Looking for quiet CPU

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 8:03 am

I want to avoid solutions (CPU, MB) that are not mainstream.

Options:

- C3. Too slow.

- Athlon64. Too expensive. Not mainstream enough.

- Pentium M. Too expensive. Motherboards aren't mainstream.

- P4 low-watt. 1.6, 1.8, or 2.0. I'll buy one if I can find it for a reasonable price. But how do I know it is a low-watt?

Or, if I buy a regular P4 or Athlon I will buy a HS and a case recommended here (Sonata perhaps). I will also consider undervolting, but the MB's I was considering aren't on the list.

My questions:
- How can I identify a low-watt P4?
- How quiet will it be if I buy a regular P4 (~2.6GHz) and a recommended case and HS? I don't need silent. Just nice and quiet.
- Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Tom.

Post by **MikeC** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 8:16 am

No such thing as a low watt P4, not really.

Best way: Get the slowest P4 or AMD XP you can find and a motherboard that allows you to undervolt and underclock the CPU. Especially undervolt. A 0.1V drop in Vcore will usually give a 2-3C CPU temp drop.

The Barton XP2500 is really cheap these days and still very fast, and AFAIK, totally unlocked. Combined with a top nForce2-based mobo, I reckeon this represent a top value in good performance quiet computing.

Add top components from Recommended lists here and you're off to the silent races!

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 8:38 am

Thanks for the fast reply Mike.

The low-watt P4's I'm referring to are the one's listed here:
http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm
Searh for "low watt". There are places around here that have CPU's that might be these, but I don't know how to identify them for sure.

I'm looking to get a MB with integrated (cheap) graphics since I don't care about graphics speed.

Tom.

Post by **MikeC** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 9:21 am

Tom, most of those are simply referring to the max watts they can dissipate before melting

-- not typical output. Take 2 P4 models with different max watts but same Vcore and you'll find they pull the same power. In other words, given the same core (A,C, whatever), same bus speed and multiplier, and the same Vcore, they are identical. Some just appear to be less rugged, not sure what the real purpose is of those models.

The best integrated VGA come with the nForce2 mobos, which have a MX400 VGA core embedded in them. Another reason to look at the Barton XP.

I have a couple of these nForce2 boards and am building more systems with them. The video performance is v.good. Much better than the "Intel Extreme Graphics 2" (or whatever it is called) embedded VGA-- I remember one review that asked why extreme, and answered themselves saying the only thing extreme was how extremely bad/slow...

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:43 am

1) Those couple of "low-watt" P4's date from the early Northwood days and may have been intended for OEMs. I tried getting one way back then but could never find one. If they actually did exist you might be able to tell from the default Vcore that was etched into the IHS (assuming that it actually is lower than a standard P4 NW by default). If not, and you could find out what the sSpecs were for those "low-watt" processors you could identify one by looking at the sSpec number etched onto the IHS. Don't bet on any of that happening though.

2) I've built a regular P4 system that's so quiet you can't hear it from over 1-2 feet away. Details here.

I did it as kind of an experiment because I was skeptical that I could keep it cool enough at the fan settings that I'd have to run. It was 100% successful though. I ran it all summer long, even when the temps were into the mid 90°F range inside my house, which was almost every day for a few months this year. Temps always stayed fine and it's super quiet.

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:50 am

Mike,

So, when I look at that chart, which has columns for
-Core Voltage
-Vmax
-Max.Core Amp.
-Thermal Design Power
-Est. Max Power Diss.
-Max.Cover Temp
What should I be looking at to determine the heat dissapation? If there is an answer to this question, maybe you could put it next to your link on this page

Can you recommend a specific MB or chipset for me? Other than quiet, I want something very reliable and stable and high volume: I don't want to be the only one on my block with one. Price and speed are less important to me. ATX or mATX.

Thanks,
Tom.

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 12:37 pm

In my experience, a modern P4C runs VERY cool at idle. Much cooler than an Athlon XP of similar performance level at idle.

Once you get to 100% load, both are mini nuclear furnaces, but if you're planning for a mostly idle system, the P4 is superior IMO.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:02 pm

I suggest a P4m processor

I just put together a P4m 1.6ghz which is around 30w this is a laptop processor but it fits in most new P4 motherboards, the board im using is a AX4SPE-N. i cant really give you any temp readings cause of aopen's buggy bios's and erratic temp fluctuations (dont buy aopen).

Its between 30-45oC. Im using a zalman CNPS7000A-Cu and its always cold to touch, colder than my northbridge. All P4m cpu's default to a multiplier of 12 in a desktop motherboard so you have to overclock them to there normal speed. Mines at 1.8ghz - 150fsb - 1.25vcore

i got my cpu from ebay for £40, theres always loads on sale there

Post by **MikeC** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:14 pm

When it comes to heat dissipation, the AMD processors have a small edge these days. The idle heat IMO is irelevant for quieting or cooling, because no CPU really gets that hot at idle, it's easy to keep a system silent/cool when idle. It's the thermal efficiency at high load that's significant. On that score, I think AMD has the edge.

1) No heat spreader means copper HS/bases are much more effective in pulling it away. In the P4, that heat spreader adds 2 layers of insulation between core and HS -- the speader itself and the the thermal interface goop between it and the die. These add thermal resistance & lower the efficiency of the cooling system.

2) Regardless of what the P4 temps tell us, the real core temp is much higher -- this has been admitted by Intel themselves. The thermal diode in the P4 core is placed in a cool corner far from the hot center. So while you might get lower CPU temp readings from a P4 compared to a XP, this is not to be trusted. (see SPCR's Unique Heatsink Testing Methodology- esp. page 2 - for details.)

3) Actual power dissipation of systems with ~equivalent power shows the AMD to require a bit less power. Tried this recently with a Barton XP 2500+ vs an Intel P4-2.53. The latter pulled 6~8W higher power running CPUBurn and Prime95. Admittedly, different mobos, so not a truly controlled comparison, but all other components the same... If you go by the generally accepted premise that Intel's real power draw before throttling occurs is 25% above their so-called "Thermal Design Power", the P4-2.53 max power is ~77W. The XP Barton 2500+ max is cited to be 68.3W. So my simple comparison more or less correlates.

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:17 pm

I didn't know that P4M's could be used in regular MB's. That's interesting.

I see that your motherboard uses the 865 chipset. No problem getting those.

Why would people be selling their P4M processors? Is this people with notebooks upgrading their CPU's? I don't see any for sale on eBay, or in my local stores. I searched on "P4M".

Tom.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 4:07 am

TomMM wrote:I didn't know that P4M's could be used in regular MB's. That's interesting.

I see that your motherboard uses the 865 chipset. No problem getting those.

Why would people be selling their P4M processors? Is this people with notebooks upgrading their CPU's? I don't see any for sale on eBay, or in my local stores. I searched on "P4M".

Tom.

Here in the US, Mwave.com sells them. FWIW, they also carry the Pentium-M CPUs too.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 7:35 am

don't see any for sale on eBay, or in my local stores. I searched on "P4M".

Although im searching the UK only ebay, search for 'mobile intel' or 'mobile intel p4'

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 10:00 am

If I do a search on 'mobile p4' I get 4 results - all in the UK. Seems like you guys have cornered the market. The prices are quite reasonable, but I don't want to order international. And I don't really want to get into a very unusual solution, though I must admit, it sounds like a very good solution.

I think I'm back to getting a regular P4 or Athlon and then trying to solve the noise problem with a good case, a good HS, and the software that turns down the cpu when it isn't under load.

Thanks,
Tom.

JD · Post by JD » Sun Oct 26, 2003 11:47 am

My 2.4c will undervolt to 1 volt allowing near silent cooling under full load.

Shuttle SB61G2
P4 2.4C @ 3.5
Alpha 8942

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 11:59 am

I've never partaken of over-clocking because I care much more about stability/reliability than speed, but this under-clocking/volting sounds like an interesting option.

I posted a msg to the ASUS newsgroup asking about under-clocking and the response I got was that all Intel chips are 'multiplier-locked', regardless of MB. Is that a different thing, or does that person not know what they are talking about.

I'd rather not have to pick one of the MB's in the list on this site, because that is fairly restrictive. I don't think I saw any on the list that use the 865G chipset.

I take it that there is software that will allow me to 'rest' the cpu when not under heavy-load. I assume that this software is available for Win2K, WinXP, and Linux?

Thanks,
Tom

JD · Post by JD » Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:14 pm

They are correct in saying the multipliers are locked but you still can change the FSB.
My Shuttle has the 865 chipset and can be run near silent. The only thing that can be heard in my modified box from 6 ft. away is the maxtor hard drive ideling.
I sleep next to this box so it has to be quiet.
I usually have it overclocked to 3.5 ghz but with speedfan controling the fans it only makes noise from the fans when under load.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:22 pm

TomMM wrote:I've never partaken of over-clocking because I care much more about stability/reliability than speed, but this under-clocking/volting sounds like an interesting option.

I posted a msg to the ASUS newsgroup asking about under-clocking and the response I got was that all Intel chips are 'multiplier-locked', regardless of MB. Is that a different thing, or does that person not know what they are talking about.

Yes, he's partially clueless. You can still underclock an Intel chip on an Asus (as well as others) board by lowering the FSB or "Front Side Bus" speed. The CPU will run slower but with Asus boards you cannot undervolt so you don't get the full cooling advantage that you otherwise would.

TomMM wrote:I'd rather not have to pick one of the MB's in the list on this site, because that is fairly restrictive. I don't think I saw any on the list that use the 865G chipset.

That's too bad because we probably have all of the undervoltable P4 boards listed. There might be one or two that slipped through the cracks but they'd be some crap like PCChips or whatever. You haven't seen any 865G boards because there aren't any undervoltable ones yet.

TomMM wrote:I take it that there is software that will allow me to 'rest' the cpu when not under heavy-load. I assume that this software is available for Win2K, WinXP, and Linux?

Thanks,
Tom

You don't need any third-party software to do this, it's a normal function of all three OS's you listed. Win9x does not support that so you would need software for that.

JD · Post by JD » Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:26 pm

That's too bad because we probably have all of the undervoltable P4 boards listed. There might be one or two that slipped through the cracks but they'd be some crap like PCChips or whatever. You haven't seen any 865G boards because there aren't any undervoltable ones yet.

Mine does. Look at the picture above.

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:29 pm

There are articles on undervolting/clocking on the main site -- in general, I think.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 12:41 pm

JD wrote:
That's too bad because we probably have all of the undervoltable P4 boards listed. There might be one or two that slipped through the cracks but they'd be some crap like PCChips or whatever. You haven't seen any 865G boards because there aren't any undervoltable ones yet.
Mine does. Look at the picture above.

Yeah but you can't buy just the board (at least you couldn't a few weeks ago when I was researching an HTPC project), you have to buy the whole Shuttle barebones.

limee · Post by **limee** » Mon Oct 27, 2003 8:07 pm

I'm also looking for a decent speed cpu that uses up little electricity when idling or hosting web files (24/7). Would an intel 2.4c with underclocked fsb work or would it still border high watt usage? Would using a laptop + ext hd be better?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 5:24 am

limee wrote:I'm also looking for a decent speed cpu that uses up little electricity when idling or hosting web files (24/7). Would an intel 2.4c with underclocked fsb work or would it still border high watt usage? Would using a laptop + ext hd be better?

I checked my P4 2.4C system with a Kill-a-watt meter a few weeks ago. It's running at default speed on an Intel board. Total power usage at idle is right about 55W for the entire system. Would that work for you or do want less?

Intels' "TDP" for that CPU is 66W so it's obviously running at something way less than that while it's idling.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 1:53 am

I think P4 2.4C would be a decent candidate for idling, when considering price and wide availability, although it's not very cool nor can it easily be made silent when used to the max.

Pentium M would of course be superior, as has been discussed here, but the cpu and mobos are still somewhat hard to get and expensive (compared to other choices).

Athlon 64 (at 2.0 GHz) would also be a good choice as it probably uses about the same amount of power at near full power than the 2.4C TDP indicates. It's also a very powerful CPU, if your web server needs to do cpu intensive parts (includes, processing, etc).

However, if you only server basic static web pages, then the other sub-systems become more crucial than the cpu. A 800-1000 Mhz Via CPU would be more than enough for even a quite busy web server feeding static pages only.

It can also be had in a very quiet and energy efficient implementations and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

regards,
Halcyon¨

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 1:08 pm

Yes, but the original poster (me) wants a reasonably fast desktop. One of my applications is compiling heavily templated C++ code, which is really slow. But I'm not willing to go so far as to buy an Athlon 64, though I look forward to buying one of those in the future.

Is a P2.4c, underclocked to 533MHz, cooler than a P2.4b running at the same speed?

Tom.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 1:27 pm

TomMM wrote:Is a P2.4c, underclocked to 533MHz, cooler than a P2.4b running at the same speed?

Tom.

If it was actually possible to run a 2.4B or a 2.4 C at 533MHz the 2.4C would probably run very slightly (less than a degree or two) warmer than the 2.4B.

In order to run a 2.4C at 533MHz you'd need to have a board that would run the bus speed at 44MHz (533/12) and that's not going to happen. IIRC, 66MHz is the slowest speed I've seen on any recent mobos.

The P4 with it's 18 multiplier is even further fron 533MHz. With that CPU you'd need a bus speed of only 30MHz!

In your original post you said:

- How quiet will it be if I buy a regular P4 (~2.6GHz) and a recommended case and HS? I don't need silent. Just nice and quiet.

A P4 2.4C in a case with decent airflow and a quite HSF like a Zalman 7000 ot Thermalright SLK900/947 will be very, very quiet. Trust me my son.

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:04 am

Another candidate if you are willing to go with AMD is the Barton 2500+.
Cost is very hard to beat (~$100 where I live, roughly half the price of P4 2.6). Performance is slightly better than P2.4c (that seem to be your top candidate at the moment).
Processor is unlocked from start, so there is no problem to change multiplier and it undervolts very nicely.

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 7:38 am

That does sound pretty good.

Here the Barton 2600+ is $160
The 2.6c is $263.
The 2.4c isn't at my store anymore, so I'm using the 2.6.

Underclockable is nice.

Does any have a benchmark handy that compares a Barton a P4c?

Tom.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:01 am

Hello:

The Athlon XP Barton 2500+ is $85 w/o a HS and $91 with the stock HS @ NewEgg.com: link

...and the P4 2.53 Northwood is $165 link

... the P4 2.6c is $173 link
and the P4 2.66

...the P4 2.66 Northwood is $164 link

Hmmm... which one is the better value?

TomMM · Post by **TomMM** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:26 am

What I was wondering was how do these compare for speed

Celeron 2.x
Barton 2.x
P4c 2.x

For price, I believe the Barton is closer to the Celeron, but still in the middle. For speed, perhaps the Barton is closer to the P4c, but still in the middle? I don't know. Need a benchmark that compares them.

I guess you also have to know what you are looking for, since the benchmarks can vary widely. I'm assuming that one would use HT with the P2c, since that appears to be one of the few Intel buzz-features that actually makes a difference (depending on what you are using it for of course).

bob670 · Post by **bob670** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:58 pm

The last review I saw showed the Celeron 2.0ghz performs comparably to the PIV 1.7-1.8ghz in most apps, so you can extend that out (in a very non-scientific, back of the cocktail napkin way) my Celeron 2.2 runs about the equivalent of a PIV 1.9-2.0ghz. Now a few things to consider, the PIV is still grossly better at gaming due to longer pipelines and more cache, and the new PIV based Celerons (2.0ghz and above) are blowing about as much heat as PIVs. No doubt the other chips you named will be faster, but at what cost? I went with the Celeron based on my bias toward Intel and price, if I could have afforded it I would have went with a comparably clocked PIV.

That said, due to price I am a frequent dweller in the house of Celeron, and mostly happy about it. I run Paint Shop Pro 8 frequently editing large batches of 3.0 megapixel photos, manage a ton of music files (over 400 CDs worth, all legit thank you), do network documentation for work and play a few games (NWN, UT2K3, Alice, NOLF 1/2) all at 1024x768@32bpp with very playable frame rates and lots of details cranked. I suppose I will have to look for more CPU and video juice by time Doom III and HL2 roll out, but until then I am pretty happy. If you can afford more CPU then by all means, spend the money, the new Celerons run about as hot as a comparably clocked PIV, but if money is an issue I find the Celeron to be a good buy.

Looking for quiet CPU

Looking for quiet CPU

Barton 2500 vs P4c 2.6