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Old September 6th 14, 04:39 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.arch,sci.electronics.design
Skybuck Flying[_4_]
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Default Fanless or near fanless PC 2014 ? (sub 5 watts)

Hello,

This processor has caught my eye, it's a sub 5 watt processor from intel, it
has latest features and even a graphics chip inside of it ?!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/int...e-m,27596.html

This reminds me of the 80486 chip which also didn't have a heatsink or a
fan.

I checked my pentium 166, it still came with a heatsink and a fan.

I very much like the idea of a chip without a fan. A heatsink could still be
possible though.

So perhaps a slightly hotter chip is still possible for a PC design.

I wonder: does this core m chip come with a passive heatsink for laptop, and
what about pc/desktop ?

There was mention of a docking system with fan to increase performance ? How
so ? Can the chip run faster ? Does it use thermal throttling ?

Anyway, using such a chip for a fanless or nearly fanless PC would also
require other components without a fan.

My main worry would be the motherboard which could also have a tiny little
****ty noisy fan which would ruin the design.

Other points of worry are harddisks, though these don't seem to generate
that much heat.

And ram chips... not sure what there tdp would be.

The 80486 PC did come with a fan in the power supply... not sure why that
fan was there... probably too cool the power supply itself but possibly also
for some airflow through case otherwise temperature may rise... which seems
somewhat logical.

So perhaps truely fanless system not possible, except maybe with conducting
the heat away via heatsinks outside of case.

I am very much interested in a fanless PC desktop design, but it has to be
somewhat powerfull at running applications/games.

So I have some questions about this core m chip:

1. How does it compare to an AMD X2 3800+ dual core chip from 2006 ?
(manufactured in 2001?!)

Is core M slower, equal or faster than this AMD chip ?

2. Is core M capable of running company of heroes 2 at some decent graphics
settings and frame rate ? that would be nice ! (at least company of
heroes 1 can be considered best game of all time, not yet sure if coh2 is
any good but I sure wanna try it)

3. core M should also be capable of running warcraft frozen throne, another
great game with many many many mods, which make it a lot of fun.

4. Video playback should be smooth.

5. Internet browsing should be smooth as well.

I am hoping yes is the answer to all these 5 questions, if 2 is no, that's
kinda ok.

I want to know:

1. What motherboards are available for core m which can also be used for
desktop designs ? These motherboard must not have any fan on them.

2. Additional components are also nice to know... ram chips and such.

3. Also power supply capable of dissipating this heat away/out of case
without requiring a fan would be very cool... I think heatsinks didn't exist
during the time of the 80486 so this could be a chance to create a really
cool, noiseless PC, except maybe for the harddisk slightly rattling but
that's ok I think .

My main wish is too just have a PC which does not require any cleaning... as
to not break things because of cleaning... also safes time.

Also I want this PC to be capable of running software to it's maximum
potential/maximum cpu/gpu strain without overheating the system or causing
other thermal issues.

Think of highly intensive cpu processing, perhaps bitcoin, or evolutionary
software, or folding, rendering, gaming, any kind of high cpu/gpu/intensive
computing.

This desktop PC design should also be able to function at ambient
temperatures of 35 degrees celcius perhaps even 40 degrees celcius now with
rising global temperatures So this PC should be capable of running
through a summer's heat at a breeze/without breaking a sweat .

What disappoints me about the chip is:

Only 2 cores, though it can run 4 threads.

Very small cpu cores, compared to the gpu core.... not sure if having
cpu+gpu on one chip offers some kind of performance adventage.
At the same time it's kinda nice though, only 4.5 watts for cpu+gpu !

However a different chip could also be considered in combination with a
seperated gpu chip.

Assuming both chips can run at 4.5 watts max, and still be cooled by a
passive cooling system.

I would then probably prefer a 4, 8-core or 16 core cpu with large L1
caches. (L1 cache size is usuable kept secret apperently, kinda annoying)
very important cache.

GPU should then also run at 4.5 watts. I'm afraid such a gpu simply does not
exist... so this is kinda surprising from intel. Seems like intel turning
into a graphics company more than a cpu company

Though AMD did same with ATI purchase... weird isn't it

I have yet to come across a competing product from AMD which can compete
with core M... perhaps AMD does not want to compete for this segment ? Or
perhaps it does and I am unaware of it at this moment... so please do share
product suggestions.

2016 is still far away... as some of you may know I was hoping for an arm
based system in 2016... but to wait another 2 years is kinda painfull...
even 1 year is kinda painfull.

Also intel has some very nice instruction set extensions which seem
promising. I am not sure how many clock cycles those new instructions
take... like aes, or bmi, or crc32, some data on that would also be nice. (I
think broadwell also has the mulx instruction for multi-byte arithmetic
enhancements, well done intel ! pretty amazing ! )

(Skylake with the sha/bitcoin instruction would also be very fun to have,
but probably too far away for now )

Another reason for my interest in a new PC is my current PC is sucking up a
lllllllooottttt of dust and making a lllloottt of noise... and I am kinda
sick of it... and web browsing has become somewhat slow/sluggish.... also
youtube sluggish and so forth. Some more speed from a new system would be
nice... it could speed up my day a bit... and save some time as well...

I am scared to run intense software on my current system (google skybuck's
dream pc from 2006 to get an idea what it is).

I am scared it will suck something up and/or cause an overheat, or damage to
ram chips because of stuff sucked in.

Only thing that worries me with a fanless design is harddisk damage cause of
overheat... anybody have any experience with running hitachi deskstar or
ultrastar harddisk in fanless systems ? Does it work ? Or does it crash the
harddisk ? (Harddisk have some ram chips nowadays as well, probably causing
some heat). I think it needs some airflow to keep cool, not sure though.

So basically I kinda want the same technology that's inside laptop's or
tablet but with more room to breath, but coupled to my BIG-ASS monitor and
BIG-ASS keyboard and a bit more ooppmmh if possible.

(I'd like the system to have overheat protection just in case, so system
must completely shutdown in the case of overheat whatever it's doing. My
current system/motherboard (winfast) has that and it's kinda nice )

Bye,
Skybuck.