ITT: We propose our own Socket AM1 SKUs

[Airegin]

Anyone using an AM1 with a picoPSU or motherboard with DC-in? I'm really curious what the actual power consumption is when idle. I've seen <10W and >15W from people using a picoPSU. I wonder what it really is.

 

[Abwx]

Anyone using an AM1 with a picoPSU or motherboard with DC-in? I'm really curious what the actual power consumption is when idle. I've seen <10W and >15W from people using a picoPSU. I wonder what it really is.

I use one, actualy the only available one, with DC input, for the fun i made about all possible arrangements to check how much idle power can be reduced, in principle with a DC input featured AM1H ITX from Asrock you get lower numbers than either Pico PSUs or converters like the one on the Antec case, the only exception i saw was Computerbase.de and Hardware.info s 8W with a Pico PSU but they both used a basic MB, personaly i got 10.8W with a heavier set up including a SSD + 2.5" HDD + 2 USB dongles + PS2 KB, for the record the Asrock board is specified at 19V but using 15-16V reduce its comsumption notably.

Edit : Some Pico PSU could be plagued by average DC adaptators that consume too much at idle, exemple is the Antec adaptator whose comsumption at idle, that is unplugged from the PC, is rougly 4-5W, this will inflate the idle numbers, same with boards wich have DC input, my adaptator comsumption in isolation is 1W at idle.

 

[Airegin]

I use one, actualy the only available one, with DC input, for the fun i made about all possible arrangements to check how much idle power can be reduced, in principle with a DC input featured AM1H ITX from Asrock you get lower numbers than either Pico PSUs or converters like the one on the Antec case, the only exception i saw was Computerbase.de and Hardware.info s 8W with a Pico PSU but they both used a basic MB, personaly i got 10.8W with a heavier set up including a SSD + 2.5" HDD + 2 USB dongles + PS2 KB, for the record the Asrock board is specified at 19V but using 15-16V reduce its comsumption notably.

Edit : Some Pico PSU could be plagued by average DC adaptators that consume too much at idle, exemple is the Antec adaptator whose comsumption at idle, that is unplugged from the PC, is rougly 4-5W, this will inflate the idle numbers, same with boards wich have DC input, my adaptator comsumption in isolation is 1W at idle.

Thanks, that sounds really good! Any idea which brands of DC adaptors are most efficient and reliable? That's some really hard to find info...

edit: also, will using 12V for the DC adapter reduce consumption even more? Does it matter how much Watt the adapter is? I know that ATX PSUs are most efficient between 20-80%, but no idea how that works for DC adaptors.

 

[Abwx]

Thanks, that sounds really good! Any idea which brands of DC adaptors are most efficient and reliable? That's some really hard to find info...

There s no info, the only way to know is eventualy to measure the current drain with a multimeter whith the device not supplying anything, generaly laptops DC adaptators are of good quality in this respect.

edit: also, will using 12V for the DC adapter reduce consumption even more? Does it matter how much Watt the adapter is? I know that ATX PSUs are most efficient between 20-80%, but no idea how that works for DC adaptors.

I benefit from the question to give some precisions.

The DC supplied motherboard, the Asrock AM1H ITX, effectively consume less with lower voltage than the official 19V, but there s a limit that is variable, in my MB it was 13V, under wich the MB didnt boot, that s why i m advising 15-16V.

On the other hand Pico PSUs can be used with any MB but ther s a few remarks, only the +5V, +3.3V, -5V, -12V voltages are generated by the little power converter card, the +12V, wich is the most demanding is supplied directly from the DC adaptator, the other voltages are extracted from this one thanks to the DC-DC converters that are in the little PCB.

And then there is cases like the Antec ISK110 wich use a 19V DC adaptator, wich is included, that is plugged on a PCB inside the case and wich has converters for all the voltages mentioned above, including the +12V wich is also generated out of the common 19V voltage, this PCB has the usual outputs of an ATX PSU, that is a 24 pin connector as well as SATA power cables.

So far the best efficency i got from option 1 and 3 was 1, Pico PSUs looks to have a correct efficency but given the price the two other solutions make also sense, the Asrock is pricey, at about 50-60$, and require a 20-30$ DC adaptator, the Antec case should be in the 60-70$ and can use a 30$ MB, this is a better option since there s also the casing and that it only 20$ more.

 

[cbn]

Nice, this should be really interesting! Could you do some multitasking as well? e.g. open Spotify/VLC and browse with 5 tabs open at the same time.

With VLC playing a DVD and five Firefox tabs open, scrolling the Verge Homepage with the Athlon 5350 (at full speed) is not bad. It hangs a bit with rapid scrolling (ie, grabbing the vertical scrolling bar and moving quickly up and down with the mouse), but is liveable.

With the slower mouse wheel scrolling it seems fine.

P.S. The operating system used was Windows 8.1