Power efficient build

BoomAM

BoomAM

BoomAM

Soldato
Joined
5 Jul 2003
Posts
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Location
Atlanta, USA
Afternoon all,
As a random question, i'm consider the idea of replacing my old desktop with a newer one, but rather than going for something that's significantly faster, i'm looking for something that's roughly the same speed as a minimum, but significantly more power efficient. If it ends up being quicker, great.
Unusual build requirement i agree. :p

Current spec:
Q6600 (SLACKR)
Abit P35 Pro
8Gb RAM
nVidia GeForce GTX285
128Gb SSD / 500Gb SATA

The existing power supply and case (Corsair Modular 650W & Antec P182 v1) should suffice as the base of the system fine i would have thought...

Anyone got some ideas?

Thanks.
 
Everything, inc a little gaming (would have thought the aging spec list would have given that away ;) )
 
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Passive cooling will help efficiency as no energy will be required to run the fans. So you'd be looking at an ix-4x70T or S (e.g. this i5-4670S) for their low base speeds but high boost speeds with a Nofan cooler, a passively cooled Geforce GTX 750 Ti, and a passive PSU.
 
Grimley said:
Haswell low power spec? similar to mine.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4570S 2.90GHz Low Power (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £143.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97-HD3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £62.99
Total : £296.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).

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Looks good, any suggestions on video cards that are similar in power to the GTX 285 ?
 
Quartz said:
Passive cooling will help efficiency as no energy will be required to run the fans.
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I'm not sure it'll be a noticable difference but its a valid point.

I'm wondering if its worth replacing the case in the same hit too...
 
I can recommend the Silverstone rotated cases because when the motherboard is rotated the hot air from each element rises separately and does not rise flow over other components as would happen in a normal case. The other type of case I'd recommend is one where the motherboard is flat e.g. the Aerocool DS or the Bitfenix Prodigy M for similar reasons, though the PSU is underneath in these cases.

Don't worry about having the GPU in the x8 slot - you won't see any performance loss.

I should also mention that you could get rid of your HDD and get a largish SSD. OCUK currently have the 250 GB Samsung on special offer.
 
Quartz said:
I can recommend the Silverstone rotated cases because when the motherboard is rotated the hot air from each element rises separately and does not rise flow over other components as would happen in a normal case. The other type of case I'd recommend is one where the motherboard is flat e.g. the Aerocool DS or the Bitfenix Prodigy M for similar reasons, though the PSU is underneath in these cases.

Don't worry about having the GPU in the x8 slot - you won't see any performance loss.

I should also mention that you could get rid of your HDD and get a largish SSD. OCUK currently have the 250 GB Samsung on special offer.
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That Aerocool case is quite nice.
RE: HDDs, nah, the 128Gb SSD i have for windows/apps is fine when coupled with the 500Gb for alternative storage.

So upto now, the spec list looks like:
Aerocool Case@ £72.95

Intel i5-4570S@ £143.99

Kingston 8Gb DDR3 Kit@ £65.99

Gigabyte Z97M-D3H@ £77.99

Would be nice to find a mobo that'd fit 2x PCI-E x16 (both at at least 8x capability).

Then its a case of identifying a good video card + CPU HSF. (Shame i cant reuse my Scythe off my existing system as its a beast of a cooler).
The 750Ti vs 760...are AMD cards worth looking at?
 
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The 750 Ti imo is in a league of its own when it comes to power efficiency, the GTX 760 is obviously faster.

The GTX 750 Ti is approx 60 watts under load, the GTX 760 at 170 watts and your GTX 285 runs at 204 ish watts.
 
Unfortunately OCUK don't sell the Nofan (and I'd recommend the CR-90 over the CR-80) and board rules don't allow me to link to the supplier.

As for the AMD vs Nvidia debate, AFAIAA the EVGA 750 Ti is the most powerful silent GPU available, BICBW. Palit do a different version, but OCUK don't sell that. A German company called Colourful used to do a silent GTX 680 but would not sell it in the consumer market (I asked).
 
Quartz said:
The OP isn't asking about power consumption but power efficiency. 3DMarks per watt and similar.
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Usually it's actually the fastest card in a generation that gets this crown, in particular the dual GPU one.

BoomAM, just name a budget and what games you want to play on what monitor. Anything you buy will be a few times faster and use the same or less power.
 
This is what went for last year, so you should easily be able to find something better: http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=893&lang=en

I've always been impressed by how much grunt such a small card has, plus it keeps cool and doesn't use up to much electricity.

I'm keeping an eye on this thread, as I too would like an energy efficient computer. However I've come to discover that such a thing is almost unheard of in these days of fancy technology and energy conscious minds.
 
darael said:
I'm keeping an eye on this thread, as I too would like an energy efficient computer. However I've come to discover that such a thing is almost unheard of in these days of fancy technology and energy conscious minds.
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(I know we've typed back and forth about this a few times now darael, don't take this as a personal attack or anything please just having a discussion!) :)

Are you talking about efficiency or low power? Because there's actually a lot going on in the low power segment. For example you could get an AMD Jaguar APU that uses 20 W full loaded in Skyrim and can do 30 FPS (with low settings). That's less than most light bulbs!

If you're talking about efficiency, even the high performance new stuff uses way less power than the old stuff, you don't need to (IMO) hunt around for the low-power parts unless you're counting every watt.

Take the OP's Q6600 compared to the i7 4770K for example. This is about as "apples to oranges" as you can get but bear with me!

A 2007 system with a Q6600 and 8800GTX might idle at about 160 W. A system with an i7 4770K and GTX 680 today might idle at... 60 W. You've gone from £182/year leaving it on all the time to £68/year.

OK throwing away £70/year is still a waste but getting the idle power down from 60 W is a real battle. Dropping down to a lowly i3 only gets you down to around 45 W in exchange for 60% of your CPU performance. Not a good trade IMO.

At full load (video conversion) the numbers are 205 W on the old one vs 125 W on the new one, not as big of a drop but damn impressive considering the new machine is nearly 3x as fast.

This is why I wrote BoomAM can literally buy any component (s)he wants, even the high performance stuff is half the power and much quicker. The "low power" stuff is insanely-less-power and probably still better :p
 
If you're counting every watt then you'll probably want to replace your PSU too.

From the wording of the OP I guess it's more about low power, less about grunt, so a 750Ti would be a good option.
 
Gold or platinum PSU is first step to power efficiency.

After this the newer SSD's, then 5400 rpm ECO drives for data.

CPU, Chipsets and memory can all be under volted. A quality PSU helps as more stable power allows more under volting. For example i'm running 1.5v memory at 1.3v, I also suspect that under volting extends the life of components. Both my i7 4770's are under volted by fair amount also, this reduces heat so less fan activity.

Finally running Intel on board GPU is great power saving, however this may not be an option.

Quartz said:
I can recommend the Silverstone rotated cases because when the motherboard is rotated the hot air from each element rises separately
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I own 3 of these, 2 are running in 24/7 servers, great cooling on these.
 
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