ASUS P5K Deluxe for HTPC?

surrealillusion · Post by **surrealillusion** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:05 am

I was wondering if there's any point to me using a full ATX board as an HTPC motherboard. I've got a system that used to be a linux server and I want to recycle the parts vs having to go out and buy a new setup (785g +X2 45w).

According to the Intel TDP thread the P35 is pretty efficient on paper but in some reviews I've read it pulls more power than previous Intel chipsets. I haven't installed windows on that combo to see what power levels are like with speedstep but I've got the following:

ASUS P5K Deluxe
8 gigs of DDR2 RAM (4x2 Gig sticks)
1 x 500 Seagate 7200.11
Intel Q6600 G0
GeForce 6200 (just a base video card because I had ESXi running on it last)
3 Antec case fans
Antec True Power Trio 600W PSU

Sitting on the bios screen the system draws 120W. I'm wondering if I can make any drastic imrpovements to get it down to the 50 or 60w mark or if I'm better to use that as some sort of a server or system and build out the HTPC.

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:59 am

what about undervolting?

b_rubenstein · Post by **b_rubenstein** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:08 am

Stop making power measurements at the BIOS boot screen. Until the PC fully loads all the Windows files there is no power management for the CPU, GPU BIOS controlled fans, etc. Once the PC is in Windows it will draw around 75 - 80 w (from the outlet). An easy thing to do would be to take out 4 gig of RAM; it's just not needed for a HTPC. You won't get great numbers with that PS: it's not real efficient in general and certainly not in the range of an idling PC. By dropping the RAM down, it use around 60w DC at idle.

surrealillusion · Post by **surrealillusion** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:05 pm

Yeah I didn't realize there wouldn't be any power management at a bios level. What I'll test tonight is a windows install and a Linux install with stock settings to see what it pulls. Then I'll try underclocking and undervolting to see what gains can be made there. If I can pull less than 60W idle that wouldn't be too bad though with all this talk of getting 30W idle with a X2 240e or something similiar I'll have to weigh in the numbers to see what is going to cost me more in the end, new hardware or new parts.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

surrealillusion · Post by **surrealillusion** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:43 am

Well after pulling out the extra 4 gigs of RAM and a 4 port NIC power consumption dropped to about 110 in the bios. I then proceeded to do some tweaking in the bios for the vcore and the FSB. I dropped the vcore down to 1.125 (1.100 was unstable) and dropped the FSB to 200.

Idle temps in ESXi and Vista were 88w. I haven't tested load yet since I had to head off to work this morning but here's a list of the components in the box:

ASUS P5K Deluxe
Q6600 G0
4 gigs of DDR2 RAM
Seagate 7200.11 500GB HDD
GeForce 6200 PCI-e video
Pioneer SATA DVD+-RW
Antec 300 case with 3 fans
Antec 600w TruePower Trio

From the looks of it I may be able to reduce power by a few more watts but it's looking like the best I'll do is about 70-80W idle with this setup.