Low Power build

owon

owon

owon

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Joined
19 May 2006
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52
Hi I have not posted in a while but I need help building my new media pc.

I know I need good storage about 2x3tb 7200 drives.

But I want it to be as quick as possible but the main thing I also want it to be as low powered as possible so I can leave it running day or night without running up a big electric bill.

Gaming is not important to me.

Any help would be welcome thx.
 
Well quick and low powered don't really go together. What sort of files you going to be throwing at this media PC? Do you really need it running day and night? would a NAS box and media player be better?
 
Thx for the reply
Mainly for my vast film tv show and movie collection also for surfing the web.
Doesn't have to be lighting quick even a basic dual core processors and a mobo with USB3 would be great. Just seen a lot off the low power rebuilds and they have 1.6gh atoms which seems very low spec. Hoping to get away with a 300 watt PSU.
 
Firstly look at your psu, its no good having a low power build if you psu isnt efficient

id start at something like this

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £95.99
1 x ASRock Z77 Pro4-M Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £77.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Corsair Value 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Single Channel Module (VS2GB1333D3) £11.99
Total : £244.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



MATX will be more efficient than a full size mobe the i3 will de clock to nothing when idle and a single low power ddr3 stick will suck less than dual sticks powered by a quality gold rated psu and at idle with a could have drive you should be under 100 watts easy, should still decode blurays at 1080 too
 
I leave my 750 watt PSU PC on day and night. my electricity bill is never ran up or huge. i also used to have (similiar to the below) a case that came with a 500 watt psu and that was also on day and night and still didn't seem to make a huge dent on my electricity bill.

for price. i would get the below. you don't need an I3 as everything will be streaming , im assuming across the lan cable. 2 3 tb hard drives are cheapest there. this mboard is cheap and has 2 6 gb/s sata slots for the 2 hard drives. 4 gb of ram.

if you budget is a lot more than this, i will take another crack at some better components :)

YOUR BASKET
2 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) £126.98 (£253.96)
1 x ASRock H77 Pro4-M Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £67.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £56.99
1 x OcUK Imp MicroATX Tower Case (500w PSU) £29.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £458.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
Thx for getting back to me
My current rig is old and has a 650 PSU.
My electricity cost has went down over 20 quid a month since I started switch it off when going to work. It still has an 8800 gts card and less than 1tb hd so I could use the update. Not sure about using the old parts could use a mobo with USB3 and hdmi sockets. The case is also falling apart
 
My vote goes for a NAS box and a media player if you want always on and low power as total power would be 30w max

otherwise my vote goes to a pentium sandy, cheapest mobo with everything you need/want and a single stick of 2/4gb ddr3.
 
Both could work but last night I saw a OC pre build Nano 110i system for 265. I think it's only 90 watts. The storage is a lot smaller but I could buy a sharkoon. Would post the link but I have not figured out how to copy and past URLs on my phone yet.
 
I have decided that matx is the way to go for this unless there is an all in one solution that is compatible with pfsense for around 200$ and offers similar performance. I'm not opposed to an itx solution but again it must fit the 200$ or less mark.
 
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