Do you mean that the Phenom II 940 system uses only four more Watts than the Phenom II 810 system at load? That is rather strange. I wonder if Anandtech did not load the CPU enough; here is a different review where the difference is 23 Watts under load: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=171...

fwki wrote:FWIW, I just purchased the 7K1000.B for $105 shipped.

Hi fwki, any feedback about this drive? How is the noise?

The Phenom II 920 has a 125W TDP which is not ideal for a quiet PC.

Instead, check out the new 95W Phenom II models which are due to be launched on Monday.

Hmm, thanks for the insights. Now if only the Intel board supported undervolting or underclocking! If I'm not mistaken, there are no other G45 mini-ITX boards out there yet either. The DFI board looks nice but I was hoping to stick with mini-ITX. The performance of the GM45 board would be plenty for...

I'm starting to browse for something a bit faster to replace my via epia, was looking at the Intel DG45FC but then the following motherboard caught my eye: MSI IM-GM45 , a mini-ITX MODT board based on the Intel GM45 IGP chipset. http://global.msi.com.tw/uploads/prod_3aaf73a0883657dcbe1bc2e494b67599....

A number of people around here seem to be using mobile CPUs in desktop systems for their low max power usage and superior power management features. What about mobile GPUs? Is it even possible to buy a mobile GPU if I'm not a notebook manufacturer?

They all have one physical PCI Express x16 slot; forgive me, but WTH is PCI Gigabit? I presume he means that the network chip supports gigabit ethernet and is connected to the rest of the system via the PCI bus rather than a PCI express link. The network chip is integrated onto the motherboard so i...

MPEG2 acceleration is a must-have for HDTV with a C7 CPU, but I think the MPEG2 acceleration on this board does not deal with high enough resolutions for HD (I think it maxes out at 1024x1024). You might want to check out the Epia EX instead if you want HDTV. That's still lacking the H.264 accelerat...

Have you considered getting a fanless VIA mini-itx board? They're quite slow, but use very little power. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article609-page1.html

So are there any passive 8600 GT cards announced yet? The extra power consumption of the 8600 GTS over the 8600 GT sounds like a waste.
Also, do we know if these cards are any smarter than the previous generation about saving power when they're idle?

A 10.5" board in a Sonata, and running pretty quiet and cool with two opterons... that's encouraging. I actually pulled out some of the cables so that I could measure the space inside my Solo. I measured 10.5" of depth (+/- 0.1"), so it's cutting it really fine to put in a 10.5" board. The motherboa...

I've got an Antec Solo with an old motherboard in it. I'm checking out the possibility of putting a dual opteron motherboard into it, but the smallest such motherboards I can find are 10.2" and 10.5" long, which is slightly longer than the regulation 9.6" for ATX: Tyan n3600B Asus KFN5-D SLI I don't...

I've been eyeing off some nice workstation-class EATX motherboards that won't fit into my SOLO

... and high def mpeg2 could be a challenge. I would stay away from it unless you only want it for standard def material. Unlike on your athlon, on a C7 platform the heavy lifting for mpeg2 is done by the hardware mpeg decoder rather than by the CPU, so it should work fine on the chipsets which sup...

My 1.2ghz C7 can play standard definition mpeg2 in software, so I'm sure 1GHz would be fine for this if you use the hardware acceleration which is provided in the unichrome integrated graphics controller which comes with VIA's chipset. If you get a CN400 or CX700M2 chipset (not CN700) then you'll pr...

I think I'll need to keep the CPU at 1500 because I'd like to use it for occasional DVD and TV and I suspect I'll need the power. I have the VIA EN 1200MHz board and watching DVD and standard definition digital TV is fine at that speed even using software mpeg2 decoding. I don't think that the extr...

you can get a sempron64 at newegg right now for $40 (retail box), bet you can find a mobo for 60 to run it. then just undervolt/underclock it until you don't need the fan anymore (i think you can get them down to under 10W). probably will still be faster than a via cpu and you can always return it ...

The epia motherboards are much cheaper than getting a motherboard + low power intel/amd cpu. As in < $100? I usually found VIA's mini-ITX hardware to be pretty pricy. Remember that the price includes a low power CPU. You couldn't get a mobile Intel or AMD CPU plus motherboard for < $100, and even i...

Have done some research and read some reviews here at spcr and it looks like silent mini-pc's are too expensive and not as silent as I expected. I understand that this is particularly true for mini-itx setups based on intel or amd cpus. A small case will heat up faster as it contains less air, and ...

The YS is designed for use in a redundant RAID configuration, and shouldn't be used in other setups. If you have a damaged block, it will give up trying to read the block after only 7 seconds instead of persisting for minutes like a regular desktop hard drive. Western Digital call this feature "time...

I have an Epia EN12000 based system, which is a slightly newer model than the EK8000 which you mentioned. I love how little power it uses (and hence how little heat it dissipates). It was reviewed on SPCR: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article609-page1.html . The motherboard came with a passive heat...