athlon 64 LE-1620 (90nm, Orleans?) runs very happily at 2.4GHz @ 1.1V. I haven't tried the 65nm Semprons, but I haven't been impressed with the two X2s I have tried, while this forgotten Athlon LE is amazing.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:23 pm

QuietOC wrote: AMD's 65nm chips aren't really all that efficient. Let me say my Athlon 64 LE-1620 (90nm, Orleans?) runs very happily at 2.4GHz @ 1.1V. I haven't tried the 65nm Semprons, but I haven't been impressed with the two X2s I have tried, while this forgotten Athlon LE is amazing.

Well, that's a low voltage chip, isn't it? My X2 4000+ brisbane can do 2.4ghz with 1.125, a notch up from yours, but I bet the brisbane uses less power. Are you running passively? Aren't those LE's single core? maybe that's the reason it undervolts so well? Maybe it would be lower power than an X2, still, I prefer the dual core.

Mariner · Post by **Mariner** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:37 am

I'm basing my expectations of the low-volt/power performance of the 65nm Sempron on my 3600+ Brisbane: 1.9GHz @ 1.0V and I believe others with the same chip have even got as low as 0.975V at stock clocks.

If a dual-core CPU can manage this (and my total system draw at load is just 53W), I'd expect a single-core 65nm Sempron to undervolt at least down to 1.0V with even lower power draw (for reference my previous chip, a 90nm Sempron undervolted down to 0.975V at stock speed: 1.8Ghz).

laserred · Post by **laserred** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:29 am

djkest wrote: Edit2: This CPU comes at 1.2V stock, I'd estimate 1.05V would be in range at stock clock speeds.

You linked to a single-core Sempron, but he was inquiring about the dual-core Brisbanes, like the BE-2300, 2350, and 2400. I do agree single core might be a couple watts less on the power draw, but overall the 5-6W would be better used during times of productivity. Cool N' Quiet could eliminate most of the difference.

djkest · Post by **djkest** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:29 am

I think a lot of people believe that the brisbanes are just as efficient as the Sempron LE. I'm not sure if it's worth the extra money, is what I'm saying.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:24 am

ryboto wrote:Well, that's a low voltage chip, isn't it?

Yes, it is not the normal 90nm core. I believe it is the same core as the special low-voltage Opterons (1MB L2 cache).

Are you running passively? Aren't those LE's single core?

Well it could. Its in a little ASUS barebones right now. I only have the option to go down to 1.1V in CrystalCPUID and there's no options to do anything in the BIOS. Testing in a 690G motherboard it ran fine at 3.2GHz and faster--and I didn't test undervolting.

I have a X2 4000+ Brisbane in the 690G and it requires more voltage not to mention using a lot more current. So, no comparison. The 90nm Orleans is nice.

Mariner · Post by **Mariner** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:10 am

djkest wrote:I think a lot of people believe that the brisbanes are just as efficient as the Sempron LE. I'm not sure if it's worth the extra money, is what I'm saying.

I'd tend to doubt that the Brisbanes could have power draw quite as low as the 65nm Sempron LE chips - they certainly didn't ought to bearing in mind the disparate die sizes of the two. Incidentally, searching around the forums, it would appear that there is little difference in power consumption or undervolting ability between the 90nm and 65nm Sempron chips. Strange:

viewtopic.php?t=43945&highlight=sparta+manilla

Thinking about it logically, if Opensolaris could support Cool n Quiet, a dual-core chip might be a good option for this build. Assuming the processing power required by the NAS software is pretty low and it can run multi-threaded, a Brisbane might run at the reduced clocks/voltages of Cool n Quiet 100% of the time. The problem being, of course, that I don't believe Opensolaris supports CnQ at present.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:17 am

QuietOC wrote:
I have a X2 4000+ Brisbane in the 690G and it requires more voltage not to mention using a lot more current. So, no comparison. The 90nm Orleans is nice.

Have you done power draw comparisons? To make it a fair test, you should be using a BE series(not black edition, or maybe black edition) since the new ones are G2 cores, aren't they? The 45W BE2400? 2.4ghz, probably has a default vcore close to 1.1v.

pteron · Post by **pteron** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:27 am

Many thanks for all of the replies, I will be going with the AMD2 based board and probably a BE-2350.

leem · Post by **leem** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:18 pm

Looking back at this thread as am interested in the Albatron KI690-S1 (which is the same board as IEI Kino690 S-1).

I'm looking at using a low power Sempron, but wondered how this board now compares to the new Atom and Via offereing, especially the power efficiency of the chipset.

cheers...