best UNDERclocking mobo

edgedemon

edgedemon

edgedemon

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After weeks of research and finally giving up on a mini-itx solution, Im looking for a mobo to run windows home server on. My main requirement is SATA ports, and the option to add multi-port e-sata at a later date. I dont care about the chipset/CPU, AMD or Intel, whichever will go lowest and still give me enough for fileserving etc, and I intend to underclock this board to its absolute minimum.
What would be my best option for underclocking boards and a CPU that can handle a decent underclock?

Many thanks
 
I was looking at this and unfortunately it's the best overclocking board and therefore £150 normally.

Seems silly that we have to pay for the overclocking options that actually, also, allow us to underclock!

I currently have the top of the range DFI AM2+ mATX motherboard (£150) running a barebones silent Athlon XP 5000+ Black Edition, aside from the PSU it's a fanless micro machine! Very cool, literally.

I run the Athlon dual core down from 2.6GHz 1.25v to 1.8GHz and just 0.8volts, I also run a SSD HDD, no optical drives or fans so the system idles around 20w and never chews more than 40-50w at full load - awesome 24/7 machine and is very fast, I use it for spreadsheets and trading.

The best bit is I can run for nearly 2 hours in a power cut on just one 1000VA UPS.

Intel Atom eat your heart out. :D
 
I will bear that in mind, but Im hoping for a cheaper option if possible...
If not, then I will have to look at decent OC boards...
 
The problem with 'entry level' motherboards is the fact they don't give you voltage options, not point dropping the multiplier down and running the CPU at stock volt... if anything it'll make it unstable!

You might be better off grabbing a 2nd hand enthusiasts board, I've seen an MSI K9A2 Platinum go for £50 on 'that' auction site, that kind of board will allow you to do anything with your chip, AMD chipsets are also rock solid (and to be fair so are Intel) so it's perfect for 24/7 home server work.

You could easily pick up an entry level dual core Athlon for £20, a Brisbane would be an ideal candidate for ultra low volts, lower power and heat computing.

Sure the Intel dual cores are quicker but ... this is a 24/7, silent, lower power file server, not a gamers rig!
 
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hmmm - not what I was expecting, I presumed that I would get a whole load of suggestions based around mobile cpu's such as the celeron M or something similar
off to read up..
Would this give me a lower power solution than using an intel atom board as I have seen some with 4 x SATA and pci slot which I could use for e-sata expansion card?
 
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I've found the bios to be a bit too limited on the desktop mobile CPU boards that I've used. Maybe changed now but the prices are usually too high to justify it.
A heavily underclocked/undervolted CPU would probably come quite close to the minimal power requirements of the mobile CPU's, or maybe better them. You'd get away with having a cheaper motherboard that way.

Look for a decent 2nd hand board that has all the voltage options you need I'd say, the same theory applies I guess. Cheap boards, unstable voltages and worse clocks?
 
edgedemon said:
hmmm - not what I was expecting, I presumed that I would get a whole load of suggestions based around mobile cpu's such as the celeron M or something similar
off to read up..
Would this give me a lower power solution than using an intel atom board as I have seen some with 4 x SATA and pci slot which I could use for e-sata expansion card?
Click to expand...


Well my work laptop is an Intel CoreDuo Mobile and it's a dog to be honest, most of them perform pretty poor.

I'm not sure what it's power draw is either but it gets damn hot!

The reason I suggested a Brisbane is that I run one at [email protected] PASSIVE cooled in a silent mATX system. It's rapid. More than fast enough for my charting and spread sheet work, with a lean version of Windows XP (stripped bare, no unwated apps and services etc) it's smooth as silk and a joy to use.

My AMD Brisbane system idles at around 15-20w in total. It loads around 45-50w. It's silent. It's cool. It's ideal for your requirements and cheap too.
 
gurusan said:
i would go for a p5q and e5200 or e7200
Click to expand...

Ok - how does this work

As I understand it, each CPU die shrink leads to energy efficiency/power savings. The E5200 & E7200 are both 45 micron cpu's with a thermal design power of 65W

Looking at LGA775 socket CPU's on the Intel site, I can also see Celeron 440's which are 65 micron, but have a thermal design power of 35W

Which measurement should I be looking at to determine which CPU will be the most energy efficient and underclockable - though I probably wouldn't bother underclocking the celeron :eek:
 
TDP, although AMD and Intel measure them differently they are good base reference. I'd avoid Celeron and go with a dual core Intel or AMD underclocked.

My Brisbane is 65w ... underclocked it currently runs MAX at around 20w and idles around half that.
 
Edleake said:
I was looking at this and unfortunately it's the best overclocking board and therefore £150 normally.

Seems silly that we have to pay for the overclocking options that actually, also, allow us to underclock!

I currently have the top of the range DFI AM2+ mATX motherboard (£150) running a barebones silent Athlon XP 5000+ Black Edition, aside from the PSU it's a fanless micro machine! Very cool, literally.

I run the Athlon dual core down from 2.6GHz 1.25v to 1.8GHz and just 0.8volts, I also run a SSD HDD, no optical drives or fans so the system idles around 20w and never chews more than 40-50w at full load - awesome 24/7 machine and is very fast, I use it for spreadsheets and trading.

The best bit is I can run for nearly 2 hours in a power cut on just one 1000VA UPS.

Intel Atom eat your heart out. :D
Click to expand...

I created an account on here just to dispel the notion that you need a top of the line motherboard in order to underclock properly!

If you go with an AMD based solution, all modern desktop Athlon motherboards and processors support Cool 'N Quiet (built-in clock scaling) and thus typically have the ability to undervolt/clock in BIOS and software.

At the very least, I am running on a Gigabyte 780G mobo (I'm not sure how conversion works, but I'm sure you can get it less than 150 british pounds.) Paired with it is a cheap, low-power AMD Athlon LE-1640 single core 2.6Ghz processor. Through free software (CrystalCPUID), I have this underclocked down to 800Mhz @ .800 VID. When paired with a 2.5" HDD, it consumes about 30W at idle.

You can most definitely get an underclocked setup on the VERY cheap.

(BTW, 20W at idle is awesome, I'm sure the SSD helps a lot)

edit: You can still most definitely go with MiniITX, just find a MiniITX board that supports an AM/AM2/AM2+ socket, like one based on the 780G
 
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Thanks for posting, I've never heard of CrystalCPUID, so it allows you to undervolt from within Windows? Sounds good! :)
 
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article231-page1.html offers a comprehensive (if not dated) guide to optimizing your computer using CrystalCPUID.

Using the profile manager (dynamic clockspeed management) in CrystalCPUID, you can also set 3 different clockspeeds and VIDs to allow your computer to scale based on processor load. You can underclock/volt down to minimum at idle, and have it scale up to max power when necessary!
 
NeoteriX said:
I created an account on here just to dispel the notion that you need a top of the line motherboard in order to underclock properly!

If you go with an AMD based solution, all modern desktop Athlon motherboards and processors support Cool 'N Quiet (built-in clock scaling) and thus typically have the ability to undervolt/clock in BIOS and software.

At the very least, I am running on a Gigabyte 780G mobo (I'm not sure how conversion works, but I'm sure you can get it less than 150 british pounds.) Paired with it is a cheap, low-power AMD Athlon LE-1640 single core 2.6Ghz processor. Through free software (CrystalCPUID), I have this underclocked down to 800Mhz @ .800 VID. When paired with a 2.5" HDD, it consumes about 30W at idle.

You can most definitely get an underclocked setup on the VERY cheap.

(BTW, 20W at idle is awesome, I'm sure the SSD helps a lot)

edit: You can still most definitely go with MiniITX, just find a MiniITX board that supports an AM/AM2/AM2+ socket, like one based on the 780G
Click to expand...


Thats good to know...
Having an AMD board will drop the costs though with a m-atx case the need for it to be mini-itx isn't as pressing..
 
NeoteriX said:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article231-page1.html offers a comprehensive (if not dated) guide to optimizing your computer using CrystalCPUID.

Using the profile manager (dynamic clockspeed management) in CrystalCPUID, you can also set 3 different clockspeeds and VIDs to allow your computer to scale based on processor load. You can underclock/volt down to minimum at idle, and have it scale up to max power when necessary!
Click to expand...

Is this not what cool 'n' quiet does anyway?
 
danswan said:
Is this not what cool 'n' quiet does anyway?
Click to expand...
Yes, but individual tweaking with CrystalCPUID is much better for a few reasons:

1) the Cool N Quiet VID figures are very conservative. You can typically undervolt much more and reduce your consumption by a good number of watts.

2) the coolnquiet p-states (clockspeeds) are predefined and not configurable. You can customize the clockspeeds and timings in crystalcpuid
 
Im going to give it a go, come payday I will be ordering a GA-MA74GM-SH2 AM2 mobo and either an AM2 X2 4400+ or a X2 4050e which will work out £70 cheaper than an Intel solution and undervolting it as low as I can get it to go....
Will try CrystalCPUID and let you know how I get on..
 
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