Thinking of picking up one of those Terminator C3s (questions about low power PCs)

[PingSpike]

Link Newegg

Last year around this time I was interested in a via c3 based pc to do file, print, maybe mail and ftp kind of stuff for my home. I was primarly interested in the c3 to keep my electric bill down. The only thing I could find was a PC chips mobo/cpu bundle on tigerdirect that used sdram. I don't care for tiger direct and I just couldn't talk myself into spending money on a pcchips board after so many of them failed on me at work.

Well I was browsing around looking for via c3 cpus and came across this sweet ASUS barebones system. $110 for an 800mhz cpu, motherboard, micro case, 165w PSU and it even comes with cdrom and floppy drives to boot.

For those who don't know, the VIA C3 is a socket 370 based chip that is designed around low power consumption and low heat. It is not a very fast cpu, the 800mhz probably is equivelent to a 500mhz celeron in applications. It likely performs unacceptably in games.

However, I just want a simple box that keeps my electric bill down and won't break the bank.

All I need is a stick of ram and a harddrive and I'm good to go.

Any low power guys around here?
Would pulling the cdrom and floppy drives save me much power? After install I'll probably have zero use for them whatsoever.
Would a laptop harddrive net me any extra savings? I'll probably run a P2P on the box, so hard disk activity would be pretty constant. Speed isn't a big issue.

 

[WooDaddy]

As for the notebook hard drive, the power savings doesn't outweigh the sheer fact that notebook drives are slow. The added cost of being small doesn't outweigh the fact that they are small and you have to pay more for space. Since it'll be for P2P and file storage, go ahead and pick up a 120 or 160GB drive from Fry's/outpost.com. They go for about $50 after rebate.

If you really don't mind, take a look at itx-based comps. They use even less power, but the price compensates for the difference. A mobo w/C3 800Mhz cpu will run you about $150, but you have to get a case and power supply. I believe the power supplies are only 20W. Check out mini-itx.com for ideas.

 

[geecee]

If you don't mind spending ~$60 more, there are the Soltek SFF's with a 1Ghz C3 (not sure which core). They are essentially Soltek-built versions of the the EPIA boards with a SFF case and PS. Here.

They are about the same price or slightly more than the cost of just the ITX board, and you get a case and PS also. This Soltek doesn't have SATA though. The Terminator does, although I don't think you really need SATA for a system like this.

Pulling the floppy and CD-ROM will probably save you a little power but not much if they're installed and you're not using them anyway (i.e. no floppy or CD spinning in the drives).

EDIT: If you're willing to spend more for the ultimate in silence, low power, size, yada, yada, yada, try looking here.

 

[phisrow]

Pulling the CDrom and Floppy would save a little bit of power(the motors probably draw more than the boards; but the boards do draw some) and it certainly can't hurt. I, personally, wouldn't go for a laptop drive in there. If we run some round numbers, a laptop drive probably pulls about 2.5 watts under use(they can pretty much all run off of USB ports which can supply that much, so it makes a decent estimate) 2.5 watts *24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 21.9 kilowatt hours. Depending on the schedule of rates where you live, you'll probably pay 4-6 cents per kilowatt hour, lets assume 10 just to be pessimistic. So, the Laptop drive will cost $2.19 to run for a year. On my desk is a somewhat elderly half height SCSI drive that draws around 10 watts, so we'll use that value as an estimate for desktop drive power draw. 10 watts * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 87.6 kilowatt hours. At 10 cents a kilowatt hour, we are talking $8.76 per year. So, you save $6.57 a year. A quick look through the stock at any parts supplier suggests that, even with this rather high electrical rate, you'll spend approximately forever making up the additional cost per megabyte of a laptop drive.

You can get even more fanatical about power draw; but price/performance goes all to hell if you do. http://www.soekris.com/ or http://www.pcengines.ch/ among others, make cute low power x86 boards which, when run with CF cards in place of HDDS, draw very little power. CF cards are quickly killed by repeated writes, and headless embedded boards are not well suited to general use(especially if this is going to be a Windows box), and prices are quite high for the performance. I would just go with the option you have selected, remove the floppy and optical, and go with an ordinary HDD.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: WooDaddy
If you really don't mind, take a look at itx-based comps. They use even less power, but the price compensates for the difference. A mobo w/C3 800Mhz cpu will run you about $150, but you have to get a case and power supply. I believe the power supplies are only 20W. Check out mini-itx.com for ideas.

According to everything I've read, the motherboard *is* a mini-ITX motherboard with a via c3 800mhz CPU. So it seems like a great deal considered the drives and case/PSU are included. I'm not sure about the PSUs, but 20w seems rather impossible!

Originally posted by: geecee
If you don't mind spending ~$60 more, there are the Soltek SFF's with a 1Ghz C3 (not sure which core). They are essentially Soltek-built versions of the the EPIA boards with a SFF case and PS. Here.

They are about the same price or slightly more than the cost of just the ITX board, and you get a case and PS also. This Soltek doesn't have SATA though. The Terminator does, although I don't think you really need SATA for a system like this.

I don't know a ton about the C3, but the cost increase doesn't seem like its worth the extra 200mhz. Plus, I don't really need an ultra tiny box. But that one is pretty cool looking.

Thanks for the link BTW!

 

[Tiamat]

Pingspike, are you looking for a quiet system that saves energy? The ram you choose doesnt really matter. Just get at least 512MB for everyday things, it will ensure "zippiness". As for harddrive, there are some laptop 7200 ones. I would recommend looking at www.silentpcreview.com as they have looked at a few laptop harddrives.

 

[PingSpike]

Yeah, I was thinking of snagging 512mb. 256mb would probably get the job done fine though.

I'm not sure about the laptop drive, I think after buying the adapter it'll probably end up being a waste of money when the amount of savings is considered. I might just get a regular one.