On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Matt Garman <matthew.garman at gmail.com>wrote: > On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:55 AM, SilverTip257 <silvertip257 at gmail.com> > wrote: > > I'm in search of some hardware that consumes a low amount of power for > use > > as a test-bed for Linux, various coding projects, and LAN services. > > > > 1) Low power consumption (10-15W ... maybe 30W at most) > > 2) Must run Linux without too much fuss (CentOS or otherwise) > > 3) Must have two NICs (fast ethernet or better) > > 4) Memory - 1GB or better > > 5) Can be configurable either via serial or VGA. > > 6) Accepts a normal hard drive, not CF -- drive capacity is my concern. > > 7) spare PCI slot is a _plus_ (extra NICs or whatever else) > > 8) I'd like to keep the physical footprint to a minimum (size of a 1U > > switch or so?) > > The lowest-power x86 device I've used is an Alix 2d2 from PCEngines. > Power consumption was about five watts, regardless of load. This has > three 100 mbps NICs, a 32-bit x86 AMD Geode CPU, and 256 MB RAM > soldered to the board. Has a built-in Compact Flash slot to use as a > "hard drive". I ran OpenBSD on mine for years as a > firewall/gateway/router for a home LAN (don't see why it wouldn't run > CentOS). (I'm actually selling mine, email off list if interested.) > The Geode CPUs do not support PAE [0]. While CentOS 5.x would work, 6.x requires a kernel recompile (not complaining, but noting). [0] http://joseph.freivald.com/linux/2010/04/22/alix-centos-image/ > > I upgraded my firewall device to an Atom-based D2500CCE. IIRC, I > installed 2x2GB of RAM, booting from a cheap SSD, powered by a > PicoPSU, and running PFSense. I think this configuration pulls > roughly 16 watts at idle, maybe a couple more watts when fully loaded. > This board has dual Intel gigabit ethernet ports. > > For my home theater PC, I'm running an ASRock H67M-ITX and Core > i3-2100 CPU, with 2x4GB of RAM and SSD. I have it inside a Habey > EMC-800B case, using the included power supply. Idle power > consumption is about 22 watts. It's been a while since I measured > power consumption at load, but I'd guess 50--60 watts (it's idle 99% > of the time though). Note that even when "idle", MythTV seems to use > a little CPU, so if I kill mythfrontend, my idle power consumption > drops another watt or two. > > Only one NIC on the Asrock board, but it has a PCIe expansion slot so > you could easily add another. I'd expect an add-on NIC to add around > one to five watts of power consumption. > > My personal workstation uses an Intel DH67GD micro-ATX motherboard, > i5-2500k CPU, 4x4GB RAM, SSD, and traditional ATX power supply > (Seasonic SS-300ET). It pulls about 30 watts when idle. Only one NIC > on that motherboard. > > For all the above, I'm talking AC (i.e. at the wall) power > consumption, in the USA (so 115 Volts), measured with a Kill-A-Watt > (not high-precision, but should be reasonable within a watt or two). > What follows is stuff with which I have no personal experience, but > have read about: > > The Intel S1200KP mini-itx motherboard. It has built-in dual gigabit > NICs, socket 1155, so you can use anything from a Celeron up to a > Xeon, depending on how much you want to spend and what your > upper-bound computational needs are. I was considering that for my > firewall/router replacement. With a PicoPSU I would suspect that one > could get 20 watts or lower idle power consumption. > > With an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, and Pentium G2120, SilentPCReview > built a system that pulls 16.5 Watts[1]. (The article is a case > review, but power consumption information is included.) That DQ77KB > board also has dual gigabit NICs. > > You might also be interested in Intel's "NUC - Next Unit of > Computing"[2]. About 10 watts power consumption for dramatically > under-clocked i3 CPU. > > In general, with modern Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPUs, it's almost trivial to > build a high-performing system that has 30 watt or less idle power > consumption. If you cherry-pick components, it's not terribly hard to > get a system with 20 watt idle power draw. The modern Intel CPUs all > have roughly the same idle power usage (at least the consumer line, > not sure about Xeons). That goes for the more expensive low-power > variants as well. The difference of the low-power variants is their > upper-bound power consumption is lower than their peers. But you can > often fake that by deliberately limiting the max frequency in the > BIOS. Of course, with these "real" CPUs (compared to e.g. Atom), > power consumption will be much higher when loaded. But from what I've > read, the "real" CPUs are actually better in the long run, because > their computation efficiency is so much higher. With something like > Atom, you get more deterministic power draw, but a severely > compromised upper-bound on computational power. In your requirements, > you mentioned "various coding projects". If you are working in a > compiled language (e.g. C, C++, Java), for substantially large > projects, your compile times will be painful on Atom, but pleasantly > fast on a Sandy/Ivy Bridge CPU. > I'll have to keep the 'real' cpu point in mind because after all this box will be idle much of the time. > > [1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Akasa_Euler_Fanless_Thin_ITX_Case > > [2] http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_NUC_DC3217BY > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > Thanks! -- ---~~.~~--- Mike // SilverTip257 //