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Low Power MB/CPU combo for a small HTPC/NAS upgrade ?

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galgo

New Around Here
Greetings,
My current NAS/HTPC is built around ASUS M2NPV-VM (onboard Video/Gigabit/SATARaid) + AMD Athlon X2 4450e (45W).
It's housed inside a compact ENERMAX LAGUNA (mATX/Low profile) with Scythe BIG SHURIKEN as the CPU cooler and the main intake fan.
HD is 2X WD Green 1TB.

This PC is working pretty much 24/7 and used to play Movies (usually <720P) as well as the NAS/bitTorrent downloader.
Sometimes for light encoding and general computing under Win7 - but nothing fancy (the current HW is already capable for most of the tasks).


I'd like to upgrade to a bit more efficient CPU/MB combo but still utilize most of the current HW such as the HDs, Case, CPU Cooler, DDR2 RAM etc...

If possible - analog VGA out as well as decent quality 6ch audio output (analog) and gigabit Ethernet will be appreciated.

Can you recommend a decent, yet cost effective solution?
Even ref. or eBay items are o.k..
ITX as well as mATX are suitable.

Gal
 
Well after going over what you currently have I am not quite sure you would be able to see much of a difference in power usage going to a newer setup. I actually just rescued an older eMachines T3616 desktop that has similar (Geforce 6150 based motherboard) specs to what you listed. I upgraded it to a Athlon X2 5400+ (2.8 Ghz 65W), replaced all of the capacitors on the motherboard and installed Windows 7. Idle power is around 40 watts with a single hard drive. From what I recall Load power is about 100 watts. My guess is with two hard drives (and the low power cpu) you are probably fairly close to my setup. Based on my results with my server (Phenom II 945 underclocked and undervolted) you might be able to shave 5 to 10 watts off by moving to an AM3 generation CPU and motherboard. The Intel i3 setups can probably save about the same at idle and a bit more when loaded. For reference my server idles at around 45 watts with one drive active.

I am not trying to convince you not to upgrade though... just want to make sure you know the difference in power usage from where you are at currently might not be that large. If you still are looking to upgrade I might suggest a MSI motherboard (seem to have lower power consumption) and maybe a Athlon X2 240. That would probably be the most cost effective and still might use less power.

00Roush
 

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