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AMD's Turion 64 on the Desktop

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the building-it-out dept.

Toasty16 writes "SPCR has an overview of using an AMD Turion 64 mobile processor in a desktop system. There's a good bit of info about motherboard compatibility and power consumption as compared to a Pentium M processor. There's also links to articles from the Techreport and LaptopLogic on the same topic. If you've been thinking about building a low power HTPC or file server, mobile processor on desktop is an interesting option."

4 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. neato-keen by eekygeeky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love the idea of low power, high-concept CPUs on desktop machines.

    I love the fact that these chips are 754 pin and thus compatible with an existing socket- motherboard manufacturers won't have to ramp up any new hardware to start selling boards for these in every color of the rainbow.

    Turion Shuttles/insert small FF MB here/, anyone?

    and there are loads of legacy boards available. Socket 754 boards are dirt cheap. here's a handy list of compatibles from the article:

    http://angelfall.s39.xrea.com/area2ch/turion-e.htm l

    I would have jumped all over the P M, except there was no desktop gear for it; unless I bought a notebook PC and did some expensive hacking, which, ad publicae geekio, is a contradiction in terms.

    score +one for AMD.

  2. Energy Savings - why not turn it off? by PoconoPCDoctor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Speaking just to the power-savings benefit of using a mobile CPU in a home system, unless you are running a home server, the best way to conserve power in any PC would be to turn it off.

    This link notes one person's cost of leaving systems powered up, a little more than $23.00 USD per month.

    So boot it up each morning, make the coffee and toast, and by the time you sit back down in front of Unbuntu, Mandriva, BSD, SUSE or that friendly chair-throwing group from Redmond, you can feel better about not burning up more oil to play solitaire (YOU'RE FIRED).

    --
    "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
  3. Replaced my servers for this reason.. by xtal · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was running two very old machines for fileservering and routing/firewall duties. My estimate put these machines at about ~$30-40/mo to run depending on what I was doing. I was able to drop this down by about half moving to a mini ITX board with the via C3 processor, and it only cost about $150. I could have spent less, but I upgraded the power supplies as well.

    You can easily measure how much power your computer draws with a multimeter from the hardware store - last time I was there I saw them for about $10. Put the meter on the AC amps scale, make sure the wires are plugged into the amp reading ports, and then wire it in series with your computer.

    I guarantee you'll be suprised. I was.

    --
    ..don't panic
    1. Re:Replaced my servers for this reason.. by drgould · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can easily measure how much power your computer draws with a multimeter from the hardware store - last time I was there I saw them for about $10. Put the meter on the AC amps scale, make sure the wires are plugged into the amp reading ports, and then wire it in series with your computer.

      Don't forget, what you're measuring is apparent power, which is really volt-amps. Computer power supplies have a significant power factor, so what you really want to do is measure the corrected real power which is in watts.

      Go to ThinkGeek and pick up a Kill-A-Watt, which will not only tell you how many watts your computer actually consumes, but also things like power-factor and kilowatt-hours, which is a much more accurate measure of power consumption.