Low power CPU options

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koffiejunkie

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Hi guys,

I'm looking to build a mini-pc to handle file serving and a few other tasks. Every desktop CPU on the market is powerful enough for what I want to do, so the choice really comes down to which one is the best power consumption for the money. From what I've could find, it looks like the Athlon64 X2 "e" series chips, in particular the 5050e. There are Intels that have a lower TDP, but not for this kind of money.

Is this the best option?
 
What about the Intel 1.6 Core 2 Duo L7500 CPU? It's not the newest but it has great performance for battery life.
 
Why worry with one pc? buy an entry level intel or amd, intel has that option where the cpu is down-clocked when its not being used, i am not sure if amd have this. For one pc though its pointless in my opinion to worry about a few extra w's.. Your looking to save a couple of bucks a month at the end of the day.
 
PeterCH said:
What about the Intel 1.6 Core 2 Duo L7500 CPU? It's not the newest but it has great performance for battery life.
Click to expand...

The performance is sufficient but it's the list price is at least three times as much and it's not even listed at any of the usual shops.

killadoob said:
Why worry with one pc? buy an entry level intel or amd, intel has that option where the cpu is down-clocked when its not being used, i am not sure if amd have this.
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AMD was first on desktop processors with this, IIRC.

killadoob said:
For one pc though its pointless in my opinion to worry about a few extra w's.. Your looking to save a couple of bucks a month at the end of the day.
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Do you pay your own electricity bill? I don't have exact figures for all components, but just between the following setups:

4x 3.5" 7200rpm discs
1x regular desktop board
1x regular 64W desktop CPU

and

4x 2.5" 7200rpm discs
1x mini-itx board
1x AMD 45W CPU

there is a roughly 60W power difference. That adds up to a fair bit of cash per year.

The other reason to go for low power is low heat. Low heat means quiet. I don't want to hear it.
 
How much does it amount to a year? Now how much did it cost to replaced the old 3.5" with 2.5"? how much did it cost to buy a cpu that consumes less power with a small mobo.

Could it take 5 years to recoup the money you laid out for this lower power stuff? Out of interest what vga card do you use?
 
There are no 3.5" drives to replace. I haven't bought a 3.5" drive in ages. 2.5" drives are cheap enough, and are available up to 500gb, so space is not an issue. It also allows me to stack eight drives in a very small case without active cooling. The motherboard will have integrated graphics, which I don't really care about since it's going to be a headless server.

Yes, it's more expensive for the low power components, but like I said, I'm after a solution that runs cool and quiet. Lower consumption is a bonus.
 
What about an e7200? Mine runs stock voltage 1.10 even overclocked to 2.94.
 
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werner said:
perhaps a new or s/h intel d201gly or d201gly2 would suffice? around 25w maximum for mb+cpu..
not sure of S.A. pricing, but I have seen them in the UK s/h for around £25. (this is for a mini-itx mb with built in cpu)
http://resources.mini-box.com/online/MBD-I-D201GLY/intel-d201gly-power-consumption.html
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"This item is no longer available." Anyway, I said desktop CPU. I already have a Mini-ITX system with a board similar to this - it's not sufficient for my needs.

cerebus said:
What about an e7200? Mine runs stock voltage 1.10 even overclocked to 2.94.
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Did you even bother to check the TDP of that CPU? It's 65W. Voltage doesn't have much to do with anything.

stoke said:
Why not use a device designed for this purpose?

e.g. http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/product_info.php?products_id=13091
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Proprietary filesystem and Windows-only drivers - no thanks.

And like I said earlier, I want low power. 2.5" discs idle at around 0.5W, and read/seek at about 1W. 3.5" discs idle at 7W and read/seek at 12W. Times eight discs, that adds up to a lot of heat and noise.

If I wanted a fancy external enclosure, I would have bought one. But again, as I said earlier, I want something to handle "file serving and a few other tasks."
 
koffiejunkie said:
Did you even bother to check the TDP of that CPU? It's 65W. Voltage doesn't have much to do with anything.
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You do know that rated TDP and actual TDP has quite a difference right?

Just get any second hand dual core or a E5200 and underclock it as much as you can and you have your solution.

Why go thru all this trouble finding?:rolleyes:
 
Koffiejunkie just get that amd cpu that you were thinking of getting. There guys are just intel fanboys that are trying to get you to buy intel even they can't suit your needs.
 
Nameite said:
Why go thru all this trouble finding?:rolleyes:
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What trouble? I order online and someone brings it to me. I just wanted to know if there are other options.

Qwikslver said:
Koffiejunkie just get that amd cpu that you were thinking of getting. There guys are just intel fanboys that are trying to get you to buy intel even they can't suit your needs.
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I'm thinking that same thing. It would help if people actually read the question...
 
Qwikslver said:
Koffiejunkie just get that amd cpu that you were thinking of getting. There guys are just intel fanboys that are trying to get you to buy intel even they can't suit your needs.
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He asks for a suggestion people give him some and you call them intel fan boi's?

Eish i guess when someone asks something we should just all say buy AMD incase we branded as intel fan boi's :p

Intel don't have boi's they have intelligent buyers who buy the best product. Koffie why ask people the question if you already know the answer mate?

Just read something i found rather interesting. Quik maybe you should read so you don't get caught out either

AMD and Intel TDP are not directly comparable...

Intels TDP quotes the maximum TDP of the chip
AMDs TDP quotes the average or something silly like that.
 
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cerebus said:
It would help if you didn't snap at everyone who offered a suggestion.
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Oh don't be so sensitive. I took the time to respond to everyone's suggestions with reasons for why it's not what I'm after.

killadoob said:
Intel don't have boi's they have intelligent buyers who buy the best product. Koffie why ask people the question if you already know the answer mate?
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In case I missed something? I have looked over all the Intels and AMDs that I know of, expecting that I would end up buying an Intel. But the AMD 5050e came out tops unless I'm willing to spend big money on an Intel notebook processor, or drop down to an Atom or other embedded type CPUs.
 
killadoob said:
He asks for a suggestion people give him some and you call them intel fan boi's?

Eish i guess when someone asks something we should just all say buy AMD incase we branded as intel fan boi's :p

Intel don't have boi's they have intelligent buyers who buy the best product. Koffie why ask people the question if you already know the answer mate?

Just read something i found rather interesting. Quik maybe you should read so you don't get caught out either

AMD and Intel TDP are not directly comparable...

Intels TDP quotes the maximum TDP of the chip
AMDs TDP quotes the average or something silly like that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for proving my point for me.

Btw i already knew that intel and amd measure tdp differently.
 
You did? so then why call us intel fanboi's if you knew you cannot compare the tdp of intel and amd? Also why not say from the start you cannot compare? koffee is seeing a 45w Average AMD cpu and thinking its using less power than a 65w cpu, he does not know that infact that amd could use 75w under load where as intel will use a maximum of 65w, so in actual fact he could be buying a cpu that could use more power :p, o well. Not important info i guess :p

Hmmm i am starting to see who the real fanboi is here and it ain't got nothing to do with intel :p
 
killadoob said:
You did? so then why call us intel fanboi's
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I did not call anyone fanbois - Qwikslver did.

koffiejunkie said:
Qwikslver said:
Koffiejunkie just get that amd cpu that you were thinking of getting. There guys are just intel fanboys that are trying to get you to buy intel even they can't suit your needs.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking that same thing. It would help if people actually read the question...
Click to expand...

Simply quoting his whole post without emphasizing the part I'm replying to was clearly a mistake.

killadoob said:
if you knew you cannot compare the tdp of intel and amd? Also why not say from the start you cannot compare? koffee is seeing a 45w Average AMD cpu and thinking its using less power than a 65w cpu, he does not know that infact that amd could use 75w under load where as intel will use a maximum of 65w, so in actual fact he could be buying a cpu that could use more power :p, o well. Not important info i guess :p
Click to expand...

I haven't seen any benchmarks that prove this consistently. The chipset/mobo used also seems to play a fairly big part in how much power the CPU consumes. To make matters worse, most benchmarks seem to concentrate on regular CPUs with regular desktop boards, which, IMHO, is not really relevant to mini-itx systems. And then they use the latest games for benchmarks - who buys a low power system to play Call of Duty?

Case in point (and these are two of the better benchmarks I've found so far):

Athlon Vs. Atom: Duel Of The Energy Savers
Energy Efficiency: AMD vs. Intel

In both, the overall energy efficiency (consumption) was similar, while in the second one they also show that the Intels are overall more efficient, because of the performance difference. Now, these are a year and a half old, and the processor line-up has changed a bit.

killadoob said:
Hmmm i am starting to see who the real fanboi is here and it ain't got nothing to do with intel :p
Click to expand...

If I'm a fanboi of any particular processor, it would be the PPC. But that's a different story :)
 
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