High power, low power PC

Jakg

flashy wrote: »

you could just look at the energy saving CPU's, i looked a while back at building a high spec PC, and settled with an AMD64 Dual Core, energy efficient 65w version, uses much less energy than the core 2 duo and is quicker in cpu charts.

FWIW if you underclocked a Core 2 to compete with the AMD Athlon it would require less power.

DatabaseError

flashy, i run 2 (ubuntu) VMs, one on each pair of cores of my quad

Reaper

Just for the record after lots of research into watts at idle, performance, noise etc I came up with the following which I have now ordered:

CPU: E8600
Motherboard: Asus P5Q
Graphics: Asus GTX260
Memory: 2x2Gb Corsair DDR2 PC2-6400 (800)
Case: Coolermaster CM 690
Power: 600W CoolerMaster iGreen Power
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
plus Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal paste
DVD: Two Samsung x22 RW drives
Hard drive: HD502IJ Spinpoint F1 500 Mb
Wireless card with extendable antenna
Monitor: ASUS VW222U

Total cost: £941.81 inc VAT and delivery

Hopefully that gives me a high performance system without a heart attack when the electric bill arrives.

Thanks for all your help, particularly "savemoney" whose system I used as a starting point.

PROLIANT

Reaper wrote: »

Just for the record after lots of research into watts at idle, performance, noise etc I came up with the following which I have now ordered:

CPU: E8600
Motherboard: Asus P5Q
Graphics: Asus GTX260
Memory: 2x2Gb Corsair DDR2 PC2-6400 (800)
Case: Coolermaster CM 690
Power: 600W CoolerMaster iGreen Power
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
plus Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal paste
DVD: Two Samsung x22 RW drives
Hard drive: HD502IJ Spinpoint F1 500 Mb
Wireless card with extendable antenna
Monitor: ASUS VW222U

Total cost: £941.81 inc VAT and delivery

Hopefully that gives me a high performance system without a heart attack when the electric bill arrives.

Thanks for all your help, particularly "savemoney" whose system I used as a starting point.

Ooh nice, can I come to your house and play computer?

Reaper

flashy wrote: »

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/190861-10-power-consumption-chart

Some charts there, I went for the AMD64 because it was half the price of an Intel and it would run Virtual machines with ease. I used to be a firm believer that Intel were more powerful, but AMD wipe the floor with Intel in many ways nowadays, price and temperature for two.

Flashy - I just had another look back at the posts and realised I had somehow missed yours. Thanks for the chart, however those are older CPUs. While I do want low power I am after the lowest power amongst the best CPUs.
Looking at this chart the E8600 I went for scores over double that of the best of the AMD 64 options.

I have used AMD in the past but I feel Intel currently produce the better chips.

Incidentally I am not a great fan of these benchmark tests. I think they often allow multi-core chips to make the best use of all their cores in a way that most software doesn't. There is a good review of power use and performance tests of the E8600 compared to others here. It not only shows it using less power than the Quad cores but out performing them in most games. I'm comfortable I made the right choice for the type of system I want.

savemoney

Thats looks a nice system

I got far cry 2 the other day full detail, 1920x1200 4xAA in Vista64 and it its fast so it should go quick on yours

savemoney

Only if you bring your toys round

Its Christmas come early at his house

PROLIANT wrote: »

Ooh nice, can I come to your house and play computer?