MikeC, thanks for blogging this on the front page. That might attract a little attention.

Techreport has an article about the AMD SB800's internal fan controls. The chip includes some excellent features that motherboards simply are not using. Let's make some noise about this.

[quote="Taxcheat"]...I don't see why it's any harder to go with a unix distro than Windows home server...[/quote] You're probably correct when considering only the server setup, but don't forget that WHS offers simple setup of additional features. Making, e.g., automatic backup of client PCs & remot...

spinkman asked, "What happens when your raid controller/P3 mobo/HP Media server/etc dies? what are your options then? "- Can another hp media server rebuild or another WHS device rebuild a drive extender array?" Each HD in a WHS uses a standard NTFS format & has similar folder structure. The server ...

Good article. I've built a couple WHS boxes & installed an HP EX495, and I am a fan of the system. The price comparison with HP's servers is a little unfair, because it omits the cost of the WHS software. HP's boxes include that extra $100 from the factory, so you get a lot of value in the $400ish m...

The white version is Newegg's Shellshocker. It won't last long.

Simply adding a pump in series should be okay, but I agree that it shouldn't be TOO mismatched (e.g. Reserator + 24V Iwaki). Series pumps boost the pressure ability without increasing open-loop flow, so restrictive systems will see more flow with this approach. You might want to measure your flow be...

Excellent work!

SPCR wrote:...just over 150W, lower than the 20% of rated load...

Please show your work for this problem.

Lawrence Lee wrote:No controls available in SpeedFan. I'm actually kind of insulted that you think we didn't try it...

Disappointing; guess we'll have to hope for a good firmware update.

If Speedfan was mentioned in the article, I missed it.

Thank you for posting the update.

What's the Vcore? (Sorry, if I missed it.)

Comments on noise level? This is SPCR...

Could you guys please try Speedfan on this box? It might allow a quiet idle and acceptable load temperature with the right settings.

+1 for different cable lengths. I built a system with an X750 and got the wiring pretty clean, but that was in a big case. This is one huge advantage for modular PSUs, so please exploit it.

SPCR wrote:Even after undervolting it to the limit, we were still about 0.75V shy of what we felt the Vcore should have been.

Yikes! How many CPUs did you fry for this review? (Yeah, yeah, I know it's a typo...)

mdrumt wrote:E.g. could you run a quad core a single high end gfx card (perhaps not a fermi) and a 2-3 drives with it?

I reported one example here. Remember this is wall power measured with a Kill-a-watt.

MoJo wrote:...and AMD hex core CPU on an Intel mobo...

How does that work?

Nifty little drive. Thanks for taking it apart for the review.

If all that hardware's inaudible, you must have a pretty loud ambient. Lucky you!

I lined my Chenbro Genie with MLV in late 2003. Details here.

The correct way to make this measurement is to run a set of various application tasks, measure the total power used and time how long it took to run the test. Average power is total power used divided by total time. A Power Angle or KAW is no good because it measures the total power used by the com...

Looking at it a little more changes my opinion. The differences in idle power are so low, there simply won't be big changes. For example, the i5-750's idle is only 1W more than the 610e's. Balancing the benchmark energy would require 6.3 hours' idling. Certain combinations may show more difference, ...

If you want some sort of total energy consumption, then just assume some total amount of time the computer running CPU intensive tests, for example that might consume about 10-25% of the time for the (for the slowest PC) and then balance is idle time (the idle time will vary depending on how long e...

Good benchmarks & analysis. However, I missed an important area regarding these low-power CPUs: are they worth the extra money for the tweaker? For example, could SPCR's X4 630 undervolt/clock to match the 610e? Running in spec is essential for a lot of users, but this forum has a lot of hobbyists w...

Double the size to MicroATX for a broader supply of products. There's a lot to be said for standard PSUs and so on. My first suggestion for a beefy CPU with low idle wattage is Clarkdale. However, the motherboard situation is a mess, because H55 doesn't do native RAID. Options are H55 with integrate...

Very nice, Mike. I look forward to the next round of results.

Do you intend to do any testing at different airflow impedances? Even 1 review with 3-4 fans would provide useful information for people considering unusually open or restrictive heatsinks.

Looking good. I wonder if the Reserator actually reduces the temps, though. The radiator probably does most of the cooling.

Wow! That's a ton of work. Good job.

+1 for S1 results. The picture of it mounted is a massive tease! I'm guessing that a good 120 at 900rpm will work nicely.

Mainly I was looking to minimize writes on the intel ssd, thus looking to move the windows temp, IE cache, FireFox Cache, etc... of off the SSD and onto a "data drive" with a small 300 or so GB partition. If you can afford it (and you are buying a 160GB SSD...), consider putting an extra 2-4GB RAM ...

I'm sorry, but I don't think you were measuring idle correctly, your hard drive probably already spun down. The 5870 uses around 40W when idle, while the 5770 uses close to 22 W and the i7 870 uses about 3W more than the i5 750. Perhaps my Kill-a-watt is off, though it shows plausible numbers for 4...