Looking to downgrade from i920 (lower power usage)

[3560freak]

My setup is approaching 4+ years and my needs have drastically changed. My current stop includes an Intel i920 @ stock, Asus x58 mobo, older Nvidia GTX 275 (768MB) card. I used to game on the pc, but now I'm mainly console game player (I know, I know). My new hobby is movies, so I mostly use my computer for ripping blu-ray into mkv, picture editing and web surfing. I know this cpu is power hungry abd since I rarely play anything I thought that I could use the power savings, plus reduce the massive heat increase in the room. Thanks for any help.

 

[SocketF]

Sounds like you are the perfect candidate for the now famous L5639, more here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636

It has only 60W TDP at stock clocks, but due to the 6cores/12 Threads, you should gain some speed while ripping movies. Imo the best solution for only ~$100.

Alternatively, you might buy a new mainboard + CPU, which costs much more and (if cheap) wont give you a performance increase. Best solution imo, would be then a Xeon 1225v3 and a cheap H87 or B85 mainboard. If you want 100% sure that the CPU is supported then choose AsRock mainboards, they always come with official Xeon support.

Costs:
AsRock B85 Pro4:~$80
Xeon 1225v3: ~$240

I choose the Xeon, bc these are the cheapest Intel CPU's that support Hyperthreading / 8 threads. Thus you wont loose speed. If you dont game any more, throw out the old nvidia card and use the onboard graphics, should be good enough and you save additional power.

 

[gbeirn]

Yep get a L5639 from eBay. More cores for encoding and less power usage. Ditch that video card and get something lower power. Cheaper than replacing the whole platform IMO.

Also I should mention that the Xeon at stock 2.13GHz was just as fast at handbrake encoding as my i7 960 at 3.2GHz so it will be a bit of an upgrade for you as well

 

[blackened23]

My setup is approaching 4+ years and my needs have drastically changed. My current stop includes an Intel i920 @ stock, Asus x58 mobo, older Nvidia GTX 275 (768MB) card. I used to game on the pc, but now I'm mainly console game player (I know, I know). My new hobby is movies, so I mostly use my computer for ripping blu-ray into mkv, picture editing and web surfing. I know this cpu is power hungry abd since I rarely play anything I thought that I could use the power savings, plus reduce the massive heat increase in the room. Thanks for any help.

Why not get an i7-4770? The stock 4770 uses a LOT less power than the 920 does......

IIRC the 4770 idles at less than 1V, it will make a pretty massive difference in terms of power consumption. You may also want to switch GPUs as well, I had a 285 back in the day and it was a guzzler - i'd imagine the 275 is as well. That is, if you need a dGPU. It actually sounds like the iGPU on the 4770 would be more than enough for your needs, thus saving even more power.

 

[SPBHM]

if you don't play games get rid of this GTX 275 and get something like a HD6450 or GT 520/610?

and you can also undervolt your CPU...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Or just get a i5/i7 and use the iGPU.

 

[SPBHM]

Or just get a i5/i7 and use the iGPU.

lower power vga is cheaper and easier,

I would also recommend testing OC, you can probably get away with something like 3.2GHz with low volts for decent power usage?!

 

[Jimzz]

Yea if upgrading the entire system get a new Haswell i5 and use the onboard video.

If not; the lower power chips that fit your board can be had cheaply(like said above) and a 6450 video card.

 

[blackened23]

if you don't play games get rid of this GTX 275 and get something like a HD6450 or GT 520/610?

and you can also undervolt your CPU...

If he doesn't play games currently, then his GPU is mostly idle anyway. How much power does a 275 use at idle? Yes, he would save power but a new i5/7 would be that much better.

I really think a 4770 with iGPU would be the best bet, since he's already planning on upgrading...(and i'm assuming he has funds set aside for it). Plus, if he lives near an MC he can get a bundle with a GB board for very cheap. Aren't the UD4H Z87 boards going for 40 bucks?

 

[zir_blazer]

Xeon 1225v3: ~$240

I choose the Xeon, bc these are the cheapest Intel CPU's that support Hyperthreading / 8 threads. Thus you wont loose speed. If you dont game any more, throw out the old nvidia card and use the onboard graphics, should be good enough and you save additional power.

Xeon E3 1225 V3 does NOT support Hyper Threading. 1245 does.

Also, the 1245 is 20 U$D cheaper in Newegg than the Core i7 4770, and you're only losing 100 MHz on turbo, while winning a GPU with professional drivers support and ECC support if paired with Server-class Motherboards.

 

[Gillbot]

Or just get a i5/i7 and use the iGPU.

This is what I would do.

 

[SPBHM]

If he doesn't play games currently, then his GPU is mostly idle anyway. How much power does a 275 use at idle? Yes, he would save power but a new i5/7 would be that much better.

I really think a 4770 with iGPU would be the best bet, since he's already planning on upgrading...(and i'm assuming he has funds set aside for it). Plus, if he lives near an MC he can get a bundle with a GB board for very cheap. Aren't the UD4H Z87 boards going for 40 bucks?

if this is accurate, like 40+ more than the 6450?

 

[Durp]

If you really care about power consumption but want high performance then buying a Haswell quad and using the IGP would be the best bet.

You can under-volt the i7 920 but the power savings won't be anywhere near sandy/ivy/haswell. Disabling hyperthreading will help too.

My results with an i7 920 C0 with four 1300RPM case fans, 3x2GB of ram, two hard drives and a factory overclocked GTX 460 results from the killawatt:

Optimized defaults (CPU turbos to 2.8GHz) = 92.5 idle and 187w during prime95.
Optimized defaults without hyperthreading = 92.5 idle and 171w during prime95.
Using -0.1 offset at stock without hyperthreading = 91.2 idle and 154w during prime95.

 

[SPBHM]

If you really care about power consumption but want high performance then buying a Haswell quad and using the IGP would be the best bet.

You can under-volt the i7 920 but the power savings won't be anywhere near sandy/ivy/haswell. Disabling hyperthreading will help too.

My results with an i7 920 C0 with four 1300RPM case fans, 3x2GB of ram, two hard drives and a factory overclocked GTX 460 results from the killawatt:

Optimized defaults (CPU turbos to 2.8GHz) = 92.5 idle and 187w during prime95.
Optimized defaults without hyperthreading = 92.5 idle and 171w during prime95.
Using -0.1 offset at stock without hyperthreading = 91.2 idle and 154w during prime95.

what is your VGA?

edit: 460
should use 10-15w more than a 6450 http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_6450_Passive/images/power_idle.gif, if he can do a more aggressive undervolt and use a 6450 should only use some 20-40w more than haswell while idling... hardly worth upgrading for that, if he doesn't need extra performance

 

[Durp]

The GTX 460 hawk (780 core).

 

[BallaTheFeared]

what is your VGA?

edit: 460
should use 10-15w more than a 6450 http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_6450_Passive/images/power_idle.gif, if he can do a more aggressive undervolt and use a 6450 should only use some 20-40w more than haswell while idling... hardly worth upgrading for that, if he doesn't need extra performance

Depends on the board, all the lower I can go with my chip with the iGPU is 50w~.

That's with 3 fans, an SSD, and 2 HDD.

Still won't make up for the load difference, which will be huge... At least 80w.



Look at what the OP wants, cpu intensive performance, low power consumption, no real need for a dedicated GPU.

Why stay on the dated, power hungry, slower 920 with a new dedicated card when you can lower power at idle and encoding while using considerably less power, and do it faster....

What's a better use case for Haswell?

 

[SPBHM]

Depends on the board, all the lower I can go with my chip with the iGPU is 50w~.

That's with 3 fans, an SSD, and 2 HDD.

Still won't make up for the load difference, which will be huge... At least 80w.



Look at what the OP wants, cpu intensive performance, low power consumption, no real need for a dedicated GPU.

Why stay on the dated, power hungry, slower 920 with a new dedicated card when you can lower power at idle and encoding while using considerably less power, and do it faster....

What's a better use case for Haswell?

keeping his old stuff is more efficient, the gain with power (50-100w) it's not enough to justify a new $200-300 CPU + new $100-200 MB and all of that...

a new 6450 is like $30

and changing the CPU clock/volt is free.

performance gain is nice, but how much does he really need?

this is from the handbrake topic, at the same clock haswell i5 is faster (like 18%), but it's not a huge gain, sure if the i5 have a higher clock, which is possible with much lower power draw... but anyway... 920 at 2.8-3GHz should be fast enough for most uses and with low voltage shouldn't be a big worry in terms of power draw.
216.190186 i7-960 4200
253.857376 i5-4670K 4200

so yes, a 4770 would use less power and be faster... but...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Wow you're just going everywhere aren't you...

OP has a stock i7-920, that's 2.66GHz and it uses more power than the i5 at 4.2GHz... Do you have figures for stock 920 handbrake and stock i5/i7?

Why are you using opinion to make an argument? Isn't that for the OP to decide? Isn't he the one here asking for reduced power for his "ripping blu-ray into mkv, picture editing and web surfing" use case. Are you saying a Haswell setup wouldn't utterly destroy a stock 920 in every single metric?

My i5 gets 263 fps at 4.2GHz, and his 920 isn't a 960, nor is it at 4.2GHz, it's 1,600Mhz slower and still a 125w CPU on a dated platform with a more power hungry chipset. Plus he doesn't even need a dedicated card sucking power while doing what he does, he would have a 10w full load iGPU instead of a 10/20w idle GPU.

 

[SPBHM]

Wow you're just going everywhere aren't you...

OP has a stock i7-920, that's 2.66GHz and it uses more power than the i5 at 4.2GHz... Do you have figures for stock 920 handbrake and stock i5/i7?

Why are you using opinion to make an argument? Isn't that for the OP to decide? Isn't he the one here asking for reduced power for his "ripping blu-ray into mkv, picture editing and web surfing" use case. Are you saying a Haswell setup wouldn't utterly destroy a stock 920 in every single metric?

My i5 gets 263 fps at 4.2GHz, and his 920 isn't a 960, nor is it at 4.2GHz, it's 1,600Mhz slower and still a 125w CPU on a dated platform with a more power hungry chipset. Plus he doesn't even need a dedicated card sucking power while doing what he does, he would have a 10w full load iGPU instead of a 10/20w idle GPU.

lol is it really that challenging to understand?

some power usage numbers were posted here by another user (p95 is worse than handbrake, and 6450 uses less power), my comparison was at 4.2GHz simply because it was the same clock and extremely easy to find (920 and 960 are the same CPU), meaning, if he uses his 920 at 3.2GHz or something, a stock 4430 would show a low performance gain for handbrake video transcoding, and would cost a lot more.

"ripping blu-ray into mkv, picture editing and web surfing"

sounds like overkill having more than his 920.

"Looking to downgrade from i920 (lower power usage)"

lower power usage and a downgrade can both be achieved with a 6450 and some undervolt.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Optimized defaults (CPU turbos to 2.8GHz) = 92.5 idle and 187w during prime95.
Optimized defaults without hyperthreading = 92.5 idle and 171w during prime95.
Using -0.1 offset at stock without hyperthreading = 91.2 idle and 154w during prime95.

Stock i5-4670k + HD4600 iGPU


42w idle

86.6w during prime95 26.6

 

[blackened23]

lol is it really that challenging to understand?

some power usage numbers were posted here by another user (p95 is worse than handbrake, and 6450 uses less power), my comparison was at 4.2GHz simply because it was the same clock and extremely easy to find (920 and 960 are the same CPU), meaning, if he uses his 920 at 3.2GHz or something, a stock 4430 would show a low performance gain for handbrake video transcoding, and would cost a lot more.

"ripping blu-ray into mkv, picture editing and web surfing"

sounds like overkill having more than his 920.

"Looking to downgrade from i920 (lower power usage)"

lower power usage and a downgrade can both be achieved with a 6450 and some undervolt.

He's also looking to lower heat output, since his GPU is idle a lion's share of that is coming from the 920. A 4770 would be significantly better in this respect at stock settings.

 

[SPBHM]

Stock i5-4670k + HD4600 iGPU


42w idle

86.6w during prime95 26.6

now take 10w-15w from his numbers (460 1GB OC vs 6450 DDR3)

for the money saved with power it's hard to justify, it's 42 vs 75-80 for idle, and for web browsing use the difference perhaps a little higher...

but his MB can be more inefficient, or he can buy a haswell mb which is more inefficient than yours...

so $30 6450 + CPU undervolt is by far the most efficient approach to lower it significantly

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Your solution does nothing to address double idle power consumption, slower performance, and over twice the load consumption.

 

[SPBHM]

Your solution does nothing to address double idle power consumption, slower performance, and over twice the load consumption.

he doesn't seem to be concerned with higher performance than his 920 can currently offer, he asking to lower the power draw he currently have significantly, the solution I mentioned costs only around $30 and can probably save 50-60W easily, looks like mission accomplished, without using $300+

imho both are valid alternatives, getting haswell or getting rid of the 275 and playing with undervolt.

I think the second one makes more sense (considering his description of the situation) and is more efficient, but it's up to you!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Your solution is a 10w reduction.

i5-4670k - 46w power consumption at the wall for 1080p full screen hardware accelerated flash on youtube.

I think you're greatly over-estimating the cost of a cheap B87 board and discounted Haswell i5 after he sells his current cpu and mobo.