Fanless ION2 dual core

[pBS]

i've got 2 fanless psu's, one with a heatsink where fan would be be, but outside the case[SilenX], and the other one is just really really efficient and never even gets warm..[Fortron 80+]
both standard atx size..and cheap...silenx one was 29$ and the fortron was $39...
the only fans i use are bolted to the hard drives cuz it gets pretty hot here...but they are pretty quiet..

i have a 'silent' fan system...2 inches away you can't tell if it's on...2 fans running about 800rpm cooling a e2140 and g45 video...works great..pcm fans so will ramp up if need be, but it never needs it..
the fridge in the other room makes more noise..

[ShiningDragon]

If it has a harddisk, it can not be silent. Best test is to have it running, while you're sleeping nearby in the night. And SSDs are too small today and the aging isn't nice (currently i have one 32 GiB SSD from SuperTalent, which is no 6 month old and it's status is already down to 74 percent).

At silent psu's... some cases have notebook supplys too, like the Gigabyte MIB T5140 with a 65 Wh PSU (enough for an 1st gen ION, 1 hdd and 1 odd) or some of the more expensive cases from SilverStone (most of these psu's are in the sfx/tfx formfactor).

Back to topic, an alternative could be the Jetway NF93R-LF (Intel GM45/ICH9M-E), for sure it runs passive, but it has not much expansion options and it's pricing (~ eur 240,-- w/o cpu)... far to much.

[sub]

If it has a harddisk, it can not be silent. Best test is to have it running, while you're sleeping nearby in the night. And SSDs are too small today and the aging isn't nice (currently i have one 32 GiB SSD from SuperTalent, which is no 6 month old and it's status is already down to 74 percent).

True - there is hard disk spinning, but its quiet 2 platter 500GB drive in a foam and heat pipe encloser. You litterally can not hear the thing from a couple of feet away even in the middle of the night. Several times a year we have people stay in the same room as our current HTPC, and I know they wont be bothered by it so I never turn it off.

Back to topic, an alternative could be the Jetway NF93R-LF (Intel GM45/ICH9M-E), for sure it runs passive, but it has not much expansion options and it's pricing (~ eur 240,-- w/o cpu)... far to much.

I'm in H.264 part of the world, so I'd take the nvidia ION chipset over any of the Intel video chipsets.

[ShiningDragon]

I'm in H.264 part of the world, so I'd take the nvidia ION chipset over any of the Intel video chipsets.

Yes, this is true. I dislike the intel GMA's too. But to be honest: Does anyone know how the Intel i3 / i5 Clarkdales (integrated graphics within the cpu) perform with .h264? There are a few very interesting socket 1156 ITX mainboards outside: http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=mb1p...DMI&sort=p

EDIT: a german testsite says, that the hardwaredecoding of vc-1 and .h264 is finally (good) working on an i5 661. Interesting! http://ht4u.net/reviews/2010/intel_clark...ndex12.php The clarkdales are manufactured in 32nm, perhaps they can be driven full passive?

[pBS]

i have great results with intels and h.264....even the g41 which has no hardware 264 decode, does it great with ffdshow..excellent pq on blurays on my 46"...
intel's only problem is they haven't built decent drivers for xp yet...but win7 drivers rock...even has detail enhance and noise reduc. post processing..

[ga_mueller]

What's all the hullabaloo about "fanless"? Don't need to have the hptc "on view" for the unwashed masses. Stick it in a box, and be done with it... aah... silence!

[pBS]

also means less dust and fewer moving parts to fail...and lower power presumably..

[ilovejedd]

To compare my ION 1 is eating 60 watts per hour idle and nearly 90 watts per hour, if the integrated graphics unit is full used. ^^;

That's unusually high. Mine (Zotac IONITX-A-U) uses 24~25W idle and ~32W full load (IBT+Furmark) measured from the wall with a Kill-A-Watt. If the ION actually consumed 60W idle and 90W load, no one would be using them for Mini-ITX builds let alone netbooks. Heck, even my i7-860+GTS 250 build uses 70W idle and the GeForce 9300+Celeron E3300 build uses ~30W idle and ~60W load.

Yes, this is true. I dislike the intel GMA's too. But to be honest: Does anyone know how the Intel i3 / i5 Clarkdales (integrated graphics within the cpu) perform with .h264?

It works very well. Even if it didn't though, I doubt you'll notice given the CPU has plenty of oomph to do all the decoding via software. There's still some driver issues with 24p playback, though. As for passive cooling, it's doable. With a laptop HDD or SSD and high efficiency PSU, it's common to see Clarkdale builds using just 25W idle. Heck, the CPU fan failed on my Clarkdale build and even with just the small block of aluminum Intel provides, the CPU maxed out at around 85C in BIOS. A decent heatpipe tower cooler would probably do the job of passively cooling the Clarkdales quite nicely.

[ShiningDragon]

Heck, even my i7-860+GTS 250 build uses 70W idle and the GeForce 9300+Celeron E3300 build uses ~30W idle and ~60W load.

I should add, that i am not measuring the platform alone. The measurements are done by a full PC (MediaCenter01): ION, 2 GB RAM, 2x 2,5" HDDs, iMON VFD and a PVR-500mce. I will never measure a board alone, because i will never use a board standalone.

My mainrig eats a lot of more power... (Q6600 B3), before i changed to a new gen enermax psu, i had a consumption of around 400 watts per hour. With the new enermax psu i have a load lesser.

Currently i am building my "new" HomeServer on an Intel H55 Chipset (to be more precise: http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a504979.html) with an i3-530 clarkdale. The mainboard is fully passive and i will see, how the clarkdale will perform, without the usage of it's own throtteling feature.
Of course, silent will be not possible within this system (far to much harddisks), but before i will finish this setup, i want to test it.

What this has to do with the topic? It's easy: board and cpu cost together only little more than an ION², should be "energy efficient" and a lot of more power inside. This board is exisiting in µATX too.

[ilovejedd]

I'm curious, how are you measuring power consumption? Because all of mine were measured at the wall and all of the builds had 2x2GB RAM and 1x 2.5" HDD in them. I can't quite believe that the iMON VFD and PVR-500MCE adds a good 30~60W to the load. Even a typical Q6600 build with the older B3 stepping would only consume around 300W at load.