Low power CPU

dave28

dave28

dave28

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28 Jun 2013
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So like many people here i imagine, i have a pile of spare parts from changes / upgrades / etc etc.

The thing is i dont want to sell them because i would only get a very low amount considering what they cost so thought i might just build a 2nd PC.

I have seem to have everything except motherboard and CPU. ( i wont be using a dedicated GPU )
The case is a mid size tower desktop.

My main PC is quite power hungry so my idea is to make a very efficient and low power PC.

My problem is the CPU i guess.

Ideally i would have liked a CPU that is ultra low power like 15w or something but i cant seem to find any.

Most seem to be 65w which is not high i know but i just like the idea of ultra lower power as an excuse to build a 2nd PC.

So can anyone think of a cpu / mpbo combo that would fit a mid tower desktop
 
Doesn’t really answer your question and it’s still 45w. But you can get mini pc’s prebuilt for around the £300 mark.

I was quite lucky and got a tiny pc with 10400T for 259-265. First one I paid more, then got 3 more cheaper.

technically it would fix inside the case while in its own case :)

but even nuc’s use more than 15w, I picked up the dual 2.5gb nic version and think that’s 28w
 
Any CPU can be super power efficient. Just need to set low voltage (1.0V and below) and low clocks (below 3.5GHz) manually. So that slightly narrows your choise of motherboards to something above low-tier, need some overclocking functions to be present in BIOS.
No dedicated GPU means it pretty much has to be Intel. Or AMD APU.

Alternatively, simply setting low power powerplan in windows would keep most modern CPUs at idle clocks and under 15W consumption.
 
alec said:
Any CPU can be super power efficient. Just need to set low voltage (1.0V and below) and low clocks (below 3.5GHz) manually. So that slightly narrows your choise of motherboards to something above low-tier, need some overclocking functions to be present in BIOS.
No dedicated GPU means it pretty much has to be Intel. Or AMD APU.

Alternatively, simply setting low power powerplan in windows would keep most modern CPUs at idle clocks and under 15W consumption.
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I had not thought of that, i will have a look into the powerplans effects etc.....
 
Joxeon said:
What do you want to use the 2nd PC for?
Click to expand...

just browsing internet, forums, downloading

dont need any gaming or anything that needs grunt

i wouldnt bother building one but i have most of the parts and as i say, i dont really want to sell them since they wouldnt be worth it
 
No matter which CPU you get will be low power if your only browsing / email.

Maybe look for a cheap pentium CPU + board.
 
I built the wife a new pc based around a Ryzen 3 4300GE which is only 35w and is a cracking cpu. At the time I paid something like £142 for it but prices have increased to £160 now although that's come down from the £180 it was a couple of weeks ago.
 
thanks guys, it makes sense that if your just doing light tasks that CPU is not going to burn much power so its probably a silly idea that i got into my head that you need some ultra low TDP rating
 
Power supplies can make a difference, but so can the choice of motherboards.
Group test of motherboards used to show that, but it is less common.
Makes sense that a board build to handle a 5950X or a 11900K with fancier VRMs is going to idle worse than a something more modest. (Always assuming cheaper parts on a cheap board aren't terribly inefficient.)
Ryzen has a configurable TDP which most motherboards should support.
There are actually NUCs which use mobile parts. Which means usually it's all soldered.
ASRock do those DeskMini like the X300 which take a normal AM4 processor and were reviewed idling at around 10W. SoDIMM only which might prevent you re-using any spare RAM.
 
Any modest motherboard and CPU from Haswell onwards will idle at 20 watt or less with the IGP and a decent PSU. ASRock are pretty good for that. Most reviews show comet lake using more at idle than 6-9th gen, but my experience is that they're still pretty low. APUs are a bit pricey.
 
My two sons have i5 8500T 35w (configurable down to 25w) 2.1ghz / 3.5ghz 6 core CPU's in their gaming PC's I got from two Dell 3060 UFF desktops. Coupled with gtx 2060 super/gtx 2060 they are brilliant 1080p/75mhz gaming PC's. Both have 120mm AIO CPU coolers run cool and quiet.
 
Would a low-power laptop be worth considering?

I frequently use an old Acer laptop (i7-2720, 8Gb, SSD) which is more than fast enough for office type work, browsing and even some (very) light gaming. According to my power monitor, it uses 8w at idle with the screen closed, about 12-18w when in general use and only ever draws 45w when running hard and charging the battery.
 
MrFunex said:
Would a low-power laptop be worth considering?

I frequently use an old Acer laptop (i7-2720, 8Gb, SSD) which is more than fast enough for office type work, browsing and even some (very) light gaming. According to my power monitor, it uses 8w at idle with the screen closed, about 12-18w when in general use and only ever draws 45w when running hard and charging the battery.
Click to expand...
Well yes, can't beat laptop for low power PC, but not relevant to OP original post, where he has all the parts of a desktop build bar motherboard/cpu
 
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