Pico brick Psu's

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 13:57

What kind of system could these type of PSUs be used for?
Are they reliable?
What kind of wattage is available?
Thanks

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 14:49

Bradley8988 said:
Think they do 200w ones but iv got a 150w myself. For the price I would say they are reliable but as there not massively popular I can only speak for myself which has been fine.

I ran a stock Q9450 , 4GB ram, 1TB HDD, 2TB HDD, Sound card with nvidia onboard video on mine.

Currently moving to a i3 set up similar to above that i expect it should run.

There are quite efficient I think so can actually run quite a bit.

Link in sig might give you a bit of an idea.

Thanks for your reply.
I have been wanting to build a SFF PC for myself for a while now but i do not want to use an ATX PSU, i saw these pico ones but wasnt sure how good or efficient they are - you have given me some confidence in them.
I was looking at these nettops they seem to be very low powered too. so maybe a choice of building a low power SFF pc or just get a nettop.
Thanks once again

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 14:59

MikeHunt79 said:
They're good for people who like quiet computers.

The fact that they'll run fanless makes them ideal for things like HTPC's

So could i build a SFF based around a second gen i3 or i5 and have one of these pico's power it reliably?

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 15:15

MikeHunt79 said:
Yep, i3's don't use much power, especially if you don't overclock and often you can drop the vcore a little while still passing stability tests.

This is assuming you're not sticking something silly like a GTX480 in there also

600W+ PSU's are only needed for SLI or highly overclocked systems.

For a modest i3 or i5 rig a 200W PSU will work well

Lol no, no GTX 480's. I need something that is low powered, as it will be on all the time.
Something that will stream my blu ray rips from my nas to my telly. No gaming or some very light gaming as i have the two consoles. Gigabit ethernet. thats about it really.

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 16:11

Bradley8988 said:
Would be fine on a 150w prolly then. The Q9450 i had uses more power than a 2nd gen i3.

I'll have to spec myself a little set up then. I dont really like some of these SFF cases tho, nothing really stands out.

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 18:26

Bradley8988 said:
Lian-li make some of the nicests imo but there are going to be plenty of shuttle lovers around. You can obviously go really small if you dont plan on using a card of any sort and too many hard drives.

Well i was thinking of going with onboard graphics and an ssd. I really want a small as possible case that i can get away with. Silent too.
Feel free anyone to 'spec me'.

Abz Hussain · 21 Dec 2011 at 20:57

Bradley8988 said:
Although im a intel fanboi im thinking amd might be the best route to take as i think intel have a problem playing back 24frames or whatever its called you want with HD movies.

Thats not the first time i have heard that about the intels, i may well go for one of these amd fusion APU's

Abz Hussain · 22 Dec 2011 at 14:35

SGWills said:
could look at going AMD route as the llano use the cpu for processing the graphics, so no need for a dedicated card

Yeh i think i will go AMD route, was just looking at bits now as i type. Amd, pico psu, passively cooled mobo - try go get myself a nice silent build....if only there was 'hot' (pun intended lol) looking SFF case.

Abz Hussain · 31 Dec 2011 at 11:41

mranderson said:
PicoPSU's are more efficient that any ATX PSU. Only problem is the limited number of connections but you can't have everything.

Yeh im liking the option of these psu's more and more everyday.

Abz Hussain · 5 Jan 2012 at 21:40

richb93 said:
You can get a cheap nettop such as an Aspire Revo R3600. Only has an 1.6GHz Atom but is coupled with an NVIDIA ION so it plays everything flawlessly. A mate installed XBMC on his and has it hooked up to his projector running Blu-Ray rips from his server. It's an amazing little box, does 24p and 5.1 audio too. Virtually silent and uses next to no power as well! (The Atom it uses has a TDP of 4W )

Bloddy hell 4 watts :O

Abz Hussain · 5 Jan 2012 at 21:57

richb93 said:
You can get a cheap nettop such as an Aspire Revo R3600. Only has an 1.6GHz Atom but is coupled with an NVIDIA ION so it plays everything flawlessly. A mate installed XBMC on his and has it hooked up to his projector running Blu-Ray rips from his server. It's an amazing little box, does 24p and 5.1 audio too. Virtually silent and uses next to no power as well! (The Atom it uses has a TDP of 4W )

Also are the AMD APU's not slightly better than the ATOM/ION combo?