Need power efficient intel..

[DrMrLordX]

Performance wise 860 is very close to 870. Both are 4 cores with HT and turbo boost. The only difference I can find is about 130 Mhz in clock speed and slightly better turbo boost.

But it costs twice as much. Whats the deal?

Just because. This is what happens when there is an absence of competition within a particular price segment. Since AMD doesn't really have anything they can throw out there to compete with an 870, Intel has a lot more leeway in deciding what an extra 130 mhz is worth.

Thuban may or may not change that, but only time will tell.

 

[DrMrLordX]

My watt meter was a present from my wife for Christmas. But I saw one at Radio Shack the other day for $25.

Don't tell JonnyGuru you're using a meter like that, or he'll tear you a new one! Or just tell you why it's awful. Or something.

(and, worse still, he would probably be right, at least within some context)

 

[taltamir]

I have used 7GB for firefox and chrome (about half for each) by having lots (hundreds) of pages open at once (thanks to saving of open tabs on shutdown)... mostly wikipedia and tvtropes.

I have seen many games that use over 4gb for the game itself.

A game called Distant Worlds is the most recent example. it has seperation of state and private ownership... so playing a huge galaxy (1400 stars) each containing dozens of planets and moons, many colonizeable, with each colony producing an entire array of privately owned ships, space stations, etc...

the effect is awesome and can lead to very cool interactions... but it takes lots and lots of ram. And it has an issue where loading a game seems to load the new one before flushing the old one... result? if you have managed to break 3GB on a 4GB machine you should quit to main menu before loading a game, otherwise it will crash due to lack of ram (as it tries to load another 2GB of assets into ram before clearing out the current stuff).

However, its not just bugs... X3 was updated specifically to allow it to use massive amounts of ram at the player discretion... so on 8GB machines it went from using 1.5GB of ram to 7.5GB of ram and shows great performance increase. There are several other games that manage to similarly break 4GB on purpose. Although often you see great reduction in ram use with patches...

 

[pm]

Don't tell JonnyGuru you're using a meter like that, or he'll tear you a new one! Or just tell you why it's awful. Or something.

(and, worse still, he would probably be right, at least within some context)

I've read JonnyGuru's posts about them. And I don't disagree. I have an active PFC power supply and these wattmeters are notoriously inaccurate when the power factor isn't 1... but the real meters cost more than I want to pay. He's correct in his assessment of their limitations, but for me it's accurate enough.. I'm not using it for research, just to get a relative sense of what various settings on my board result in power savings. And for anything with a resistive-like load (PF=~1), they are pretty accurate. I could measure the DC current out of the power supply, but that's not as easy as sticking a meter into a wall socket.

But good point in mentioning the accuracy. I forget sometimes about APFC power supplies and cheap wattmeters.

I have used 7GB for firefox and chrome (about half for each) by having lots (hundreds) of pages open at once (thanks to saving of open tabs on shutdown)... mostly wikipedia and tvtropes.

I am hearing what you are saying, and I agree with it... but I am having a wild night when I have a dozen of webpages open and I am certain that I have never had more than 25... ever, and my gaming is generally old school. I was replaying Darwinia the other night, and I play a lot of Nethack and Slash'em. And I just won the original X-Com again. While I do play newer games, the bulk of my gaming seems to be games that would fit on a 3.5" floppy disk.

I think the only time that I've seen my RAM usage come close to 4GB or exceed it - it actually started swapping - was running 2 VMWare 1GB images simultaneously on top of Windows 7 Ultimate.

 

[SgtSpoon]

I have used 7GB for firefox and chrome (about half for each) by having lots (hundreds) of pages open at once (thanks to saving of open tabs on shutdown)... mostly wikipedia and tvtropes.

I'm sure you could use up all the ram on a 12Gb system by opening thousands of notepad instances.

So maybe you should get 24Gb ... just to be safe you know ...

 

[Ksyder]

Very interesting stuff. Specially with regards to power supply. I already knew I have to do some brainstorming on which psu to get for my system. But this has raised the bar alot more.

I am wondering though. If peak power usage of a system is say 250 watts. Does this mean a PSU with 350 max output is adequate?

I'd think the 350 will be adequate... if you are going for efficiency, the lower max output the better since you want to be within a certain % of output for the psu to be efficient.

The real question is what are your gpu and other add in card, hard drives, etc plans. That obviously needs to be considered when buying your psu.

I can tell you that I have tailored my own system which is Core 2 based to be energy efficient (using Intel X3000 integrated graphics, yuck) and an 85% efficient Seasonic psu and it draws between 40 and 50 watts under normal use. That is with the system overclocked as high as the board will go (232 mhz FSB) CPU is Celeron Wolfdale E3300

PSU here- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151085

 

[DrMrLordX]

but the real meters cost more than I want to pay.

Too true. When he finally mentions the cost of the meters he likes to use . . . oy.

Granted it would be a one-time investment that would last for awhile, but still. Youch.

 

[DrMrLordX]

PSU here- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151085

Interesting PSU. I recently got a Corsair CX400 for my backup system which is quite nice, though more expensive than that unit.

The fact that you can get 80+ in the 300W range is pretty slick though.

 

[Markfw]

I'd think the 350 will be adequate... if you are going for efficiency, the lower max output the better since you want to be within a certain % of output for the psu to be efficient.

The real question is what are your gpu and other add in card, hard drives, etc plans. That obviously needs to be considered when buying your psu.

I can tell you that I have tailored my own system which is Core 2 based to be energy efficient (using Intel X3000 integrated graphics, yuck) and an 85% efficient Seasonic psu and it draws between 40 and 50 watts under normal use. That is with the system overclocked as high as the board will go (232 mhz FSB) CPU is Celeron Wolfdale E3300

PSU here- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151085

http://www.svc.com/ocz600gxssli-b.html

This is more efficient and cheaper, and more wattage.

 

[Ksyder]

http://www.svc.com/ocz600gxssli-b.html

This is more efficient and cheaper, and more wattage.

I'm not recommending my PSU for OP as it doesn't even have a pci-e connector. That OCZ is a great deal.

 

[capita]

Sorry folks, I was got busy buying and then testing my new rig.

This is what i got:

Processor: i5-750
Motherboard: Intel BLK-DP55WB
RAM: 4 x Corsair 2GB/dd3/1333Mhz
GPU: MSI ATI Radeon 5770 1Gb 850@1200 Mhz
Casing: Cooler Master Gladiator cm-690
PSU: Cooler Master extreme power plus 500w

Plus other accessories like external dvd writer, additional fan for the casing etc.

My first bummer was when I found out that I cannot connect my DVD writer to motherboard as it only supports SATA drives. Luckily, (I thought) I bought an external USB DVD writer so I tried to install windows 7 from it. But during installation it will stop copying and gave error of no source found.

I figured it was problem related to windows installation from usb cuz some time ago I tried to install windows from usb flash drive but found out that you can't install windows xp from usb normally as the flash drive disconnects while Xp is detecting USB during initial phase of installation. And there is a long work around for that which isn't perfect.

But I thought it might be due to faulty dvd copy of windows 7, So tried XP and it installed without any hassle. Which was 32 bit version. Later when I installed win7, I got 32bit version again cuz i missed the part where win7 suppose to ask for 32/64 bit choice. So now I've been testing my setup in 3.2 GB of RAM instead of 4 Gb.

Also the motherboard has no PS/2 connector for my keyboard. I like that keyboard a lot so I've been keeping it. Luckily (I thought again) I've PS/2 to USB connector. The keyboard worked but when I started testing games, pressing two keys at a time didn't work.

So I had to buy a SATA DVD writer and a USB keyboard.

I should have gone with non-intel mother board. This mother board isn't backward compatible neither future since it has no e-sata or usb 3.0. So it itches me a bit to see the nice e-sata connector build on top of casing go to waste. I wasn't looking for those good overclockers and support for SLi /Crossfire motherboards, but I do like to have maximum compatibility.

The Case is very nice. Its super quite and has a very elegant look. Although its too big for the motherboard I bought and too big to carry around specially without any handle. There's also some hassle installing dvd drives but there are some other nice features.

I wanted to get 80% efficient power supply but couldn't find one.

I have done a bit of testing. I ran Dirt 2 while converting a video and running two virtual windows xp inside windows 7. Dirt 2 ran perfectly.
I also ran four windows xp virtually and playing a game in all 4 in LAN with each other. That ran fine too.

I've to put 3d rendering and burning to the mix when I get time.

The MSI 5770 card has one big fan with no red and black covering found on those standard ATi reference cards. But its super quite so I like it.

I tried lots of games that are known to be heavy. All of them ran fine on max settings up to 1600 x 1200 resolution.
All ran fine till Crysis. It gave me 25 to 40~50 fps with everything on very high.

I know Crysis is a resource hog but still its an older game. If the gpu is already showing weaknesses then I guess the days when it will be chocking up to new games aren't that far.

Maybe I should have gone with 5850 instead. But thats the only game title not running great maxed out so I am not sure. I am looking for 3 monitor setup so I probably will need to get 5850 for that. But I am still thinking whether to get 3 small monitors or one big one with a smaller one for dual setup like I 've been using. Not sure if Eyefinity works as good as it sounds?

I also think that I will benefit from more memory. But I still haven't use the full amount of 4 Gb RAM (cuz of 32 bit OS) so I will have to check that first.

Converting videos don't seem to be that fast from my old setup. Maybe the application I am using doesn't take advantage of multi-core. Or maybe I was expecting too much. But everything is responsive while multiple stressful applications are running.

The whole setup can run on my old 1 Kva UPS from my older rig. On normal usage my UPS has only one out of four bars on load indicator, showing that the load is less than 1/4th of 1 Kva (800 watts). This include two monitors as well. On high load it goes upto 3 bars.

I have yet to test how long will the backup last on load where my old setup could last for 5 to 9 hours. I will get new UPS setup based on that.


Well I need a break from typing and you guys probably need a break from reading this long post 😀