Low-Power, SFF PCs - which platform?

[Fun Guy]

Never had so many choices, and I have to say, it's not fun anymore. :|

Socket P, LGA775, Socket G, Socket G2, LGA1155, LGA1156, LGA1366, PGA988....holy beejeezie - WTF am I supposed to do with all of these platforms???

Some of these the sockets are getting phased out, but they seem to have the most miserly processors (Socket P, 25W), which I wanted.

Was hoping for a mini-ITX solution, but...the only one that looks halfway decent is this ASRock: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157238

Anyone have any ideas???

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I have a few ideas.

Really, I wouldn't bother looking at anything other than Intel's 1155 and AMD's Brazos platforms right now in the mini-ITX space unless you already have parts or can get used parts cheaply for one of the older sockets. Essentially, if you want an internet/email/office/light gaming box, go Zacate. If you want a fully-powered system, go 1155. That ASRock board is just one of many fine ITX 1155 boards.

 

[Zap]

Some of these the sockets are getting phased out, but they seem to have the most miserly processors (Socket P, 25W), which I wanted.

If you don't need the performance, get Brazos/Zacate. Those are the AMD E-350 and E-450 APUs.

If you need better performance, get socket 1155 motherboard of choice, and populate it with a T series CPU. For instance the Pentium G620T is cheap and 35W. Now, it sounds as if it will use more power than the 25W socket P CPU, but that isn't true. Not only is it much higher performance, the CPU has the graphics and Northbridge functions integrated into it. Thus, the platform consisting of the motherboard and CPU probably doesn't use any more power. Additionally, Sandy Bridge (current socket 1155 CPUs) have better power management, so under idle conditions (when CPU utilization isn't high) it will probably use LESS power than socket P under the same conditions. Additionally, there are even faster T model CPUs available if you need the performance.

tl:dr
Get socket 1155 with a T series CPU. Regardless of the CPU's rated TDP, it will probably draw less power than socket P while being faster and on a new platform with DDR3, USB3, SATA 6G.

 

[ITXGamer]

The ASRock is a good board. It's about the cheapest of the good H67 1155 mini-ITX boards an has most of the features you would need.

Like Zap said, pair it with a 'T' series CPU (Pentium or Core) and you'll probably get less power draw than the older platforms you mentioned.

I had the ASRock with a 95w i5-2500k and 4GB RAM and total system power draw was 29w at idle and 120w under full load (3DMark and Prime95 simultaneously).

Put a lower power CPU in it and you consumption will be much lower.

And there are plenty of other good LGA1155 mini-ITX boards to choose form.

ITX Motherboard Comparison: They're all listed here and you can compare the specs side-by-side.

 

[DaveSimmons]

SilentPCReview's test showed only a 1 watt difference at idle between a 2100 and 2100T, 2 watts at load. So for dual-core 1155 you don't need the T version.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1202-page3.html

 

[FwFred]

SilentPCReview's test showed only a 1 watt difference at idle between a 2100 and 2100T, 2 watts at load. So for dual-core 1155 you don't need the T version.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1202-page3.html

I see 12W difference between load (67W vs 79W). The 2W difference is H.264 playback. I agree that both are more important than load. I don't mind if my HTPC gets a bit loud if transcoding (load) as long as playback and idle are quiet and low power.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Asrock has an fm1 mini-itx board
paired with a llano 3850 they apparently idle under 30W if you have a good psu

gigabyte and asus are supposed to be releasing mini-itx fm1 boards soon too

this is the platform I plan on building

 

[Zap]

Asrock has an fm1 mini-itx board
paired with a llano 3850 they apparently idle under 30W if you have a good psu

Yes, but what about overall performance per watt?

gigabyte and asus are supposed to be releasing mini-itx fm1 boards soon too

Are those boards hanging out with the Asus/Gigabyte P67/Z68 chipset boards?

this is the platform I plan on building

I have to admit that it would be kind of interesting to do a micro LAN box with one of these.

 

[Soulkeeper]

your questions provide a bit of a homework assignment

one of the recent anandtech reviews had a llano vs. i3 comparison that showed (if only focusing on cpu) a very competitive performance/watt between the two

judging from those hexus power usage numbers (excluding prime or gpu) it appears that llano uses about 10% more power under load compared to the i3 and about 10% less power when idle compared to i3

of course this stuff is difficult to compare in a black/white declaration
depends on individual software and user preferences
I'll leave that up to others