G31/41 Motherboards Compared for E3300 OR Sempron 1150

Lope · Post by **Lope** » Fri May 14, 2010 4:00 am

I'm building a server that must have a low idle power, but able to perform better than C7 and Atom.
I will either go for Celeron E3300. (or E3200 if I can get one)
OR
AMD Sempron LE-1150 2.0GHz (I prefer AMD if its practical)

Now I must choose a low power motherboard or capable of undervolting/underclocking, etc.

INTEL G31 Motherboards
MSI G31TM-P25 (has Gb LAN)
ASUS P5KPL-AM (1600oc not needed)
BIOSTAR G31-M7 TE (solid caps, 1600oc)
GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2C (easy energy saver, ?)

INTEL G41:
ASROCK G41M-VS2 (533FSB,energy saver, CPU Freq, PCIE Freq, DRAM Freq) Voltages: DRAM 1.79-2.201,NB 1.05-1.3V, VTT 1.1-1.46, GTLRef .67-.615)
FOXCONN G41MX-F (they normally have good tweaking options, but their site is broken, can't get manual)

Currently I'm leaning towards the MSI G31 because of Gigabit LAN. But the ASROCK looks very good. Although the G41 Chipset uses about 6W more when idle than the G31. So stock standard, the MSI board may be lower power than the ASROCK G41 with all its fancy features. But then again, if the NB voltage on the ASROCK can be lowered maybe it will be better than the G31? I somehow doubt it.

Notes:
MSI: manual shows FSB & Multiplier options, no details.
ASUS: Looked at manual (and SPCR) most likely only overclocking.
BIOSTAR: Looked at manual. No FSB/Multiplier/Voltage stuff shown at all.
FOXCONN: Crap website, can't download manual.
---

AMD Sempron LE-1150 2.0GHz
JETWAY M26GT4 (NF6100-430(MCP61P) DDR2-533, 800mhz HTT)
(manual doesn't show BIOS)
BIOSTAR A770 A2G+ (solid caps, HT from 200mhz to 1.8Ghz, Link Width 4-16bit, no voltage or other adjustments)

Please shed some wisdom on me! Thanks!

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:45 am

I'd recommend ASRock's low-end motherboards as they served me very well in the past. ASRock has ample undervolting/overvolting options in the bios, regardless of Intel/AMD platform, which is a bonus for their low-end boards. And their bios save profile, bios built-in flasher are all very useful for end-users. All in all, that's what I learnt from their Intel G41, nVIDIA 7025 and AMD 785G boards.

Lope · Post by **Lope** » Sat May 15, 2010 1:29 am

Thanks for the recommendation, but if I go for the Asrock board, its a more power hungry chipset (G41), and its got no Gigabit LAN.
Unfortunately thats the only Asrock board thats available to me at the moment. I'll call my supplier and ask them if they're getting anything else in.

Lope · Post by **Lope** » Sat May 15, 2010 1:41 am

I've just read the sticky about Athlon 64 CPUs. If I understand correctly, if you go for an AMD solution, it doesn't matter what BIOS options there are, as long as Cool 'n Quiet is supported, because you can underclock/undervolt in windows?
What about intel? In my experience with Speedstep, you can't adjust it. You either enable it, or you disable it?

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat May 15, 2010 5:56 am

Ohh, I've answered similar questions in the past. Go and read it.
viewtopic.php?t=57044&highlight=
viewtopic.php?t=58198&highlight=

ntavlas · Post by **ntavlas** » Sun May 16, 2010 6:54 am

I would look into a dual core i5 for the lowest possible power consumption at idle. Moving most of the northbridge into the cpu seem to work well in this regard. Check out SPCR`s review:http://www.silentpcreview.com/intel-clarkdale

The most frugal boards for this chip seem to be Intel branded. Especially the mini itx ones are hard to beat (though the number of sata connectors might be limiting). Compared to other boards they seem to be lacking in undervolting options but manually undervolting does little to reduce idle power consumption anyway, which is where a server will be most of the time.

ilovejedd · Post by **ilovejedd** » Sun May 16, 2010 9:10 am

ntavlas wrote:I would look into a dual core i5 for the lowest possible power consumption at idle. Moving most of the northbridge into the cpu seem to work well in this regard. Check out SPCR`s review:http://www.silentpcreview.com/intel-clarkdale

Celeron E3300 Wolfdale @ $50 vs Core i3-530 Clarkdale @ $100 (that's if you catch a good sale, normal is $115~125)
G31/G41 MB @ $50 vs H55 MB @ $70

For something that's not gonna see a whole lot of CPU use, I'd stick with the Celeron, Sempron or Athlon II X2.

Lope · Post by **Lope** » Mon May 17, 2010 9:35 am

jedd:
I agree G31/41 much cheaper.
Any chance of this coming to desktop?
http://www.techlocation.com/news/intel- ... 32nm-tech/

Does anyone think theres gonna be a Celeron similar to E3300 on 32nm 775 soon?

ilovejedd · Post by **ilovejedd** » Mon May 17, 2010 9:48 am

Lope wrote:Does anyone think theres gonna be a Celeron similar to E3300 on 32nm 775 soon?

LGA-775, probably not. However, there are LGA-1156 Celies already, albeit it seems to be exclusively for the server OEM market.

BlackWhizz · Post by **BlackWhizz** » Mon May 17, 2010 10:56 am

Get the board with the least power phases.

Lope · Post by **Lope** » Wed May 19, 2010 5:23 am

Yeah, a lot of cheap boards only have 1 power phase.
Here is another G41 option: (solid caps and DDR3)
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/con ... p?S_ID=447 (no manual available... *sigh*)

I wonder is the low power consumption of DDR3 will outweigh the extra power used by the G41 over the G31... probably not. Still most keen on the MSI G31 board with gigabit.
Will only be buying on the 27th though.

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Wed May 19, 2010 8:19 am

Lope wrote:I wonder is the low power consumption of DDR3 will outweigh the extra power used by the G41 over the G31... probably not.

LV (low voltage) DDR3?

ilovejedd · Post by **ilovejedd** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:08 am

rpsgc wrote:LV (low voltage) DDR3?

Unfortunately, I think that might be out of spec so not all motherboards might support it.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Fri May 21, 2010 5:05 am

The 775 entry-level boards that I've worked with were ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, MSI, ECS, and these boards didn't allow user to lower DIMM Vcore below 1.475V. To complicate the matters, the reviews across the web that proved Low-Voltage DDR3 is beneficial in terms of power consumption were mostly tested on voracious i7 8xx/9xx series. To my regret, I doubt LV DDR3's value in such a low-end/power system.

Lope · Post by **Lope** » Fri May 21, 2010 6:53 am

thanks for the info. G31 with Gigabit LAN, it is.

flapane · Post by **flapane** » Mon May 24, 2010 1:59 pm

Asrock G41, search in a past thread I started some months ago, I mesaured the power consumption.
I did a great rig with that and an undervolted e3300.

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