Power efficient build

stulid · 16 Nov 2014 at 15:17

The new GTX970 are very power efficient.

I think the R9 285 is ok too.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8460/amd-radeon-r9-285-review/18

darael · 16 Nov 2014 at 18:57

stulid said:
The new GTX970 are very power efficient.

I think the R9 285 is ok too.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8460/amd-radeon-r9-285-review/18

Glad to see I made the right choice in buying my GTX 660 last year. :cool:

Scottland · 16 Nov 2014 at 19:11

I just put together a similar machine comprising of a 35w TDP i3 (4360T), 430w be quiet PSU and a GTX 970. Part of me now wants one of the 'T' i7 chips, but not sure I would see much benefit for an extra £100.

This is in a Silverstone PS09 and is pretty quiet.

edscdk · 16 Nov 2014 at 19:41

Lower powrr but dont mind if its no faster? If you want to savr money stick with what you have.

BoomAM · 23 Nov 2014 at 14:10

edscdk said:
Lower powrr but dont mind if its no faster? If you want to savr money stick with what you have.

Thanks for your advice. Very useful.

The R9 285 looks to be the sweet spot graphics wise.

Whats the opinion nowadays on Intel vs AMD for gaming purposes?

stulid · 23 Nov 2014 at 14:13

Intel best if you can afford it, they also use less watts.

pastymuncher · 23 Nov 2014 at 15:14

All of the Haswells are pretty power efficient and massively better on power than a Q6600. My entire pc pulls a max of 422w from the wall when gaming and only one game (Anno 2070) has made it pull that much. Usually it's in the 250-320w range. At idle and browsing the net I am only pulling 63w from the wall.

BoomAM · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:13

Evening,
So, im gonna be buying in the next few days, looking at these:

Intel Core i5-4570S @ £164.99
Asus X97 Pro Gamer @ £107.99
GeIL Blackdragon 16Gb @ £89.99
NZXT H440 Mid Tower Case @ £89.99
Scythe SCMG-4000 Mugen 4 @ £38.99

Other parts (pre-existing)
Graphics: XFX HD6870 Black Edition
HDD 0: Samsung SSD
HDD 1: Samsung HDD
PSU: Corsair HX620 Modular

Reasonings thus far:

4570S - Low Power, recommended here.
Asus X97 Pro Gamer - "Separate" audio PCB, nice feature set, good layout.
GeIL - always bought GeIL ram and its done fine.
NZXT H440 - Reviews well, looks nice, quiet rated (and proven), good price.
Scythe - had Scythe in the past, always performed well.
--
Corsair HX620 - still in good condition, still quiet, modular and has all the power/ports needed for modern systems.
6870 - not high performance now a days but will tide me over for what little gaming i do now...DX4 will be the catalyst for a full on upgrade
HDD & SSD - self explanatory

Anyone got any suggestions to bring the price down/alternative parts?

stulid · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:15

Looks good.

How about some faster RAM for £10 more? - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-060-TG&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=2429

And some cheaper heatsinks,

YOUR BASKET
1 x BeQuiet! Pure Rock Cpu Cooler - 120mm £28.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Black Heatpipe CPU Cooler PWM - 120mm £19.99
Total : £58.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

-----------------

you cant oc that CPU so you can get black+red boards with the H97 chipset and this one has that audio separation layer,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4570S 2.90GHz Low Power (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £164.99
1 x Avexir Core Red Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16001108G-2CIR) - Red Light £95.99
1 x MSI H97 Gaming 3 Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £89.99
1 x NZXT H440 Mid Tower Case - Black / Red £89.99
1 x Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler £49.99
Total : £505.94 (includes shipping : £12.50).

BoomAM · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:28

Evening,
Will the performance difference be noticeable for the RAM? Or negligible?

And the heatsink, im looking for quietness and performance, ive typically over-specced the HSF under the logic of a higher potential TDP HSF on a lower TDP processor means less likely the fan will spin up...

stulid · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:30

Haswell likes fast RAM, but ive done a spec above with a fat black heatsink with a quiet fan and a H97 chipset board (limited upto 1600mhz so that explains the RAM) that also has a black PCB.

joeyjojo · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:33

I still wouldn't get a low-power CPU over a normal one. The 4570S runs at 2.9/3.6 GHz with 65 W TDP, the 4690K at 3.5/3.9 GHz with 88 W TDP. So about 90% of the difference in power is just the clock speed difference. In other words, you're saving power, but mostly because the chip is just slower. It's marginally more efficient (by about 12%) but IMO that's not worth getting a locked CPU.

Most of the time they'll idle at the same power anyway making it even less compelling.

BoomAM · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:39

stulid said:
Haswell likes fast RAM, but i've done a spec above with a fat black heatsink with a quiet fan and a H97 chipset board (limited upto 1600mhz so that explains the RAM) that also has a black PCB.

The board looks good, i need to look into what limitations it has (will do that now.

)

joeyjojo said:
...In other words, you're saving power, but mostly because the chip is just slower. It's marginally more efficient (by about 12%) but IMO that's not worth getting a locked CPU.

Most of the time they'll idle at the same power anyway making it even less compelling.

I don't plan on OCing so a locked CPU is moot to me.
Good point perhaps on the idle power consumption, but i'd need to look into what the consumption would be during "normal" operations.

Andreas.96 · 12 Apr 2015 at 20:48

With unlocked chips you also have the advantage of overclocking in a few years or so as I mini upgrade.

Out of interest why the power efficient build?

Admetos · 12 Apr 2015 at 21:19

joeyjojo said:
I still wouldn't get a low-power CPU over a normal one. The 4570S runs at 2.9/3.6 GHz with 65 W TDP, the 4690K at 3.5/3.9 GHz with 88 W TDP. So about 90% of the difference in power is just the clock speed difference. In other words, you're saving power, but mostly because the chip is just slower. It's marginally more efficient (by about 12%) but IMO that's not worth getting a locked CPU.

Most of the time they'll idle at the same power anyway making it even less compelling.

+1 I was just going to write the exact same thing.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned undervolting. The CPU, Memory and chipset all undervolts. I have computers that are both overclocked and undervolted, so the regular i5 (non K) will undervolt by quite a margin.

The hardware manufactures have to assume worst case scenario on the quality of DC output from the PSU, so as default hardware often uses more power then it needs. However if you fit a high quality PSU you can reduce the power.

Same principle on your car ECU, the manufacture has to assume you might drive to Romania and use 89 RON fuel, so most production cars run rich to compensate. However get the car custom re-mapped to a quality fuel and often the tuner will lean out the fuel ratio. You can do similar on your PC with a high quality PSU and under-volting.

Also Quartz mentioned about the Silverstone cases that rotate the board 90 degrees, I can confirm they provide very efficient cooling that requires less fan activity.

BoomAM · 12 Apr 2015 at 21:34

Andreas.96 said:
Out of interest why the power efficient build?

Scroll back up the thread :-)

JasonM said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned undervolting. The CPU, Memory and chipset all undervolts. I have computers that are both overclocked and undervolted, so the regular i5 (non K) will undervolt by quite a margin.

Another good point, but i don't really plan on faffing to that extent. Just want it to work, i don't have the energy anymore to be spending time testing/rebooting/retesting/ect;

I've looked up the average power usage for the other suggested processor using the logic of its unlocked/faster/idle and the idle power is roughly about the same, however under usage and under load, its noticeably higher.

At the moment, i'm somewhat happy with the logic of "S" model as i'm not really going for flat out performance, just something quicker and more efficient than my Q6600.

Also Quartz mentioned about the Silverstone cases that rotate the board 90 degrees, I can confirm they provide very efficient cooling that requires less fan activity.

Significantly more expensive though...plus i did a fair amount of research on the H440, seems to fit the bill for me.
Do you have a specific Silverstone case in mind so i can research it?

darael · 12 Apr 2015 at 21:35

Does the voltage on the i5 change depending on clock speed? If so, does your chosen voltage in the BIOS stay the same? What I mean is, surely it'd be better to have the voltage adjust itself as needed, rather than having one voltage which might be inefficient at different clock speeds.

Admetos · 12 Apr 2015 at 21:52

BoomAM said:
Significantly more expensive though...plus i did a fair amount of research on the H440, seems to fit the bill for me.
Do you have a specific Silverstone case in mind so i can research it?

This
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-121-SV

This is same layout as above, but with more metal and better sound proofing.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-168-SV

Re under-volting, you can have the voltages done in a few days including testing. I've calculated before I've saved around 10watt of total CPU power at full load. Once you have worked out voltages it's done for life of computer.

BoomAM · 12 Apr 2015 at 21:56

JasonM said:
This
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-121-SV

This is same layout as above, but with more metal and better sound proofing.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-168-SV

Nice cases, but at 2-3x the price of the H440, whatever *c drop it would get would be far cheaper obtained by a better HSF?

Re under-volting, you can have the voltages done in a few days including testing. I've calculated before I've saved around 10watt of total CPU power at full load. Once you have worked out voltages it's done for life of computer.

True, but i'm still not overly interested in faffing that much.
+darael's point about voltage scaling is a good one, the whole point of it could be nullified if the board does not scale the voltage with the undervolt change...

Admetos · 12 Apr 2015 at 22:27

darael said:
Does the voltage on the i5 change depending on clock speed? If so, does your chosen voltage in the BIOS stay the same? What I mean is, surely it'd be better to have the voltage adjust itself as needed, rather than having one voltage which might be inefficient at different clock speeds.

You off-set the voltage in BIOS, it still rises and falls as required but the offset takes effect.

I've just taken a screen shot of my i7 4770 (non K). This runs Windows Server 2008 R2 24/7, and executes some neural network software. It's been under-volted with a Seasonic X Gold PSU for about 2 years. Chipset and memory is also under-volted.

It's showing 0.993v however I have seen voltage peak at 1.017v. Default voltage from the board was over 1.2 volt if I remember.

I also currently have under-volts running on my i5 750 (HTPC), i7 3770K (another server) and i7 4770K (main PC).