New build: low wattage (<20w) idle, totally passive, gaming HTPC

Bigsy

Bigsy

Bigsy

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Bristol
Quite pleased with this setup, it plays games well enough, is totally silent (0 fans) and not a power hog... so thought I'd share.

This all runs stock volts, wireless, BT and LAN onboard and enabled, its totally passive, and idles at ~19.5w... also gives playable framerates in Battlefield 3. Not really tried to push the overclock, from reading reviews I'm not far of the max and I don't want to up any volts so I keep the power and temps down.

I honestly can't quite believe how low powered this idles, I can't get my ION system this low!

I have a couple more bits to add like a couple of 3.5" drives for a nas and a slim BD rom but idle watts shouldn't increase drastically.

* Streacom FC8 - Awesome case for the money (£130 fanless case http://www.streacom.com/products/fc8-fanless-chassis/)

* 120w pico psu

* Asus F1A75-I, Fantastic board has some fancy power gubbings which really helps this setup idle at super low watts.

* Tri core Llano A6-3500 @ 3.65Ghz

* Geil 4gb (soon to be 8) running at 2100Mhz

* Crucial M4

Some pics:

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This is taken with it idling on desktop. It tops out at about 110w full tilt.
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Yeah I know... not only that but the base of the cpu heatsink is anodized. But it does do a good job, I've ran it a full tilt with 3 threads of linx and furmark and it tends to top out around 80c, which is fine by me my 4ghz i7 core has run in the 90C since it came oot a year or 2 ago.

I did have to take the whole setup apart and apply mx-4 to everything the heatpipes touch, before I did that it was idling in the high 70C.
 
The case only comes with with 2 heatpipes, the heatsink and case has room for more simply to aid fitting on different mobos.

As is the mobo heatsink would make it difficult to fit more, I think they would fit but it would be marginal. Still two is absolutely fine, surprisingly.
 
What's the power consumption and temps like after full load for a while?
Can't load the link for the case :( how many drive bays has it, looks like a very nice system.
 
As said full load overclocked is about 110w, if you ran stock no more than 70w full load.

I see 80'ish Celsius overclocked I reckon if you ran stock it would be around the 70C mark max.

Case has 1x2.5" 1x5.25" and 1x 3.5" (with rubber mounts) but there is room for more if you want to get creative .
 
Do you know if you can buy that remote separately? I'd love it for the HTPC I'm planning to build.

I've tried searching but haven't had any luck
 
Looks pretty good! How much did it cost total, if you don't mind me asking?

Also, what's that meter called that you're using to measure the Watts? (on the plug)
 
sarge78 said:
Nice build!

(surprised it didn't start throttling after a few mins of heavy 3D stuff :p)
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The cpu doesn't start throtting till it hits 100C and its got no where near that after an hour of furmark and linx.

As said I've ran my 4ghz I7 on high volts in the low 90C's since they first came out and its as stable as ever. That temp is (just) within spec so why bother having it lower? It only makes it more noisy and even if iit does shorten the life of a cpu its going to very outdated by the time that happens..
 
YarwoodUK said:
Looks pretty good! How much did it cost total, if you don't mind me asking?

Also, what's that meter called that you're using to measure the Watts? (on the plug)
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Pretty cheap in my book....

Case = £130
mobo = £95
CPU = £62
PicoPsu = £14 (ebay)
120w power brick = £11 (ebay)

I bought the ssd second hand for £60, already had the ram but I guess you can get 8gb for £30

That and a slim dvd rom would be around ~£400 I guess.

The plug thing is just a power monitor thingy I bought of ebay for £9
 
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Bigsy said:
That temp is (just) within spec so why bother having it lower? It only makes it more noisy and even if it does shorten the life of a cpu its going to very outdated by the time that happens..
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Agreed! I don't understand the people that try and keep their CPUs at 25C.
 
Looks awesome mate :) Will the llano play bluray and other hd stuff without any problems? Tempted to get llano to make a htpc and stick a freesat hd card in there :)
 
-Mike- said:
Looks awesome mate :) Will the llano play bluray and other hd stuff without any problems? Tempted to get llano to make a htpc and stick a freesat hd card in there :)
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It will play anything you can throw at it, its only limitation I think is that it can only decode one of the channels on the gpu for blueray 3d it off loads the other to the cpu but that only results in 5>10% cpu usage.

And yes the remote came with the motherboard.
 
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