Finding low-power motherboards

[cmetz]

I'm looking to build a PC that's going to be on all the time as a network/server box, performance within the modern PC range is not an issue, but the ongoing cost of electricity I'd like to keep in check.

The Via C3 processor seems heavily targeted towards the low power market and appears to be the winner if you want low power and okay performance.

While processor data sheets contain power consumption information, I'm not seeing this information in motherboard data sheets. How can I go about finding out what motherboards (and I assume, what chipsets) consume less power than others? Alternatively, if folks have specific suggestions as to low power boards, that would be great.

 

[Vette73]

All in one mATX boards use the least amount of power, that is why a lot of oems use them so they can get a cheaper power supply.

A good low power setup would be a KM266 mATX board and a new Athlon XP (throughbred chip). The new low speed Athlon XP's use 1.5volts and the board has the sound, video, and ethernet card built in.

 

[Peter]

gaaaa ... the AMD Athlon chips are huge powermongers, about five to six times the power consumption of any VIA C3. To build a real low power thingie from standard off-the-shelf parts, you should start with a VIA C3 on an all-in-one board. There are boards that bring the CPU right along, like VIA's own "Eden" boards or the PC-Chips M787CLR. These make an excellent starting point for a low power board, and are well fast enough for a serverlet.

Then you want a slow revving HDD, as high density RAM as the board can bear, a keyboard that doesn't consume 2 amps (there are some that do!), a standard mechanical mouse, a monitor with a true primary power switch, and that's it basically.

regards, Peter

 

[birddog]

Look for a mATX i810e s370 board. the 810e has on-board everything, 133mhz FSB, and no AGP slot (for mor power savings). Any brand other than Intel's (i.e. Asus, MSI Abit) should have a bios upgrade for the C3 CPU.