ITX Build for travelling

Poneros said:
Battery is easy enough to sort out. Or well, it's complicated, but doable. Too many variables to get into it without them being spelled out (location, budget, requirements etc). Nonetheless, PCs these days can be incredibly power efficient and running them even in a camper van off of batteries isn't that far off from a laptop. After all, if you're doing any kind of work that battery is going to be gone quick, so either way you'd want to sort out the energy storage unless you want to only do 1-2hrs a day of work. Remember, the work hasn't changed & the parts are not any more efficient, there's only so much you can do with a <99 Whr battery.

For example, this system if properly tuned for optimal efficiency would not require more than 250ish watts IF it was all equally and fully stressed, which is never really going to happen. So realistically you'd be looking at <200w for an absolute powerhouse. Obviously, the 2080 ti is overkill and can be changed easily for another turing gpu, but it is the most efficient GPU once properly undervolted, so there's that.
2Kf1LWv.png
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When I put them components into a PSU calculator, it comes up way more than 200w?
 
RyzenJunkie said:
When I put them components into a PSU calculator, it comes up way more than 200w?
Click to expand...

You’ve got to remember that this is based on every component drawing maximum power at the same time.

I would also expect you to be undervolting the cpu and gpu at least.
 
RyzenJunkie said:
Ok, when I mentioned threadripper, it was because I will be doing video editing with Davinci Resolve. Read lots about it and the threadripper seems to be the best. I suppose I could get away with a Ryzen 2700x or the 3 series when it's out and a Vega 64/Radeon 7/Navi

I just don't want to be lacking in power when it comes to 4k video editing.
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Threadripper would be best if you didn't give a damn about power consumption.
With lots of that additional IO stuff etc over normal Ryzen it won't ever get as low in power consumption even when doing absolutely nothing.

Similarly motherboards with lots of extras consume more power than minimal motherboards:
https://nl.hardware.info/reviews/86...p-13-borden-in-de-vergelijking-stroomverbruik
https://nl.hardware.info/reviews/84...d-up-14-borden-voor-je-ryzen-2-stroomverbruik
Current motherboard's might actually be more power efficient in normal use than coming X570, because of requirements of PCIe v4.
(unless those extra parts and things can idle/power gate properly)

Also high end graphics card is going to draw more power idling than lower end.
And non-reference cards often have all around higher consumption (and worser power efficiency) than reference model based on TechPowerUp's measurements.
Then for example in case of Vega 64 "balanced" profile being total power waste with very small performance increase over power save profile for big increase in power consumption.

When running on limited power every component needs to be chose carefully and preferably adjusted for power efficiency.
For example even four DIMMs consume some watts more power than two DIMMs.
 
Of course also PSU is something which needs to have high efficiency to avoid wasting watts.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-2-16-PSU-idle.png
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/power-lost/Figure-3-16-PSU-load.png

And if main power is going to be from batteries instead of having external source AC available, it would better to have DC input power supply.
(better to have battery charging loss when connected to grid than extra inverter losses when running PC off the grid)

Though worst DC powered PC power supplies seem to have such craptastic efficiency that high efficiency inverter and normal high efficiency PSU would cause less losses.
This would be total catastrophe in efficiency:
https://www.powerstream.com/DC-PC-12V-500.htm
Who ever sells such garbages should be keelhauled for crimes against nature of this planet...

While this would give less power waste than using inverter to feed normal PSU:
http://www.pico-box.com/en/products/1682/X500
(though single 12V battery isn't enough for that)
 
RyzenJunkie said:
When I put them components into a PSU calculator, it comes up way more than 200w?
Click to expand...
WantoN said:
You’ve got to remember that this is based on every component drawing maximum power at the same time.

I would also expect you to be undervolting the cpu and gpu at least.
Click to expand...

What WantoN said.

Also, remember what I said about efficiency before, and keep in mind that these calculators 1) over-estimate (so people get a PSU with a bigger margin of power); 2) these are plug-n-play stock numbers. It is not unrealistic to be able to HALVE the power consumption of what those calculators say, just by actually tuning the components to their optimal frequencies for performance per watt.

If you look at the 2080 ti UV video above, for example, you see ABOVE a 150w reduction through undervolting but a very minor performance loss, and his total system consumption in that scenario was still in the 300s with a 5ghz OC on the CPU, which means he could easily push it towards <300w just by easing off of that.

Something I saw on reddit just now that speaks to this, and how crazy inefficient we run our PCs, just because we don't lack electricity but want more performance:
1hk81dl5wyv21.png
 
Ok,

So what do you think would be the best 250w or lower pc I could build that would do 4k video editing? I can get enough solar panels and batteries that would allow me a few hours a day
 
Ryzen 5 2700
RTX 2070
ITX board
NVME storage drive
Corsair SF450 Platinum PSU
Dan Case A4 V4/Raijintek Ophion or similar

That lot should be in the 250W range at load using stock settings, so anything better from undervolting will allow you more time.

That style of case tends to use no case fans. They don't use a vast amount of power, but every little helps.

A Platinum rated PSU is a must really, as every Watt that's wasted is going to mean lost performance or less time for your use.
 
RyzenJunkie said:
So what do you think would be the best 250w or lower pc I could build that would do 4k video editing? I can get enough solar panels and batteries that would allow me a few hours a day
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What kind power arrangemenent you're going to have?
If battery setup voltage is enough it would be best to use that Pico-box PSU instead of wasting power in inverter.

Especially cheaper inverters aren't exactly good in efficiency.
And when adding losses of PSU we would be fast moving toward quarter of power wasted into conversion to higher voltage AC and then back to low voltage DC.


satchef1 said:
RTX 2070

That lot should be in the 250W range at load using stock settings
Click to expand...
RTX 2070 is 200+ W draw card at default settings.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_RTX_2070_Strix_OC/29.html
So would need lots of undervolting for fitting whole PC to that 250W limit.
 
Just a thought; if the total available power is only 250W, then a chunk of that needs to be set aside for a monitor. That could easily be 30W to 80W, depending on the monitor.

Maybe a laptop would be better?
 
Right,

I've seen a 200ah 12v leisure battery on Amazon .if I bought 2 or 3 of them, how much solar wattage would I need to charge them up so I could have say 500w of PC to be able to use it for say 3hrs at a time and be able to power led lighting in the motorhome? Trying to find a calculator online but can't .

I would need an inverter to change from 12v to 240 wouldn't I? Don't need if that would affect it all?
 
One 200ah will give you 100-110mins of use with a little extra thrown in for lighting etc. Also bear in mind a single 200ah agm battery will weigh 60-70kg and be 50x20x20cm ish. For 3hours of use two should be nice.

Now you can rarely charge AGMs over 90% and should not allow it to drop below 50% to preserve the life of the battery.
soooo, 90% of 200ah=180ah of which 50% is 90ah

As for solar, a single 100w panel is 100w/12v= 8.3amps,but that is assuming 100% efficiency which wont happen, 85% is the used number for marine sailboats so should work for motorhomes (i think)
85% of 100w = 85w
85w/12v = 7.08amps

50% of 400ah(two batteries) with the 90% rule and 50% minimum gives 180ah of usable power
180ah/7.08amps = 25.4hours to recharge to 90%


This is all based off my sailboat knowledge where I use a 3.5kw inverter, but should all be very similar, although the sun in the UK is rather unreliable.

this may help you
https://www.camperlands.co.uk/camping-inverters-leisure-batteries/#lookup_time
 
breadturbo said:
One 200ah will give you 100-110mins of use with a little extra thrown in for lighting etc. Also bear in mind a single 200ah agm battery will weigh 60-70kg and be 50x20x20cm ish. For 3hours of use two should be nice.

Now you can rarely charge AGMs over 90% and should not allow it to drop below 50% to preserve the life of the battery.
soooo, 90% of 200ah=180ah of which 50% is 90ah

As for solar, a single 100w panel is 100w/12v= 8.3amps,but that is assuming 100% efficiency which wont happen, 85% is the used number for marine sailboats so should work for motorhomes (i think)
85% of 100w = 85w
85w/12v = 7.08amps

50% of 400ah(two batteries) with the 90% rule and 50% minimum gives 180ah of usable power
180ah/7.08amps = 25.4hours to recharge to 90%


This is all based off my sailboat knowledge where I use a 3.5kw inverter, but should all be very similar, although the sun in the UK is rather unreliable.

this may help you
https://www.camperlands.co.uk/camping-inverters-leisure-batteries/#lookup_time
Click to expand...

Cheers for that. Seems 3x105ah would be better and weigh less. All I need is enough to power a fridge, 12v led lighting dailydail then enough to power a pc for 2 to 3hrs but that won't be every day . Probably twice a week for the pc
 
What would be the lowest power draw CPU and GPU if I wanted 8 core 16 thread and at least 8gb GPU vram? Would undervolting and therefore not overclocking the above lose me a lot of performance?
 
I'd say its closer to 70% max out of the panels in strong sun in Summer 25% max in Winter(UK), your panels are flat on the roof so not the best angle plus the heat from the van roof in summer makes them less efficient.
You need to factor in your fridge, a good efficient compressor fridge will still use at least 1Amp per hour so that alone takes 24Amps out of your batteries each day.

I only use heavy load items when I have good sun, I use 24v panels and a MPPT solar controller(Victron).
I get 35amps coming in from the panels on good Summer days.
 
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