Fastest CPU that can be passively (or virtually passively) cooled

[Alexrose1uk]

Hi guys,
Wasn't quite sure whether to put this in CPUs or in Cooling, but figured this subforum might be slightly more relevant, as I'm primarily focusing on the CPU. Basic issue is I've taken my eyes off desktop hardware for a year or so, and things seem to have shifted a bit

Got a family member after a PC upgrade with a fairly aged box (still running a AMD64 3200+) single core, so tempted to do her a favour, sell her my old HTPC core parts, and upgrade my HTPC whilst at it, as I'd planned to swap some bits in it anyway. Now I've been quite a stickler for noise when I built the machine, so it's exceptionally quiet, loudest bit is probably the external HDD, and I'm wondering what I could get away with.

It'd be going into an ATX sized case, so no size issues, perhaps 10cm clearance to the removeable 'ceiling' of the case for a medium sized heatsink. Airflow is 2*120mm 600rpm virtually silent light airflow fans and some vents.

What CPU do you reckon I could get away with, I'm sure there must be stuff out there nowadays that runs cooler than my AMD X2

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Cheers, will take a look at the i3. If anyone else has any suggestions fire away

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, unfortunately at 16cm, the Thermalright is too 'tall' for my case, I have a feeling I checked it out when I was putting the machine together first time round just over a year ago, and I don't want to get really want to get rid of the case. Right now I'm running a AMD X2 5200+ with a Zalman CNPS 7500 and custom fan job, which'd be going off to the family member (she gets a cheap PC upgrade, I get some cash towards my upgrade...win win)

The setup doesn't have to be 100% passive (as I've got SOME fans in the case), but it does need to be virtually inaudible... I'm running 600RPM fans, SSD, customised Zalman as the default fan was too noticeable and a Nexus Value 430 PSU (look this PSU up on SilentPC Review if you've never heard of it ) which really is almost silent. I'm not planning to overclock at all.

It might be a bit cheap and basic, but I'm using OcUK's Opera case. I *could* change this, but it's about perfect size for the spacing I've got for it, and it'd add to the cost. Aside having a slightly duff front USB connector, the case generally does the job

@micky, as I stated in the OP, it's for my HTPC, the whole point of the upgrade is it'd be a win-win scenario for me and the family member; I get a more 'futureproof' machine with a little more oomph under the cover, and she gets a pretty hefty upgrade (2Ghz single core to 2.7Ghz dual core) on the cheap.

Edit:
If the 2100 is as good as it sounds in terms of power consumption and heat, I was considering the Scythe Shuriken cooler. Would definately fit in the case and sounds like a relatively decent cooler without costing a bomb. If the fans's too loud I'll swap in a different one

 

[Alexrose1uk]

There are two side ports on the case that'll take a 12cm fan. I've got two Sharkoon Silent Eagles in there blowing air in over the graphics card passive cooler and out next to the CPU. Perhaps they've changed the case since I bought mine, but the vents are definately there. If you take a look at the picture on the OcUK site and zoom the Opera case's picture you can just about see one of the grills.

Will have to check out spacing, have to admit the Noctua might be a tad too pricey as well, cheers for the recommendation, your cheap build looks virtually identical to what I was looking at, will have to take a look and see if the board supports Wake on LAN.

Edit: Hard to find a conclusive answer, so might opt for a cheaper H61 board with confirmed WOL, not like I really need the performance features, and the extra 10 or so would be enough to opt for another 2GB of RAM or put towards another 2TB drive.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I've already got a passive GT220 (which I might swap to a 430 near Xmas dependant on how flush I am haha), I'm not planning to use the GPU capabilities of the new CPU. I did take a look into the 2100T briefly, but the review I read didn't seem to think much of it, costs more, slower, and didn't really run that much cooler or energy efficiently in real world terms, certainly not to the level the TDP suggested it might; and as I won't be using the onboard GPU, I understand it should switch that module off for better power consumption and lower heat overall.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I've read about it on numerous reviews, apparently the IGP can only do 24Hz, not 23.976Hz. It was mentioned in one review they've come up with a partial work around, but its still not perfect, and certainly worse than AMD/NVidia's implementations (even if they're not perfect themselves).

It's not power that's an issue, but the actual hardware implementation. As I've got the passive GT220 though, its not a real bother to me, as I was never planning to use it

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Part of me wishes there was a cheaper chip, same performance but no IGP, save a little cash haha, I'm sure the market would be there.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

It would not surprise me if the HD6410D IGP is better for media use than a GT220.

Purely due to experience I'd say it'd probably be swings and roundabouts. On the box/face of it the ATI is better, HD Audio for a start, the downside is that I've experienced some occasional errors when using ATI hardware decoding, artifacts, blocking and the like, which weren't present when thrown at Nvidia's equivalent. Might be down to a bad driver batch, bug in the software at the time or whatever; or even perhaps an issue that has been dealt with since the 5-series decoding ASIC, but my experiences with Nvidia, although not 100%, have been slightly better for HTPC applications.

As I've stated before elsewhere, originally I'd planned to stick a cheaper 5450 in my HTPC first time round, but because of the above I ended up going for the more expensive Nvidia passive card. It's swings and roundabout and I've not tried a 6 series GPU to see if that performs any better, but for the sake of taking the relatively hassle free option, I went Nvidia, I'd rather not buy a card and end up selling it to replace a month or two down the line, it's just more hassle.

This being said, I'm probably going to swap the GT220 forward to a GT430 at some point in the future once I've got a bit of cash and found a not excessively priced passive varient (Zotac Zone for example). Unfortunately the GT520 has a few flaws which prevent it from being a suitable replacement, and the GT530 with a little more grunt, hopefully enough to avoid the afforementioned issues with the 520 (as lack of shaders etc was Nvidia's argument to the cause), is more or less OEM only.

If I was planning to use the IGP, I'd be more tempted to take a serious look at Llano, but as I'm not, my money's likely to go on raw CPU performance, which seems to pretty much be a win for the I3-2100/2120, except in heavily threaded scenarios. I could be wrong here but I read the i3 ran slightly cooler than the Llano too, especially if the IGP on the I3 wasn't in use; and as I want to get away with virtually silent cooling, thats a point to the i3 for me.


Edit: not that I hate tinkering or new tech, as this whole upgrade has grown out of a need to add an extra HDD and LAN card, the want for a little more power for the future to deal with things like Hi10, and a family member looking for a cheapy upgrade haha
All combined to make a pretty convenient excuse to upgrade this month or next

 

[Alexrose1uk]

The i3 is going into the media PC, the old x2 5200+ I was running the HTPC with is going off to the family member to be used as thier main box (they are the ones who have a 3200+, and need an upgrade, but are quite tight on cash).

Part of the reason I want the extra power is to keep things running fluently once there is more hi10 material out there (which can't be GPU/hardware offloaded, and thus must be decoded in CPU), plus a decent percentage of the material viewed by me and a few others on the machine has subbing, some of which is more advanced and can push CPU usage up, even with the GPU offloading at current. The Big Shuriken is meant to be better than the tiny cooler that comes with the i3, so heat shouldnt be an issue as I'm running in a full sized case, rather than a relatively cramped shuttle.

There's also the simple fact that the HTPC is also my backup system, I've found myself wanting before in this regards, and upgrading the HTPC will ensure it will be up to the task in the case of having to put it to use as such.

I use my main rig for encoding and the likes; so that's out the hands of the HTPC, which simply needs to run fast, cool and quiet, with reasonable overhead to account for the future, at the moment it doesn't have this.

Judging by Anandtech's review, the i3-2100/2120 (also 65w TDP) chips will be better overall with this in mind, as although the idle is very slightly lower with the A8, the load/use power consumption is a fair chunk lower with the i3. The i3 additionally seems to perform stronger than the A8 when it can't leverage all 4 cores well against a task.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/9

As they conclude themselves:
"If gaming isn't something you're going to be doing then you're better off with Sandy Bridge. And at that point there's no need to spring for the Core i3-2105, the standard 2100 will do just fine."

The i3-2120 doesnt cost very much more, doesn't run much hotter or thirstily, has a little more oomph under the cover and should be even closer to the a3800 even under multithreaded tasks, and a clear winner in single threaded performance.

As the CPU performance, and not the IGP performance is the decider for me, that's what has swayed me to the i3.

I discounted the i5s as they're hotter, more power hungry and more expensive, and whilst faster, it indeed would be overkill, especially as the additional demands would work against me in the heat/noise departments. The i3 does seem like the best compromise for what I need/want. The i3-2100t is theoretically even better, but a few of the reviews I read seem to indicate that the heat/power reduction isn't anywhere as high as the TDP reduction (65w-->35w) would indicate, especially considering part of the difference is the slower IGP, which is going to be running disabled regardless of which chip I went for.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Edit: Bleh, spent some time trying to work out how to explain, and then it logged me out

The difference between the i3-2100/2120 is all of ~£5, I've been keeping them both in mind since the beginning; power consumption and heat generation is almost identical, so for the purpose of this thread, they may as well be one and the same.

I have already stated the point of the upgrade is for a faster underlying system to give more headroom, for media use (when unable to decode via the GPU, simultaneously to dealing with advanced subs), future additional tasks I may decide to roll onto the machine, and to enable the system to function as a backup system; whilst simultaneously trying to seek the best compromise between performance, heat, and power consumption and (probably without needing to say) cost; I want to run the system (almost) silently.

I am aware none of these chips are slow and that IPC has improved, however, like I say in the very name of the title, I'm after the fastest chip/best compromise with the above goals in mind - as the saying goes, you may as well go the whole yard/if you're going to do something, you may as well do it well.

The current i3 range seem to be the best chips for this goal, although I've also been considering the Pentium chips as well, however the i3 should last a little longer overall (like you say, they're the same chips but with HT, and a slightly higher clock speed). The i5 would last longer again, but is hotter, more costly, and uses more power, bearing in mind I do not want to change the case, I am slightly more limited in terms of coolers, so I have to bear this in mind.

I do indeed mention upgrading the GT220, the point is not that I can't afford the upgrade, but that I can't afford to do it all at once, the core system upgrade (and thus being able to my offer my family member an upgrade as well) is a higher priority to me than upgrading the card to offer HD codec bitstream and a slightly faster decoder/processing chip, bearing in mind this'd eventually become redundant anyway.

I will have to do a bit more reading on the i5 2500t etc as I'll admit I discounted the entire i5 line early on when I was reading through reviews.


Please be aware even if I may not seem it, I'm glad for the discussion as it does help me think through this properly and weigh my opinions against others haha

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Just the additional cost of doing it at once, and the fact I haven't got another home for the GT220 right now I'd guess. It's kinda backburner, nice to do but not really much of a priority for me, I've ummed and ahh'd about it a few times

I've also yet to see a GT430 with passive cooling for less than £60-65 outside of eBay at any of the stores I trust haha (which I'm not going to name as I'd probably accidentally earn a forum vacation )

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I wasn't selling the entire system, just the old Mobo, Ram, CPU cooler and CPU , the core components so to speak. My aunt's system currently has a 3650 in it which is more than enough for the amount of gaming/sort of games played on it, it's the CPU etc that's holding the general performance back (well that and perhaps the older HDD but baby steps as her budget is extremely tight haha)

I was planning to carry over my GT220 to the new build for now, along with the case, case fans, PSU, SSD and storage drives, it's just the mobo, cooler, CPU and RAM I was changing. The 430 would be nice, but its cost at once I could do without, especially as I'm not even settled on the processor yet

 

[Alexrose1uk]

If she's struggling, I've got a number of GPU's I can send her way
Got a spare 4850 sitting on the shelf boxed up for example haha, I think she's and a few other family members have had more free upgrades than I can count because of this sort of thing hehe

Edit: hmmmm, found that passive 430. Haven't used those guys for a *loooong time* after they messed me about on a case; pretty sure they've changed owners since! Only bit that worries me is ordered on request, which typically means we don't have any but think we know someone who does haha

 

[Alexrose1uk]

This is very good advice imo.

Yes, it is, it's weighing up whether the extra cost is worth the extra power for future flexibility (bearing in mind it's secondary use is as a backup PC, and PCs tend to stick around this household quite some time in one fashion or another, still using an old P4 barebone system as a server/torrent box for example), the Pentium chips are my second choices (never thought I'd say that again haha) after the i3 The fact I've now seen an (admittedly to order, not in stock) passive GT430 also makes things more interesting.
On the face of immediate tasks the Pentium should be more than enough, just trying to work out whether the extra cost is worthwhile for future use; plus the Pentiums are very close in power consumption to the 35W TDP processors, which is a boon.

If I was to go for a Pentium it'd almost certainly be a G840, rather than 50, as the 850 seem a little too close in price to the i3, and out of the other two, the 840 seems to provide the best performance per £.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Haha, cost to performance argument solved.
Managed to pick up a i3-2100 brand new boxed on the MM for £75. Close enough to the Pentium 840/50 I don't feel like I've spent too much, but oomph is there if I need/want it.

Leaves me a bit more cash to put towards the GT 430