Getting used to slower... or... "going green".

[VirtualLarry]

The thread title suggests you want to minimize your impact on the environment.

Maybe it's a slight misnomer. I put it in quotes. My immediate need, to to have adequate rigs, for when friends come over, but ones that don't make me sweat when I sit down to use them, due to their power output. (My Q9300 @ 3.0, with HD4850, I'm looking at you.)

Instead what you are doing is continually buying new stuff to chase ever-lower TDPs, but to what end? For the environment, your negligibly reduced aggregate power usage does not at all offset your increasing hazardous materials consumption. You are still buying new stuff that have environmental costs during manufacture and distribution and sale. There is a lot more to environmental responsibility than just power.

I suppose. But it's not like they didn't already mfg it, whether I buy it or not. But I suppose my purchase of it, encourages them to mfg more.

Instead, you could have bought a powerful used system for much less than what these crappy nano systems cost new at retail.

And I'm sure that a used rig, would have a newer, much more power-efficient chip, right? Or would it be the same old C2D-class machine as my existing ones?

I think people like tiny systems because they look cute. With the knowledge in hand that these systems use less than a light bulb's power to run, there is a social cachet to it that the owners enjoy. Like people who only buy hybrid cars or organic foods automatically feel like they're better than someone who doesn't. I'm not accusing Larry of this, just the people at fresh market, and I am also merely suggesting that this deceptive warm-fuzzy-feeling can carry over to nettops and other nearly useless products. Or, any piece of crap that is marketed to you as the morally right thing to buy.

I admit, I am fascinated by "tiny PCs", and yes, I do think that they look "cute".

It could also be that Larry just really likes to shop for parts and try new stuff. For all of us, shopping and tinkering is enjoyable, but if you want to analyze this down to the zero-sum level, there is still an opportunity cost to all that fun shopping that didn't wind up working out in the end.

I do enjoy trying out new systems. Although, if I had known how slow the C-70 ended up being with Skype, I might have reconsidered. But for the record, when I had purchased them, Skype took like 70% CPU. MS did something to Skype in the last six months that now makes it take 95% CPU on those rigs.

Life's too short for BRAZOS in 2014 people.

LOL.

If the environment is important to you, don't buy crap, because all that crap still has to go somewhere when you're done with it.

I re-purpose old PCs, with friends and family. Although I'm not sure what I'll do with the C-70 boxes, those might be a hard sell to people even as a giveaway.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here's what I have for rigs:
2x custom Q9300 @ 3.0, HD4850 512MB, 8GB DDR2, 240GB SSD, 3TB HDD, Win7 64-bit
Gateway Slimline G630 2.7Ghz SB, 8GB DDR3, 2TB Seagate Hybrid drive, NV GT430 LP, Win7 64-bit
Lenovo IB i3-3240 3.4Ghz, 8GB DDR3, 7790 1GB GDDR5, 1TB HDD, Win8 64-bit.
Lenovo SB i3-2130 3.4Ghz, 4GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, Win8 64-bit. (Still BNIB.)
Gateway 19.5" AIO, E1-2500 1.4Ghz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Win8 64-bit. (Probably sell off.)

And a CPU/mobo combo from Newegg for a 20AE Pentium, some spare DDR3-1600, spare HDDs, spare SSDs, spare cases, etc.

For monitors:
26" 1920x1200 KDS LCD (HDMI / DVI / VGA / speakers) (had two of them, but one went pop.) (Probably going to give this one away to a relative.) (63W nominal)
2x 24" 1080P Westinghouse HDTV (HDMI / VGA / speakers) (have VESA mounts for the NanoPCs) (25W nominal, according to BestBuy. 40W max accord to spec sheet)
24" 1920x1200 Auria IPS display (HDMI / DVI / VGA / speakers) (80W according to specs on box)
19" 1440x900 Westinghouse (DVI / VGA / speakers) LCD monitor with NTSC tuner and component / composite inputs. (old, still works great, useful as a spare monitor.)

So I was thinking of setting them up like this:
i3-3240 w/7790 - my "main" rig, for gaming and whatnot, connected to the 24" Auria 1920x1200 IPS via HDMI.

Then I would have two other computer desks to fill.

So I was thinking of the two NanoPCs, VESA-mounted to the back of the 24" Westinghouse 1920x1080 HDTVs, for when friends come over.

I would also set up the two Q9300 @ 3.0 w/HD4850 rigs in the desk's cubbies, connected via VGA to the Westinghouse screens, for use doing distributed-computing during the Winter.


However, there is an alternative arrangement.

I could set up, as my three PCs, my i3-3240, my i3-2130, and my Gateway slimline G630. All have power-gating, all are Intel CPUs. And then just use the 24" Auria on the i3-3240 as my "gaming" rig, and keep the other two rigs, hooked up to the two 24" Westinghouse screens, for when friends come over, OR as distributed-computing rigs.

Then I would have the two C-70 NanoPCs left over, and the two Q9300 @ 3.0 rigs left over. I would probably sell / give the C-70s away, and then mothball the mobo/CPU/RAM from the Q9300 rigs, just in case I need an IDE port or a floppy drive port in the future.

Edit: I forgot to mention my current HTPC. It has an ECS H61H2-I v1.1 mobo, a desktop G1610 CPU, a Kingston V300 120GB SSD (not the fastest for SATA6G, but the H61 chipset only has SATA2, so I figured it was good enough for that), and temporarily, I only have 2GB of RAM in there (for testing). All in an iStarUSA mini-ITX case with 120W PSU.

I could, for a few more bucks, replicate that build, for my desktop "friend play around rigs". The mobo is on sale for $40 or less pretty often. (I think Newegg is clearing them out, so I should probably act on that.)
I would just need to get some CPUs, and cases, along with a couple of those mobos.

The only downside, is I would have to rest the mini-ITX case beside the monitor, instead of bolted to the back of it. Which might not be a bad thing, I guess. I just thought I was "cool" for building my own All-in-One PCs. Plus, I would have to get some Wifi dongles. (I've had good luck with the Tenda N300 v2 units from Microcenter. Win7 64-bit recognizes them right off, and I get good wifi speeds.)

Edit: Or if I'm building ITX rigs, what about some AM1 action? I haven't messed with AM1 yet, and the Passmark score of the Athlon 5350 is pretty decent. Though, again, I would be going with AMD's lower-power cores, albeit with a quad-core. Skype seems pretty multi-core aware, so that would def. help with Skype. And it supports USB 3.0 and SATA6G, so I could get a decent SSD and get real performance from it.

 

[tential]

I'm lost as to why you wouldn't have considered the J1900 at the start of this thread?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm lost as to why you wouldn't have considered the J1900 at the start of this thread?

I know very little about the J1900, other than it's a quad-core, and, anecdotally, it sucks for web browsing due to the poor ST performance. AM1 would likely be a better choice, but I have yet to see a quad-core AM1-class NanoPC, probably because the TDP is a touch too high for a passively-cooled enclosure.

Btw, when I purchased my NanoPCs, the J1900 wasn't even out yet.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I might should look into getting a "green" pc for my mom. Just an i3 with iGPU and an SSD running hackintosh because she only really does pinterest and email. I just checked a killawatt and just browsing around my speakers/monitor/pc powerstrip is pulling ~100w. With only the CPU loaded at stock I was seeing ~160w. Maxed out with overclocks I've seen it break 400. The other PC is a 27" iMac from ~2011 I think. i5 750 and 5750m IIRC. Gets pretty warm too. Then we add a laserjet and a modem and our router and 4 people and the room gets tasty. It's only like an 11x11ft room.

Speed and efficiency don't go together.

 

[alyarb]

So now your requirements are that it has to be passively cooled also? I don't understand how heating and cooling your living quarters can be such a constraint on the kind of boxes you run.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So now your requirements are that it has to be passively cooled also? I don't understand how heating and cooling your living quarters can be such a constraint on the kind of boxes you run.

No, it's not a constraint that they be passively cooled, only that I like the NanoPC form-factor, and the AM1 CPUs have too high a TDP to be passively-cooled, so they wouldn't work in a NanoPC.

Now I'm toying with a getting a pair of B85 ITX boards that support non-Z overclocking, and a couple of G3258 CPUs. I would put them into the same IStarUSA miniITX case that my HTPC is in currently.

(Edit: I guess I'm letting go of the idea that bolting the PC to the back of the monitor is "cool".)

I saw a post here that showed that the G3258 could reach 4.5Ghz on the stock cooler, and only drew 25W more at the wall (under full load) when overclocked.

 

[alyarb]

OK, so passively cooled isn't a constraint, you just want a chassis like a 3.5" drive enclosure. I would still say get an i3 and stock cooler.


and where exactly is the overclocking adventure going to take you? maybe these conjectural PCs are being used for differing things, because you started with brazos with first thing and now you are talking about 4.5 ghz pentiums. after these boards and CPUs you're kind of getting close to the price of an i3 NUC which will still own them in wider apps and it's "cuter" than the iStar. And the TDP of the Pentium is going to be larger than the TDP of the entire NUC box. And higher still when overclocked.

 

[ninaholic37]

Just curious, what does your C-70 get on Cpumark99?
​

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2057154

My C-50 got somewhere between 71-95 (whereas my 2008 Atom N270 got 108).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just curious, what does your C-70 get on Cpumark99?
​

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2057154

My C-50 got somewhere between 71-95 (whereas my 2008 Atom N270 got 108).

I got 79.9 and 80.1 for two straight runs, after shutting down basically all of my programs. (CCC and Realtek manager were still running in systray.)

 

[Ken g6]

My immediate need, to to have adequate rigs, for when friends come over, but ones that don't make me sweat when I sit down to use them, due to their power output. (My Q9300 @ 3.0, with HD4850, I'm looking at you.)

So, you want a system with maximum performance for minimum heat output? In order of importance, IMHO:

1. If you're going to get a video card, get one with low power usage. A 750ti would be my recommendation. A pre-overclocked one wouldn't necessarily be bad, but best not to get one that requires 6-pin power.

2:

I would still say get an i3 and stock cooler.

A bigger cooler cools the CPU, not the room. If you have it at low power, heat pipes may not even work effectively. i3 should be more efficient than a Pentium.

Edit: 2.5: Get an energy-efficient monitor. LED, not fluorescent, and certainly not plasma. You wouldn't believe how much heat some monitors put out!

3. Undervolt and underclock! Ideally, take your CPU and GPU down to the lowest speed you can stand, then lower voltages to the minimum point where they're stable. Overclocking, e.g. a Pentium, just makes the heat efficiency worse.

4. Get a low-power, efficient PSU. Gold or Platinum, and the lowest Watts that fit your system. For this i3 and 750ti, I'd suggest this Seasonic 360W in a desktop form factor. But I'm kind of unclear on what form factor you want.

5. Get an SSD. Spin down those HDDs.

6. Get low-voltage RAM on a single stick if practical. Doesn't make much difference, but every Watt helps.

Edit: Written from a Core 2 Q9400@2.0GHz@1.0V, with a GT430 GPU.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, you want a system with maximum performance for minimum heat output?

Mostly, I want a smaller (mini-ITX at the largest) rig, that has low heat output, and at least adequate performance for what I use it for. That includes Skype, which means that the C-70 is very marginal in that regard, since it chews up 97% CPU.

I'm not planning on gaming with them, so a discrete GPU is not needed.

I initially wanted something to bolt to the back of the monitors, because I thought that was a cool idea, however, now I'm more open to just something small that would sit on the desk next to it.

The case + PSU that I was planning to use is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...05&ignorebbr=1

It's an embedded PSU in the case, but it converts from a laptop-style power brick. Both the internal PSU and the power brick are supposedly 120W.

So I would have enough power for the G3258 to OC, cooling permitted.

With my G1610 running the PSU stress test in OCCT, it got to barely above 60C, with default cooling. So I figure at least 4Ghz, if not 4.2-4.3 would be doable.

Edit: Btw, I'm pretty sure my two new Westinghouse 24" 1080P HDTV screens are fairly low-power. LED LCD, 25W nominal. I have the one I'm using in "Energy Star" mode.

Edit: My bad, I should have stated that cost is definitely a factor too. That Brix i7 with Iris Pro graphics is nice, but I'm sure it's waaaay out of my price range.

My NanoPCs with C-70 APUs were only $125 or $130 for the first one, and $100 for the second. That's why I chose them over the Celeron 1.1 (847) NUC unit. Plus, they had more expansion ports, and could take a standard 2.5" SSD, that I already had, and came with built-in wireless.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8175/...ok-at-the-intel-i74770r-with-iris-pro-hd-5200
Tiny, power sipping, tons of performance. (though probably not the best for your usage.) Look for other mini-pc's. TBH, building your own isn't always the best. It hurts me to say it.

EDIT: Well, maybe not power sipping, but very efficient IMO. Lower-end ones will be better. That's what I meant when I said probably not best for you.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, one option is an Asus VivoPC. It has a 1007U (which is enough for Skype, currently, and listening to internet radio, and web browsing), 4GB SO-DIMM, and a 500GB 3.5" HDD (can take a 2.5" HDD / SSD too, instead). It comes with Windows 8.1 with Bing, for $250-ish. Oh, and AC wifi too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883220628

The advantage of that unit would be price, including OS and AC wifi. I would probably add a 120GB SSD, so add $60-70 to that price.

The disadvantage, is Windows 8.1, instead of 7, if I built something myself.

Another option, as I hinted at, would be an ITX mobo capable of non-Z overclock, and a G3258 AE Pentium. Even if power or thermals constrained me from overclocking it in a mini-ITX case / PSU, then it would still have slightly higher re-sale value. Or, I could transplant it into a bigger case (one that would allow for a video card) and install a video card of whatever the newest standard was.

The only reason that I'm thinking about that, besides the cost and DIY aspect including overclocking, is that, if H.265 video becomes popular in the next 3 years, I can always find a bigger ITX or larger case, and add a video card with built-in hardware H.265 decoding. That is, if the OCed Pentium dual-core can't handle it on it's own in software, which might be possible. (Unless 4K displays take off too.)

That gives me something else to research, whether or not the HDMI output on the VivoPC (1007U) supports anything higher than 1920x1200, or likewise, the ITX mobo I choose. (Was looking at the ASrock B85-ITX.)

Edit: Bummer, here's what that ASRock ITX B85 board supports:
- Supports HDMI Technology with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz
- Supports DVI-D with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz
- Supports D-Sub with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz

Edit: OR...

I could just say "Screw spending more money", and leave the NanoPCs installed on the back of the monitor, set up the two i3s and the G630 rig, in my three desks' cubbies. Then I would only use the NanoPCs for web browsing when friends came over. I would use the i3s and the G630 for myself. However, that would mean either installing an HDMI switch, on the HDTVs, or using the VGA input. Neither is ideal.

Edit: These are a possibility:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856164019&ignorebbr=1
Looks like Newegg just got in some of the Brix "H" models, finally!
These are Brix models, that take a 2.5" SSD, in addition to an mSATA.

 

[alyarb]

the last brix link you posted is a decent deal. They have a pretty cool nvidia machine as well for like 800, but your case doesn't require anything special on the GPU. Even Iris Pro is overkill. I can't believe we are living in a time where the top-end IGP is overkill.

 

[VirtualLarry]

the last brix link you posted is a decent deal. They have a pretty cool nvidia machine as well for like 800, but your case doesn't require anything special on the GPU. Even Iris Pro is overkill. I can't believe we are living in a time where the top-end IGP is overkill.

This is a bit of a meta-discussion, but Intel's top-end IGP is only "overkill", because of the budget that they want for it. If it were affordable, or present on lower-end CPUs, I would happily purchase a Brix with Iris Pro.

Edit: OpenCL and distributed-computing could use a more powerful IGP, even if my desktop UI and media-playback won't be able to utilize it much.

 

[alyarb]

So if you had a faster IGP in a nano box, how would you leverage it? For Chrome, Skype, and some a/v playback even a HD4000 is overkill, and a 128 meg L4 is overkill for those applications as well. How many generations away are we from having the L4 included for free?

I want that nvidia box though, that is a decent amount of power for that size.

 

[tential]

OK, so passively cooled isn't a constraint, you just want a chassis like a 3.5" drive enclosure. I would still say get an i3 and stock cooler.


and where exactly is the overclocking adventure going to take you? maybe these conjectural PCs are being used for differing things, because you started with brazos with first thing and now you are talking about 4.5 ghz pentiums. after these boards and CPUs you're kind of getting close to the price of an i3 NUC which will still own them in wider apps and it's "cuter" than the iStar. And the TDP of the Pentium is going to be larger than the TDP of the entire NUC box. And higher still when overclocked.

like many enthusiasts this seems like an excuse to just buy more things to test. I mean, VirtualLarry has 25,000 posts on this forum and says he doesn't know much about the J1900/Kabini despite the MANY reviews all over the internet and the 2 Part review done here. I'm not even going to link any of the tables to disprove anything VirtualLarry has said about either CPU, because it seems to be irrelevant for him to actually find the best CPU for a specific task.

From OCing to lower power to passive cooling to "can't heat the room" to "I need a powerful IGPU!" it seems there isn't a clear point at all

This is an extremely easy situation to figure out (Baytrail/Kabini for best power, Pentium for slightly more performance, i3 for best performance for basic tasks but consumes quite a bit more power).
For an enthusiast though, it's way too easy to get sidetracked. So much of this thread is irrelevant to the actual original goal but at least OP is having fun with his processors.

 

[VirtualLarry]

like many enthusiasts this seems like an excuse to just buy more things to test.

Yeah, basically.

From OCing to lower power to passive cooling to "can't heat the room" to "I need a powerful IGPU!" it seems there isn't a clear point at all

FWIW, I never said I needed a powerful IGPU. I (essentially) said that if I could get one, for free, I'd take it.
The OCing aspect (G3258), was more for future-proofing. The idea being, that, should power or thermals constrain me with my chosen mini-ITX case, that I could use that rig as-is, or even unclocked / undervolted, and then later on, if my needs changed, I could simply re-install the CPU / mobo / RAM / SSD into a different / bigger case (micro-ATX or ATX), and overclock it to my heart's content.

That would be in opposition, to getting the Haswell Celeron-U Brix unit, which would be adequate for now, but what about three years from now?

I mean, I fell into the same trap with the C-70 NanoPCs. They were adequate, for six months or so, until a few Skype updates later, and now it takes 97% instead of 70% CPU.

How long would I have, until the Brix was inadequate? Hard to say.

This is an extremely easy situation to figure out (Baytrail/Kabini for best power, Pentium for slightly more performance, i3 for best performance for basic tasks but consumes quite a bit more power).
For an enthusiast though, it's way too easy to get sidetracked. So much of this thread is irrelevant to the actual original goal but at least OP is having fun with his processors.

Well, I know I haven't read too many reviews, but I know that Baytrail's single-threaded performance isn't too hot, so I'm hesitant to get a BayTrail NanoPC for my needs, until I actually get some hands-on testing. Reviews can only tell you so much.

That's when I got the idea for the Haswell Celeron-U Brix unit that I linked, it's around the same price as the Foxconn J1900 NanoPC, and should have better single-threaded performance.

Edit: And I'm not going to split hairs over power consumption, either. If the J1900 is 10W TDP, and the Haswell Celeron-U is 15 or 18W TDP, to me that's pretty close. As long as it's not a 280W fire-breather like my Q9300 rigs, I'm happy. (Edit: Even if the G3258 was 45W, that would still be "good enough".)

 

[tential]

Considering there are a ton of people using Baytrail and similar low power solutions it really again isn't hard to find user experience. XBMC.org has a boatload of people who have purchased low power solutions. Baytrail's singlethreaded performance isn't hot in comparison to tons of other platforms but you have in your thread title "getting used to slower".

It's within 5% of Kabini depending on the test you're looking at as well.

But well like you already said, you are looking for excuses to try things out as most enthusiasts are so I don't blame you too much. For webbrowsing/office productivity BayTrail/Kabini is MORE than enough. In fact, I'm using Penryn for Web Browsing/Office.

I have my 4770k sitting on the PC next to me doing nothing and for some reason have decided that I will use my "dedicated" download machine. I actually end up using it a lot for tasks.

Write down the tasks you want the system to complete and people will recommend you the CPU.

For me:
Web Browsing
Microsoft Office

I already know Penryn is capable of doing both because I'm still using it on Windows 8 with 8 GB of ram and it's more than responsive enough. If it wasn't, I'd have just used my 4770k but I rarely ever notice.

Single core solutions like my Kitchen PC with some 2008 singlethreaded processor that is a Celeron are NOT fast enough to really use. Office is slow, Web Browsing is slow, youtube/video playback skips. Baytrail/Kabini do everything you need for basic PC work.

You're way too scatterbrained with your thought process (I know I do it as well but I'm far less enthusiast tester than most people on here). Pick what you need, find the CPU that does it.

If you're just discussing low power solutions well have fun but you won't come to a conclusion on what to use when you're just scattering your thoughts like this.

You're doing way too much though for a simple problem but given this forum I'm not surprised.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Intel Celeron 2955U @ 1.40GHz
Passmark: 1546
Single Thread Rating: 813
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+2955U+@+1.40GHz

versus

Intel Celeron J1900 @ 1.99GHz
Passmark: 1954
Single Thread Rating: 537
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+J1900+@+1.99GHz

versus

Intel Pentium G3258 @ 3.20GHz
Passmark: 3904
Single Thread Rating: 2064
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G3258+@+3.20GHz

for:

Web Browsing
YouTube
Skype video calling (including multi-way conferences)
BOINC (distributed computing)
listening to internet radio (using a Flash Player-based applet)

that's mostly it, what I do with my PC.

Also run:
CoreTemp
CPU-Z
GPU-Z
Brother Printer status monitor
Brother Printer control center

Edit: After looking at the Passmark scores, it seems worthwhile for future-proofing purposes to go with the G3258.
$78 ASRock B85M-ITX @ Newegg
$75 Intel G3258 @ Newegg, $60 @ MC
$62 iStarUSA mini-ITX case w/120W PSU @ Newegg
(have desktop DDR3-1600)
(have SATA6G / SATA2 SSDs)

versus
$180 for the Haswell Celeron-U Brix @ Newegg
$80 for an 8GB DDR3L-1600 GSkill SO-DIMM @ Newegg
(have SSD)

Edit:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,3849-16.html

 

[VirtualLarry]

Now I'm having second thoughts about the thermal output of the G3258 (whether overclocked or not), in that iStarUSA case. Although, I have a G1610 in an H61 mini-ITX board, in that same case, and under OCCT PSU test load, the CPU only got up to 62C.

Slight concern about price, too.

Was contemplating going with the mini-ITX case, but instead of the G3258 and B85M-ITX (total cost $155 or so), I was thinking of that same case, but either the Biostar or the Gigabyte Celeron 1037U ITX boards at Newegg. The Biostar is $70, the Giggy is $86+change.
The only downside is that the Giggy board only has a PCI expansion slot. That means, that if I ever upgrade boards inside that same ITX case, then re-purposing the Giggy board might be hard. Then again, it's got dual gigabit LAN, and an IDE port, and a serial port, so it probably wouldn't be hard to resell to someone to use for a router project.

That would still be cheaper, slightly, than the Haswell Celeron 2955U Brix ($170), when you figure the ITX case+PSU is $62 or so, and the ITX board + CPU is either $70 ($132 total), or $86 ($148 total). Not to mention, I can use desktop DDR3 with it, which I have plenty of.

Edit:

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...05&ignorebbr=1

Biostar 1037U ITX mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...93&ignorebbr=1

Gigabyte 1037U ITX mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128679&ignorebbr=1

 

[BSim500]

TBH VirtualLarry, if you just want a power efficient CPU that'll run everything fine on a budget, and if you're not going to be running heavy games, I'd say just buy a H/Z77 Mini-ITX board and reuse your existing i3-3240 CPU. The Pentium G3258 is cheaper than an i3, but uses up to 20w more power when OC'd to match the speed of an i3 due to running at much higher voltages at 4.0-4.6GHz vs 3.4GHz (plus losing the 30% boost from HT that's worth 1GHz by itself). If you want a new i3, a 3.5GHz i3-4150 is the cheapest. Then undervolt it as much as possible. The "55w" theoretical max TDP from an i3 is only under heavy loads. Most "stock" moderate loads will be nearer 35-40w, and you should get that down to 25-30w undervolted. A little higher than an Atom - but a great deal more overhead for things like Skype & web browsing (which are still predominantly single-threaded).

I know what you're going through going round and round in circles looking for that last 1%, but the key is just to make a clear decision on what makes the "bulk" of the difference. Us Silent PC enthusiasts have long accepted an ultra-quiet 600-700rpm fan system is better than attempting to go all passive. Likewise, many "Green PC" enthusiasts have realized that spending the money on what makes the bulk of the difference without nerfing performance is often better than an extreme Atom rig. Buy too slow and you end up buying twice (which is very "ungreen").

The average human being puts out 4-6 BTU's / 70-120w of body heat depending on height, weight, activity, etc, so if you're got 3 friends over, you can quadruple that for 280-400w warming the room up through Thermogenesis, at which point a 15w Atom rig vs 25w i3 rig idling becomes rather moot! Most of the heat from gaming PC's comes from GFX cards rather than CPU's, and if you're not gaming you've already solved that problem. Even then below a certain point that becomes irrelevant, ie, a modern 750 Ti is barely 50w yet has the performance of +150w cards of a few generations back. Even with a dGPU + Ivy / Haswell i5, modern mid-range 1080p gaming is nothing like the "room heaters" of old (or AMD's FX chips).

If heat build-up is the biggest problem, it makes sense to focus on cooling the room rather than the PC as below a certain point, even switching the PC off completely (0.5w power usage) will not help with room heat caused by people / solar gain. If you have no restrictions, then air-con, "whole house attic fans", spectrally selective window films, exterior solar blinds / awnings, etc can make a massive difference. Even if you're renting and have limitations on fixed modifications, there are still temporary things like portable window air-con units, or a cheap solution is covering the exterior of the window glass (if you have access) with temporary velcro based solar mesh, etc, which can knock off 4-5c temps during the summer by reducing solar thermal gain by 80%. Using energy saving light bulbs, LED TFT's vs CCFL TFT's, etc can make a difference - again don't spend large sums of money for that last watt though.

The difference between a 300w rig and a 50w rig over the space of a day can be significant (2-4c room temps) but the difference between a 30-50w rig vs a 15-20w rig is barely going to be 1c room temp difference. "Big cores" (Pentium, i3, i5, etc) are far better for your needs (fluid web browsing with Skype on a budget) than Atom's and you already have the same CPU you're looking for (the 22nm i3-3240) which struggles to generate 50c temps on most loads even on cheap coolers. Likewise, they are likely to be capable of decoding 1080p H265 / HEVC video in software even on 1 core if benchmarks here are anything to go by (and that CPU is about 10-15% slower per core than your Ivy Bridge i3-3240).

I went through exactly the same thing myself a few years back with heat build-up in a south facing room used as a home office, and believe me, past a certain "green PC" point (30-50w idle or so), $50 solar mesh over the outside of the windows during summer made 4x the difference than spending hundreds of dollars attempting to downgrade a 27w idling i5-3570 to a 15w Atom only to end up frustrated with the performance loss.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It did cross my mind, that perhaps I should not look at the PCs, but rather, just purchase a window A/C unit for the living room.

I have a portable A/C unit in the bedroom, which is fine for just me, but it just doesn't cool the living room very well at all.

(The three computer desks are in the living room, and I have one of the Q9300 rigs on the floor, and my HTPC on a shelf, along with other networking gear, in the bedroom.)

Edit: Back to the discussion about PCs. I don't want to rip the IB i3-3240 out of the Lenovo, because I would just have to replace it with something else, and then it wouldn't be worth anywhere near list price. I was hoping to maybe sell it somewhere down the line, possibly sooner rather than later. (Having some issues with the 7790 I put in there, might be my aftermarket 350W PSU, not sure.)

I was looking at other ITX boards tonight, and this one caught my eye:
GIGABYTE GA-B85N Phoenix-WIFI LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...35&ignorebbr=1
$100 + $6 ship
867 Mbit AC wifi, mSATA (yes, I know that is going to be obsolete soon).

I guess, I want to save money, but now I'm thinking, if I'm going to spend money on PCs, I should think of them as a more permanent solution, and not just a temporary thing to use when friends come over, so I should buy the right thing, and not invest in more "junk" that I'll just be replacing in two years or less.

Or if these are just temporary, then I should attempt to spend as little as possible on them.

I'm basically sold on building an equivalent to my HTPC, in the iStarUSA ITX case (listed under "Server" cases at Newegg, in case you can't find it). The biggest question is, do I get an all-inclusive Celeron 1007U board, or do I get a separate ITX board and CPU. The separate option would be faster, and more future-proof, but cost slightly more.

I like that Gigabyte GA-B85N Phoenix board, because of the features and wireless AC, but does it do non-Z OC? Some of their micro-ATX boards (like the two in the recent Newegg Hot Deal combos) have beta BIOSes that apparently allow non-Z OC. This board is new enough, that all of the Haswell Refresh and AE Pentium CPUs are all supported by BIOS F4, which is the first and only BIOS listed on the download page. So no beta BIOS listed, which makes me wonder one of two things, either the non-Z OC is baked into the factory BIOS from the beginning, or it's not there yet at all, and may not be, for this board.

Edit: This is interesting. The 24" Westinghouse LED LCD 1080P HDTVs that I picked up, now according to the BestBuy listing, they are NOT Energy Star nor EPEAT qualified. I could have sworn that they were, when this model was first on sale, and that it listed something like a 25W power usage, and now that's missing. (Maybe I'm mis-remembering, and confusing this one with a Newegg monitor I was looking at?) But if you look a the pictures, and hit the right scroll bar, they have a picture of the "Energy Guide" sticker, and it clearly shows the "Energy Star" logo. In fact, the physical sticker that I have in front of me also carries the logo. I also have the TV settings set to "Energy Star" (one of the menu options).

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/westing...hdtv/5420072.p?id=1219127070703&skuId=5420072

 

[2is]

You want to overclock
You want to future proof
You want to run DC projects
You want to do all three while having a system that uses almost no power.

I'll save you some time... What you want, doesn't exist