When I want to purchase Hardware, I really don't care about the nominal specs, but its actual potential, and how I can adapt it to serve a purpose. For example, when I purchased my current DDR3 modules, I was looking for the cheapest modules with a specific IC (Hynix MFR) which I was told were the best ones at that moment. If I were to buy a Processor, I would buy the cheaper/slower part that includes a specific feature (Be it being a Quad Core, having Hyper Threading, VT-d, TSX, whatever), or the full possible feature set of that silicon die, and so on. What I don't like, is to pay the premium for just some MHzs worth of binning. Actually, I like to toy around figuring out my place on the Frequency/Voltage curve, that is something that I'm used to find and decide myself.
In this generation, since my Supermicro X10SAT being a conservative Workstation-class doesn't allows me to touch any value in the BIOS to run it out-of-spec, I'm out of luck for undervolting my Xeon. And since most Software tools are Windows based, I can't even try them since I use Windows in a VM. But if I were to build a new computer, I will take any flexibility I can if possible, which I absolutely loss in this platform.
While I was thinking of making this Thread for some days, a similar one appeared. If I want to pick that Thread as a basis for what I said above, you will see that most of the difference between the low power parts and the standard or Unlocked ones, is not only that they have a lower TDP, but also lower Frequencies across all Power States.
Since usually on non-Unlocked parts you are limited to choose as max Multiplier the one from the nominal Frequency, with the only possible overclock to force the BIOS's MultiCore Enchanment to be able to use the max Turbo Multiplier, you have an effective artificial cap on these low power parts. You would not have such cap on the standard or Unlocked parts, and since these days there are no proof that they're different or better binned for low power or overclocking ability (Remember Mobile Athlons XP or Socket 939 Opterons?), in that case, the best option would be to pick a standard or Unlocked Processor, which should be more widely available, then underclock and undervolt it to levels similar to the low power Processors. Otherwise, if tomorrow you need higher performance or don't care about low power, the low power parts would be unable to scale up, while the Unlocked part has the freedom to scale in either way.
That pretty much sums the background of this Thread at: I like to pick my parts based on how much silicon I will be getting, then decide at what settings I want to run it.
Normally, manufacturers includes automatic power management with power states and fans settings, but I think that I am more smart than the stock config since I know my needs, and besides, they should be rather conservative to begin with, while I can try to tweak them playing the silicon lottery and testing what its the lower Voltage that I need for a determinated Frequency and still be rock solid, a thing which I already did on my previous Athlon II X4.
So far, I was thinking that I would like to see two or three modes: A totally silent mode where all Fans are actually off (Effectively Fanless) at rather low Frequency values but that still are confortable for Web browsing and light applications, a middle mode with Fans spinning at low speed, and the full blow mode at either max nominal or overclocked settings. In that previous machine, I could do something close to that, since I could open K10stat to manually change the AIIX4 Frequency and Voltage values from within Windows to my best found values, then reducing the Fan speed to the minimum via Speedfan, and achieve nearly the exact results I wanted.
The problem is that it seems that while you can make the Fans spin at the minimum speed, it seems that its not possible to actually power them off. Yes, I know that Fans at slow speeds are barely audible, but I would prefer to not having moving parts at all if possible since that's my aim for the lowest Power State.
Also, for a Fanless system, disconnecting the Processor Fan seems to not be a good idea at all, since many Motherboards seem to assume that if the Processor Fan is not connected, the user is a moron that didn't installed the Heatsink and risk to kill the Processor. Truth be told, I recall some guy that managed to run his S939 Opteron at 800 MHz and with a strong undervolt, without even the Heatsink at all. Since current Processors are much more power efficient, I believe than that should still be possible, assuming you can POST at the desired low power values.
So in a ideal system that follows my idea, the POST should be always done in safe Fanless-capable settings, then manually change them to the desired, faster settings after booting the OS.
Conceptually, that is what I would like to achieve. I always prefer to enforce manual settings than letting automatic ones be in charge when I know what I am doing. On the Athlon II generation I was happy with the results, but I couldn't test anything in this one.
I'm rather confident that considering that both manufacturing processes and architectural designs are all aiming for low power and performance per Watt, and based on some Ultrabook Haswell models, it should be possible to achieve a Quad Core @ 2 GHz with GPU at around 20W power consumption. Fanless with the stock Heatsink should be possible at lower values, but it should still kick ass for light usage.
So, anyone that wants to merge their low power HTPC and high power gaming or work system has any similar through, or tried to implement something similar?
In this generation, since my Supermicro X10SAT being a conservative Workstation-class doesn't allows me to touch any value in the BIOS to run it out-of-spec, I'm out of luck for undervolting my Xeon. And since most Software tools are Windows based, I can't even try them since I use Windows in a VM. But if I were to build a new computer, I will take any flexibility I can if possible, which I absolutely loss in this platform.
While I was thinking of making this Thread for some days, a similar one appeared. If I want to pick that Thread as a basis for what I said above, you will see that most of the difference between the low power parts and the standard or Unlocked ones, is not only that they have a lower TDP, but also lower Frequencies across all Power States.
Since usually on non-Unlocked parts you are limited to choose as max Multiplier the one from the nominal Frequency, with the only possible overclock to force the BIOS's MultiCore Enchanment to be able to use the max Turbo Multiplier, you have an effective artificial cap on these low power parts. You would not have such cap on the standard or Unlocked parts, and since these days there are no proof that they're different or better binned for low power or overclocking ability (Remember Mobile Athlons XP or Socket 939 Opterons?), in that case, the best option would be to pick a standard or Unlocked Processor, which should be more widely available, then underclock and undervolt it to levels similar to the low power Processors. Otherwise, if tomorrow you need higher performance or don't care about low power, the low power parts would be unable to scale up, while the Unlocked part has the freedom to scale in either way.
That pretty much sums the background of this Thread at: I like to pick my parts based on how much silicon I will be getting, then decide at what settings I want to run it.
Normally, manufacturers includes automatic power management with power states and fans settings, but I think that I am more smart than the stock config since I know my needs, and besides, they should be rather conservative to begin with, while I can try to tweak them playing the silicon lottery and testing what its the lower Voltage that I need for a determinated Frequency and still be rock solid, a thing which I already did on my previous Athlon II X4.
So far, I was thinking that I would like to see two or three modes: A totally silent mode where all Fans are actually off (Effectively Fanless) at rather low Frequency values but that still are confortable for Web browsing and light applications, a middle mode with Fans spinning at low speed, and the full blow mode at either max nominal or overclocked settings. In that previous machine, I could do something close to that, since I could open K10stat to manually change the AIIX4 Frequency and Voltage values from within Windows to my best found values, then reducing the Fan speed to the minimum via Speedfan, and achieve nearly the exact results I wanted.
The problem is that it seems that while you can make the Fans spin at the minimum speed, it seems that its not possible to actually power them off. Yes, I know that Fans at slow speeds are barely audible, but I would prefer to not having moving parts at all if possible since that's my aim for the lowest Power State.
Also, for a Fanless system, disconnecting the Processor Fan seems to not be a good idea at all, since many Motherboards seem to assume that if the Processor Fan is not connected, the user is a moron that didn't installed the Heatsink and risk to kill the Processor. Truth be told, I recall some guy that managed to run his S939 Opteron at 800 MHz and with a strong undervolt, without even the Heatsink at all. Since current Processors are much more power efficient, I believe than that should still be possible, assuming you can POST at the desired low power values.
So in a ideal system that follows my idea, the POST should be always done in safe Fanless-capable settings, then manually change them to the desired, faster settings after booting the OS.
Conceptually, that is what I would like to achieve. I always prefer to enforce manual settings than letting automatic ones be in charge when I know what I am doing. On the Athlon II generation I was happy with the results, but I couldn't test anything in this one.
I'm rather confident that considering that both manufacturing processes and architectural designs are all aiming for low power and performance per Watt, and based on some Ultrabook Haswell models, it should be possible to achieve a Quad Core @ 2 GHz with GPU at around 20W power consumption. Fanless with the stock Heatsink should be possible at lower values, but it should still kick ass for light usage.
So, anyone that wants to merge their low power HTPC and high power gaming or work system has any similar through, or tried to implement something similar?
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