On the face of it maybe but actually I think the case its pretty cheap, people pay £90 for some non passive itx cases, and this one is very high quality, it's all very think aluminium and far cheaper than any other passive cases I could find.
New build: low wattage (<20w) idle, totally passive, gaming HTPC
- Thread starter Bigsy
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I agree I have a atom+ion and a celeron+ion (nd22) they run xbmc very well, on linux too which is a nice bonus in my book. My issue with them is the very poor idle power draw.Well you didn't say that in your list of requirements
Edit: I have 3 xbmc machines here ranging from an older Atom/Ion to an E8400. Can't tell the difference between them for playback...
I keep my boxes on 24/7 (well just this box now) so idle power is important to me, I couldn't get the atom system to idle under 29w and the celeron was about 24>25w and when you consider there repetitively poor performace I decided on doing what I have done.
I get better idle power 24/7 as this box is now my home server + nas, and I now have headroom to play a bit of pro evo on the big tv when friends come round etc.
I've lent my power plug thingy to a mate but from memory it used about 1w for about 10 seconds which dropped to nothing, well least not anything that registered.
As I say memory isn't the best, I'll recheck it when I get the plug back.
As I say memory isn't the best, I'll recheck it when I get the plug back.
Personally I think an 80w would be fine, even if it became borderline with added bits, knocking a little voltage off the cpu/ram/NB can bring total wattage down quite a bit.
Having said that 120w picos can be had for so cheap I don't see a good reason not to buy one.
Having said that 120w picos can be had for so cheap I don't see a good reason not to buy one.
Indeed I used the deluxe, the 19.5w was idle at desktop with everything enabled on the mobo (wireless, BT, audio, lan etc) and with a wireless dongle for keyboard/mouse in a usb port. Also:
*A6-3500 was overclocked to 3.65Ghz (but it gets automatically down clock to ~1ghz and reduce volts at idle by the mobo).
*4gb running at 2100Mhz, standard volts
*64gb Crucial M4
And nothing else, no mechanical drive or dvd rom etc.
*A6-3500 was overclocked to 3.65Ghz (but it gets automatically down clock to ~1ghz and reduce volts at idle by the mobo).
*4gb running at 2100Mhz, standard volts
*64gb Crucial M4
And nothing else, no mechanical drive or dvd rom etc.
I didn't, but if you want to go crazy I reckon you could probably get close to 15w if not lower by undervolting.
Popular opinion is that the default vcore on a lot of the lower end a6's is too high. I run overclocked to 3.65 with a slight undervolt and its 100% stable, if you run stock I reckon you could knock a ton of vcore off it. Probably to the ram and mobo too.
Ok, in that case deffo take your pure numbers with a pinch of salt, still comparatively you numbers work for you
If you check this table: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fusion-intel-core-i3_8.html#sect0
It shows that the cpu ALONE pulls 8w at idle and 15.5w when playing a movie.
Bare in mind that these readings are taken directly off the cpu 12v rail so very very accurate.
Now factor in mobo, ram, ssd, hdd, etc and a psu efficiency of ~85% and you can see how way out your meter must be, in fact given your previous odd readings with it I might suggest its just plain busted
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Should be fine, cpu-z thinks my overclocked A-3500 is ~90watts TDP and it has perfectly respectable temps.