The summer is getting ever closer, and with it the very real threat that my electricity bill will no longer be included in my rent. Current computer is somewhere around 500W and spends most of its time folding, I've somehow convinced myself that the tenner a week in electricity justifies buying a low power computer. However I'm having considerable difficulty choosing a specification, so I'm hoping you kind folks can help me out.
I have a budget of around 150W for mini-itx motherboard, dual core cpu, ram and graphics only. Not gaming in the sense these boards usually take it, but I'll be annoyed if it's incapable of running age of empires or morrowind.
There are a few options that I've found, but none seem quite right.
1/ Atom + ion, comes easily under the wattage limit but is very slow
2/ i3 + intel H55 board, within wattage limits, fast.
3/ i3 + zotac H55 board, limited overclocking, infamous aftersales support and fair chance of mortality.
4/ E8400 + intel/zotac board, much as above two options
5/ i3 + dfi P55 board, great if I can get discrete graphics within budget
6/ J&W am2+ board, dual core amd. I very much like the board, but it's not very power efficient and I don't know anything about amd processors
Budget isn't too much of an issue, but I want this to be small, fast, quiet and reliable. It should be easily possible to get these four components for under 400. I'd appreciate any input you can offer, especially from those knowledgeable about the amd half of the field.
The mac mini offers a 2.26ghz c2d, 2gb ram, nvidia chipset for 500 quid. This is pretty poor value for money imo, so that's out unless they introduce i3 based ones in the near future.
I have a budget of around 150W for mini-itx motherboard, dual core cpu, ram and graphics only. Not gaming in the sense these boards usually take it, but I'll be annoyed if it's incapable of running age of empires or morrowind.
There are a few options that I've found, but none seem quite right.
1/ Atom + ion, comes easily under the wattage limit but is very slow
2/ i3 + intel H55 board, within wattage limits, fast.
3/ i3 + zotac H55 board, limited overclocking, infamous aftersales support and fair chance of mortality.
4/ E8400 + intel/zotac board, much as above two options
5/ i3 + dfi P55 board, great if I can get discrete graphics within budget
6/ J&W am2+ board, dual core amd. I very much like the board, but it's not very power efficient and I don't know anything about amd processors
Budget isn't too much of an issue, but I want this to be small, fast, quiet and reliable. It should be easily possible to get these four components for under 400. I'd appreciate any input you can offer, especially from those knowledgeable about the amd half of the field.
The mac mini offers a 2.26ghz c2d, 2gb ram, nvidia chipset for 500 quid. This is pretty poor value for money imo, so that's out unless they introduce i3 based ones in the near future.
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