Best CPU/GPU combo for the cost and power consumption

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factory81

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
215
Yes. For the first time ever, power consumption will matter to me.

I am moving out and utilities are no longer free. I want a desktop (yes a desktop, not another notebook), and I am going mini-atx for space reasons. To the point, I don't want my desktop consuming tons of energy. So if there is a specific route to take with power consumption in mind, please let me know.

But where I stand right now I am thinking i5-750 or i7-860 at the very most for cost, and a GTX 260.

I like to game, edit some video, but I am can barely justify spending over $200 on a CPU. I am sitting on an e6600/8800gts right now and games are just getting a little rough unless I overclock, and I am pretty sure this is not a very efficient setup. My computer is somewhat of a space heater....

Are there better combos for power consumption, CPU or GPU wise? I don't want to give up tons of performance.
 
An HD 5770 would be a better alternative, almost same price new right now as a 260, and less heat/power usage
 
The i5-750 or i5-760 would be a good choice sense it doesn't use a lot of power for a quad, but performs very well. As for a GPU under $200 I would go with a GTX 460 768mb. The 768mb version uses the same amount of power as a 5770 when idle, uses a little more than the 5770 under load but performs a lot better than the 5770.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/07/12/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460-768mb-gpu-review/1

It comes down to price really and how much you want to spend since both cards offer a lot of "bang for your buck" . You can get a GTX 460 768mb on newegg for $199, and a 5770 for $145.
 
Why don't you take advantage of S3 sleep? As long as you aren't one of those fools downloading illegal stuff off of the net 24/7, there probably isn't much need for it to be on all the time. Power consumption in S3 is ~20W and that costs pennies per month. Your active time, assuming you aren't gaming for 10 hours per day, won't have much influence on your electricity bill.
 
Myeh, I leave my rig on 24/7 almost always for torrenting purposes, and my Kill-a-Watt reports that I've spent about $6.60 worth of electricity in the 463 hours that I've been running my pair of monitors, router, modem, and rig on. (I pay $0.10 per kWh, for math purposes).

I mean, I'm not running an i7 rig and high end video card like I'd love to be, but I don't think your computer's power draw is going to pummel your wallet all that hard. Why not play with a Kill-a-Watt and see how much your current rig draws?
 
Garby said:
Myeh, I leave my rig on 24/7 almost always for torrenting purposes, and my Kill-a-Watt reports that I've spent about $6.60 worth of electricity in the 463 hours that I've been running my pair of monitors, router, modem, and rig on. (I pay $0.10 per kWh, for math purposes).

I mean, I'm not running an i7 rig and high end video card like I'd love to be, but I don't think your computer's power draw is going to pummel your wallet all that hard. Why not play with a Kill-a-Watt and see how much your current rig draws?
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Not that it makes a huge difference, but you only quoted a partial months worth of electricity. It's over $10 for the whole month which is ridiculous for a single computer. I have a pretty large house and in the middle of summer my electricity bill with 3 people living in it using 7 computers and several TVs as well as the AC is under $50. We pay less per KWh (.077) but power saving modes make all the difference in the world. The point is that $6.60 is a pretty large amount for a single computer for 64% of a month. If you must torrent 24/7, why not do it from a NAS that uses 70% less power? You might save enough money over the long run to actually buy things instead of pirating. ;)
 
MrDudeMan said:
Not that it makes a huge difference, but you only quoted a partial months worth of electricity. It's over $10 for the whole month which is ridiculous for a single computer. I have a pretty large house and in the middle of summer my electricity bill with 3 people living in it using 7 computers and several TVs as well as the AC is under $50. We pay less per KWh (.077) but power saving modes make all the difference in the world. The point is that $6.60 is a pretty large amount for a single computer for 64% of a month. If you must torrent 24/7, why not do it from a NAS that uses 70% less power? You might save enough money over the long run to actually buy things instead of pirating. ;)
Click to expand...

don't torrents still DL when the computer goes into sleep mode...? or is that just in S1...?

:confused:
 
MrDudeMan said:
Not that it makes a huge difference, but you only quoted a partial months worth of electricity. It's over $10 for the whole month which is ridiculous for a single computer. I have a pretty large house and in the middle of summer my electricity bill with 3 people living in it using 7 computers and several TVs as well as the AC is under $50. We pay less per KWh (.077) but power saving modes make all the difference in the world. The point is that $6.60 is a pretty large amount for a single computer for 64% of a month. If you must torrent 24/7, why not do it from a NAS that uses 70% less power? You might save enough money over the long run to actually buy things instead of pirating. ;)
Click to expand...
I'd love to do it with a NAS, but I can't justify the cost of a NAS at the moment. $10 a month isn't killing me in comparison.
 
I would go with an i3-530 again in a heartbeat. OC's to 4.4ghz without trying. Co-worker has a i5-750 at 3.8ghz with the same video card and I pull better benchmarks then him in most games.

The 460 barely pulls more power then a 5770 at full load. If I had it all to do over again I'd go with the 460.
 
Buy an atom barebones or a sempron 140 for a 24/7 rig.
Consumes less than a light bulb at load and shouldnt cost you more than 50$ to buy if you shop smart.
 
Garby said:
I'd love to do it with a NAS, but I can't justify the cost of a NAS at the moment. $10 a month isn't killing me in comparison.
Click to expand...

Got any old hardware sitting around? FreeNAS is pretty good, but I'm not sure if it can torrent.
 
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