What's the coolest, lowest power cpu right now?

[lozina]

I am looking to replace a motherboard on a machine I use as a server. It's going to be on 24/7 so my primary concern is power usage and temperature. Thankfully they are closely related.

So what CPU would be the best?

What would be really nice is if I could get away with just a heatsink on this CPU and no additional fans on whatever mobo I get (preferably ASUS).

No other specs matter to me, how many cores, clock rate, etc... since any cpu nowadays is fast enough to handle whatever I would be doing on this server - basically just file hosting, personal web hosting, various other utility functions.

 

[Denithor]

Celeron 430 perhaps? At 35W it's likely the coolest running chip you can find without going to an Atom setup.

Or if you need a little more horsepower you could grab an e5200 and underclock and/or undervolt it to reduce thermals.

Combine that with a large heatsink (something like the GeminII and you might be able to get away with no fan.

 

[yh125d]

Atom + 945GSE

 

[drizek]

amds and intels cheapest 45nm cpus are all pretty efficient. Just make sure not to cheap out on the motherboard because you want to make sure you have all the power management features there.

Dual core Atom is a good option as well.

As for cooling, I recently took a beat up old laptop, stripped it, and just duct taped the athlon x2 stock heatsink to the copper heatpipe coming out of the cpu with a little bit of thermal compound. It is a 1.73ghz pentium m and it hasn't caused any problems yet, though I haven't seen temps for it since it is running os x.

 

[Shmee]

Here is a question, is there a quad core from a desktop that could be used in a laptop? Something not too pricey, like an underclocked Q9400. Would that work in a laptop if battery life wasnt an issue?

I might be interested in building a barebones gaming laptop in the future, when the mobile graphics cards get better. I just don't want to spend more than $250 on some low power laptop quad. And I know some can be MUCH more. I would rather just get buy with a cheaper desktop quad, if possible.

Perhaps the $170 E0 Q9550 from micro center?

Doesn't matter a whole lot right now as I do not currently have money for a laptop, but I will be interested in something like this in the future.

 

[drizek]

Yes, look at lenovos site and configure one of the W series thinkpads, they have a bunch of quad core options and in a couple of months there will be clarkfield which is a low power quad core. There is absolutely nothing though that is "not too pricey".

I've done the gaming laptop thing, and while it is kinda cool, it really isn't as good as what you might imagine. THe battery life is crap, the battery life when gaming is virtually non existent, they get ridiculously hot(try putting your crotch next to your GTX 260 to get an idea). They are heavy, have little to no potential for upgrades, driver support and such things aren't up to par with desktops, and they are way way overpriced. You can get a gaming desktop, a netbook and a mainstream laptop for less money than a gaming laptop.

 

[sharad]

I recently built a file server using AMD Athlon X2 5050E. It's a 65nm, 45W chip, so not the most latest or economical, but it is surprisingly efficient and cheap to buy. The entire system idles at 38 watts - measured using a watt meter. With Prime 95 it can get upto 80 watts. It can be my file server and if needed I can play old games or play hi-def videos.

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5050E
MB: Gigabyte GA-M85M-US2H (Nvidia 8200 integrated)
RAM: 2x1GB
PSU: 450W HX series Corsair
HDD: 1x160GB Toshiba 7200 RPM 2.5", 1x1TB WD Green
ODD: Pioneer DVD writer

 

[yh125d]

An undervolted desktop quad would still probably use more power than the entire of the laptop at any sort of usage level. They use different sockets anyway

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: sharad
I recently built a file server using AMD Athlon X2 5050E. It's a 65nm, 45W chip, so not the most latest or economical, but it is surprisingly efficient and cheap to buy. The entire system idles at 38 watts - measured using a watt meter. With Prime 95 it can get upto 80 watts. It can be my file server and if needed I can play old games or play hi-def videos.

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5050E
MB: Gigabyte GA-M85M-US2H (Nvidia 8200 integrated)
RAM: 2x1GB
PSU: 450W HX series Corsair
HDD: 1x160GB Toshiba 7200 RPM 2.5", 1x1TB WD Green
ODD: Pioneer DVD writer

I second the "e" X2 chips. I have a 4850e AMD box and it uses virtually no power, runs ice cold even under load and paired up with a 780G board, it's quite speedy and responsive. I love the machine.

 

[lozina]

Wow, the Atom is pretty damn awesome, but I don't know if it will fit into my particular situation...

Is it possible for it to be mounted into an ATX case- using part of the mounting screws? Or they just don't match up?

Things I need to have on this machine is one PCI SCSI adapter card (which is OK since I see the ASUS Atom mobo has one PCI slot) and I also need to plug in two SATA drives (which also is ok since this mobo has two SATA connectors).

The only issue is finding a case that can mount this micro ITX board plus the PCI adapter card, 3 - 3.5" drives (1 SCSI, 2 SATA) and 1 DVD drive. So far I cannot find a case that would be able to house all this with an ITX form factor.

edit: If the mounting holes do not match for fitting ITX into an ATX case, is it easy to move those mounting holes? I am comfortable with performing a mod to my case if it is fairly easy. But then there is the issue of if I plug in my PCI card into the ITX board mounted in an ATX case, will the PCI slots of the ATX case match up with the position of the PCI card's break-out panel (or whatever you call the part that screws into the case and provides connectors to the outside) ?? If not that seems like that would be a very difficult mod to accomplish...

 

[faxon]

the atom boards fit up perfectly to the screws of an ATX case, just in a tiny ass form factor. the only issue is the limited expandability right now. the best i have seen is a jetway board with 2 SATA, 1 PATA, 1 PCI, and an integrated CF card mounting, so you could boot off that and use the rest for storage needs, for $140. alternatively, you could get a 7750 x2 Kuma for $50 OEM, a 740G mobo with 6 SATA, 1x pci-e 1x, 1x pci-e 16x, 2x pci, IDE, better IGP, and you have $35 left for the CPU cooler. if you were to underclock the x2, you could run say a Xigmatek S-1283 on it without a fan, or without a case fan in back, making it even quieter, for the same price. the difference in power usage ultimately will be may be a couple dollars a year at most lol

 

[lozina]

That is awesome then, that I could just mount it in my current ATX case.

I am really psyched about this now...

ASUS AT3GC-I board ($85)
2 GB RAM (~$25)

Run me approx. $110 bucks.

Then I plug in my SCSI adapter into the PCI slot, connect my SCSI drive, 2x SATA drives and 1 DVD drive. Connect them all to my existing ATX PSU (Which I believe is my PC Power&Cooling Silencer 400). And all set.

Right? Sounds like that would work out to you?

I would cut my CPU's power consumption from 66 W to 8 W while apparently getting more performance from this CPU (comparing some benchmarks, my current Athlon XP 1800+ gets around 4400 MIPS vs. the Atom 330's 8000 MIPS). Unless I am confusing something...