[mythtv-users] Lowest power HD frontend?

Raymond Wagner raymond at wagnerrp.com
Tue May 28 17:20:45 UTC 2013


On 5/28/2013 1:04 PM, Jeff Siddall wrote:
> On 05/23/2013 09:28 PM, jacek burghardt wrote:
>> I know there is i3 530 that is like 16 watts
>
> Really?  I looked up the i3-530 and it has a TDP of 73 W!
>
> http://ark.intel.com/products/46472/Intel-Core-i3-530-Processor-4M-Cache-2_93-GHz 
>
>
> Also, that's just the CPU.  By comparison the Atom 330 used in the 
> IONITX stuff has a TDP of 8 W.

So?  The Atom330 used in the IONITX stuff basically has no power gating 
or clocking.  That means regardless of what it's doing, it's going to be 
running near that 8W usage.  Meanwhile that 73W i3, with around 6x the 
performance of an Atom330, will rarely, if ever, actually see that kind 
of usage, and will spend more time idling down around 15W.  My 55W G2120 
idles at 25W, measured at the wall. That includes the system board, 
gigabit network controller, two sticks of DDR3, and a PSU that's running 
so far off its designed output, it's hitting an abysmal 50-60% 
efficiency.  The CPU itself is probably drawing somewhere around 8W at 
that point.

Low power does not necessitate low performance.


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