7850k overkill?

Tee Hee Johnson · 13 Apr 2015 at 15:33

Hello!

I currently have an htpc, and 7850k... It is purely a media centre.

I think its over kill, so thinking about a change... Would also like to quieten it down some!

Oh and I Aldo like tinkering, so that justifies the change

How is the intel HD 2500 found on the i3 3220? Or should I aim for haswell i3... Or will pentium suffice!

Thanks guys!

Psycho Sonny · 13 Apr 2015 at 15:36

What is the point your going to end up losing money and have inferior performance surely?

Now that you have one keep it. I would only change if you were upgrading.

lucid · 13 Apr 2015 at 21:33

Psycho Sonny said:
What is the point your going to end up losing money and have inferior performance surely?

To be fair, the OP does mention about making the PC quieter.

craig_kennedy83,
You really don't need that much processing power to play media files on to a TV. Have a look at some of the NUCs and even the Android MX boxes. So yes, you could quite easily downgrade and get passive cooling to make things silent.

Psycho Sonny · 13 Apr 2015 at 23:10

Buy quieter fans?

Limit the speed of the fans?

Undervolt the CPU?

Plenty of options available without needing to tear the system apart and spend money on a new CPU and mobo.

Tee Hee Johnson · 14 Apr 2015 at 16:47

Psycho Sonny said:
What is the point your going to end up losing money and have inferior performance surely?

Now that you have one keep it. I would only change if you were upgrading.

Kinda want inferior performance, that's almost the point.

lucid said:
To be fair, the OP does mention about making the PC quieter.

craig_kennedy83,
You really don't need that much processing power to play media files on to a TV. Have a look at some of the NUCs and even the Android MX boxes. So yes, you could quite easily downgrade and get passive cooling to make things silent.

Thanks! Ooo NUC's look interesting, if not expensive for what they are.

Psycho Sonny said:
Buy quieter fans?

Limit the speed of the fans?

Undervolt the CPU?

Plenty of options available without needing to tear the system apart and spend money on a new CPU and mobo.

Fan is on silent, it's an Arctic Cooling something or other. Only other fan is the PSU, perhaps that is where the noise is coming from. Oh I do have 1 mechanical drive in it for media, most runs from the SSD.

My last motherboard, I'm sure, had settings to turn off cpu cores. From what I can see this one does not! Fortunately I stumbled across TDP, which I have now set to 45 rather than 95.

Perhaps I could go all passive, PSU and CPU.

Scougar · 14 Apr 2015 at 17:42

It does everything you need it to?

Unless this is something to do with money... then just de-clock or get a better cooler to get quieter, and yes... the PSU can definitely be making noise.

Grimley · 14 Apr 2015 at 17:53

craig_kennedy83 said:
Hello!
Oh and I Aldo like tinkering, so that justifies the change

Tinkering + media centre = Raspberry pi 2

For the price its very good & you can use it for other PC projects too. At least buy one for school IT homework if you have teenage kids. For the record it makes no noise at all!

Tee Hee Johnson · 14 Apr 2015 at 18:45

Grimley said:
Tinkering + media centre = Raspberry pi 2

For the price its very good & you can use it for other PC projects too. At least buy one for school IT homework if you have teenage kids. For the record it makes no noise at all!

I already have the first gen one, using as wee web server.