So, I'm 99% done building my HTPC and now have to swap out my motherboard and processor between my HTPC and my office rig... the reason, you ask?
I made the fatal error of picking a Pentium D 805 processor for my HTPC... after I ordered I posted my build and somebody posted and warned me it would run hot, boy were they right. My HTPC works great but since it's confined in a cabinet under the TV it runs pretty hot and after about an hour or two it will shut down due to heat.
In the process of researching this issue I found a very useful page:
http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm
The key info there is the "Thermal Design Power" or TDP, basically it's a statistic that measures how much heat a processor will emitt. Intel and AMD take different approaches to providing this statistic though. AMD measures worst case scenario (high load, poor ventilation, etc), while Intel measures what they consider "realistic situations" (average load, typical ventilation). This means that numbers provided by Intel are going to appear lower than AMDs. With that being said, here is a comparison of my two processors, they are actually fairly comparable as far as price and power but the Athlon knocks the Pentium D out of orbit as far as heat efficiency.
Intel Pentium D 805
TDP: 95W
AMD Athlon 64-3500+
TDP: 62W
TDP: 35W (if processor is run at lower voltage 1.25V instead of 1.4 - some performance drop is likely)
As you can see, I'm thinking the AMD processor will do much better in the cabinet. It's a single core processor, the Pentium D is a dual core but it was probably overkill to begin with.
I hope somebody can learn from my mistake. I think the link I posted is an accurate source but post in this thread if you think different.
Good luck and good building everybody
I made the fatal error of picking a Pentium D 805 processor for my HTPC... after I ordered I posted my build and somebody posted and warned me it would run hot, boy were they right. My HTPC works great but since it's confined in a cabinet under the TV it runs pretty hot and after about an hour or two it will shut down due to heat.
In the process of researching this issue I found a very useful page:
http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm
The key info there is the "Thermal Design Power" or TDP, basically it's a statistic that measures how much heat a processor will emitt. Intel and AMD take different approaches to providing this statistic though. AMD measures worst case scenario (high load, poor ventilation, etc), while Intel measures what they consider "realistic situations" (average load, typical ventilation). This means that numbers provided by Intel are going to appear lower than AMDs. With that being said, here is a comparison of my two processors, they are actually fairly comparable as far as price and power but the Athlon knocks the Pentium D out of orbit as far as heat efficiency.
Intel Pentium D 805
TDP: 95W
AMD Athlon 64-3500+
TDP: 62W
TDP: 35W (if processor is run at lower voltage 1.25V instead of 1.4 - some performance drop is likely)
As you can see, I'm thinking the AMD processor will do much better in the cabinet. It's a single core processor, the Pentium D is a dual core but it was probably overkill to begin with.
I hope somebody can learn from my mistake. I think the link I posted is an accurate source but post in this thread if you think different.
Good luck and good building everybody
