Energy-Efficient "Green-ish" PC Build

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

A note on the ION and other Atom based `net' tops: they can do HD, 1080p, BluRay, etc, just fine. The people finding they cannot are not setting up the software appropriately. It's not magic. You have to use media players that support offloading to the GPU instead of the CPU, and installing the appropriate codecs that also allow for this. A simple google search reveals basic information on these softwares/codices.

Very best,

 

[greenishPC]

Heya,

A non-tweaked 785 AMD chipset motherboard with the HD4200 integrated GPU with a dualcore (regor) chip with an optical drive and two HDD's idles around 55watts real-world (I have a watt meter). That's non-tweaked. You can tweak it to drop it a bitch more. Some people get them into the 30's range, but it takes a lot of stuff to do that. Not worth it to me. At the mid-50's, that's great. Plenty of power (3Ghz dualcore). Sure it ramps up consumption when you are using it more heavily, but a few minutes after you're not needing all the power, it drops right back down (lovely coolNquiet tech). You can go quadcore or hexcore and the power consumption when idling is the same by the way. The CPU's all drop to next to nothing on idle thanks to coolNquiet. Quads that only take 95watts at full load are fine (propus). Plenty of power for your needs. Yet still uses little juice to get there.

Very best,

Really?! 55Watts idling? Hmm... i'll look at some other anandtech posts to see if other people are getting the same results. But man, that really is amazing.

 

[Zap]

Zap, you're being a little harsh here on Atom-based systems. I reallly don't think that you're being fair to say "only email and web browsing" just because it hiccups on HD content occasionally. Normally you're the champion of small micro-ATX systems. Maybe you just bought a crappy netbook!

I did buy a netbook. Actually, two of them. :| Both are MSI Wind with N270 (IIRC), 1GB RAM (since upgraded to 2GB) and 160GB 5400RPM drives running WinXP Home.

I also have an ITX system with an Atom D510 dual core, 2GB RAM, 40GB Kingston (flashed w/Intel firmware) SSD running Windows 7. Yes, it does much better.

I also have an unbuilt nettop with a D510, an ITX board with D510 and an ION ITX with a 330.

Look, I'm really, really, really trying to make myself like Atoms, and have put my money where my mouth is by buying FIVE of them. What I'm trying to get at is that people can't just decide to buy one expecting "oh it will be the same, just a bit slower." People need to know what they're getting into.

Of course I'm typing this on my Core i7 975 EE overclocked, etc. etc. :awe:

Really?! 55Watts idling? Hmm... i'll look at some other anandtech posts to see if other people are getting the same results. But man, that really is amazing.

That's not super amazing. I built my mother a socket 1156 setup with a Pentium G9650 and it can idle under 40W with no tweaks of any sort.

 

[Davidh373]

that's not super amazing. I built my mother a socket 1156 setup with a pentium g9650 and it can idle under 40w with no tweaks of any sort.

nice!