Low power consumption CPU

dtiao7eb

dtiao7eb

Member
Anyone know a good multicore processor with minimal watt/volt? the new mac book airs brag about extremely low power consumption and yet my new macbook air runs great! fast can even run SC2 lawl..

anyways i'm trying to build a new comp/server which will be holding all my movies and stream it over a home network(and if possible over the internet for when i travel) it will be on 24/7 so that's why i'm looking for a low power consumption computer...something that will run win 7 itunes and windows home server etc..

thanks for all suggestions
 
Well I am not aware of easily putting a mobile core in a case. They do have ULV CPU's. But let us consider this conundrum. With the sleep states that all CPU's go into and the fact what uses more power. A faster CPU that takes half as long or a slower that takes twice as long? I don't have the scientific answer but I can see the trend. I would get an i5 or i3 and build a mini tower or smaller if they make.

Point of note my phone could likely handle your needs. I just can't get my phones processor into any conventional casing.

Do consider that the CPU in a deep sleep state likely uses almost no power.
 
well if i remember correctly... u can do a wake up by network correct? now is that limited to home network? or if i log in thru ip it will wake it up?
 
You can try using dual core Atom processors with nvidia ion boards. They can stream 1080p and only consumes like 15-20 watt or something.
 
well i have one of those netbooks and my experience with the atom processor is.. it is sheer crap LOL u think dual atoms will be better?
 
dtiao7eb said:
well i have one of those netbooks and my experience with the atom processor is.. it is sheer crap LOL u think dual atoms will be better?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you're doing, no they're not going to play games and run photoshop, but paired up with an ion board they'll play 1080p well and stream video over your network.
 
CPUs for desktop computers typically use a significant portion of the power consumed by the computer. Other major uses include fast video cards, which contain graphics processing units, and the power supply.
 
so this is the build i've got:(not purchased yet)
Core 2 duo e8400
asus p5n-d mobo
4gigs of what ever ram i think its ddr2 800mhz (which i should have @ home)
raid controller:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118106
and 4x Western Digital AV-GP WD20EVDS 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136494
video i just use what ever is onboard...computer will mainly be streaming to other computers/macs/and apple tv

will be using win7 64bit and windows home server

any suggestions or concerns?
 
The Core 2 Duo E8400 is a poor choice because it is so overpriced. What is wrong with Western Digital hard drives? They produce good quality hard drives. I would stay away from 2 terabyte hard drives because they have a higher failure rate over the 1 terabyte hard drives.

The Pentium E6700 Processor is about half the price of the Core 2 Duo E8400 and it has decent power:

The Intel Pentium E6700 Wolfdale (3.2 gigahertz) 65 Watt Dual-Core Processor - $86
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=Socket_775_processors-_-19-116-370-_-Product

If I were you though, I would look at a Socket AM3 motherboard. Athlon II 65 Watt Processors are about $60. Take a look at this processor:

AMD Athlon II 255 Regor (3.1 gigahertz) Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor - $63
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...96&cm_re=Athlon_II_255-_-19-103-896-_-Product

I would also go with a Linux operating system for a server over Windows.
 
You really don't need much to stream data onto the network; the network itself is probably going to be your bottleneck (especially wireless).

I'd also go with an AMD processor and Linux-based server.
 
Good find with the Regor, 2048Megabytes!

The main source of confusion regarding WD Hard Drives seems to stem from new technology, that this article begins to explain very well --
http://www.linuxconfig.org/linux-wd-ears-advanced-format and is further touched upon here. My wariness of them began with posts such as this and continues because of those like this one.

A local store I do business with has had to return so many 1TB Seagates that it no longer purchases them for resale.

So, strictly speaking, "it depends on the make and model!"

I run a e8400 because I bought it when things were better financially than now. I just purchased an AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz from newegg for $90 for myself, personally.

Beware the new Sandy Bridge if you plan on running Linux on it, too (thanks to amdfangirl)!
 
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The 11th generation Seagate hard drives were awful. 12th generation Seagates are good quality. I have a 10th generation 250 gigabyte Seagate drive that I have had for almost two years now. Personally I would not buy hard drives larger than 750 gigabytes. They just seem to have higher failure rates according to what I have read.
 
Just about any Linux distribution can be used as a home server. Some are more friendly than others and there are a few that are more or less optimized for the job.

FreeNAS is a FreeBSD-based no-nonsense file server OS. Low overhead, but no frills, either.

Ubuntu Server Edition is based on the popular Ubuntu platform, so you can use the computer as a regular desktop as well as a server if that is your thing. Of course, you have a bit of overhead in this one.

ClearOS used to be Clarkconnect. This is not only a server, but also a firewall with content scanning and filtering incorporated. Building a firewall appliance using this will free your personal computers from having to run firewall software such as Windows Firewall and allow you to reduce the overhead one each computer dedicated to malware detection.

Security-conscious people like to point out that a firewall appliance should be a firewall and that's all-- additional functions like file-serving and such provide more ways to possibly crack into your system and take over your home-network. Frankly, though, this OS will protect the home-network against intrusion from 98% of the bad guys out there and the other 2% are more concerned with bigger, more profitable fish than you or me.

Be aware, though, that content-filtering requires a lot of RAM, and your throughput can suffer if the computer you are running it on doesn't have what it takes (my firewall appliance uses 756MB RAM on a P4 233Mhz and handles Netflix just fine to two different machines at a time).


This is just a small sampling of what is out there, but these are products I am somewhat familiar with and have heard no real bad things about.
 
i think my head exploded with all that info haha thanks alot looks like i'll have to read up on some linux stuff...

i'm quite the noob about linux and server os in general.

really appreciate all the info guys. hopefully i'll be back soon with an update on the server :)
 
dtiao7eb said:
i think my head exploded with all that info haha thanks alot looks like i'll have to read up on some linux stuff...
Click to expand...

Places to begin doing so:

Linux In Easy Steps, by Mike McGrath
http://www.ineasysteps.com/books/details/?9781840783513

A place to get books on Linux, like Slackware Linux Essentials - 2nd Edition
http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/0160010221.html

PDF files to download
http://rus-linux.net/MyLDP/BOOKS/Teach.Yourself.Linux.In.24.Hours.pdf
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/docs/user-guide/english_10.0.pdf

Best wishes!
 
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