What can I power with a 240W AC-DC power brick?

[Joduko]

I have this external 240W PSU from an old Alienware X51 with an HDPlex 400W DC-ATX board for a Small-form-factor project, I just don't know what kind of hardware I could run with it. I intend for there to be a max of 2-3 fans in the system and the only storage will be an M.2 SSD.

The old system it powered was:

i5 3450

unknown GTX 400-500 series GPU with a 6-pin power connector

1TB HDD

slim optical drive

1x 80mm case fan

1x 92mm CPU cooler fan

Case lighting

 

Idea 1: APU system such as Ryzen 7 4750G. I would imagine I should be able to clock as high as I want with an APU using that kind of PSU right?

 

Idea 2: Locked i5 10400 + Low-profile GTX 1650. The GTX 1650 blows the vega 8 iGPU out of the water, but CPU performance would have to be sacrificed and even then IDK if it's low-powered enough.

 

Idea 3: If the i5 10400 is still too much power than maybe a T series CPU?

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, Damprol said:

I have this external 240W PSU from an old Alienware X51 with an HDPlex 400W DC-ATX board for a Small-form-factor project, I just don't know what kind of hardware I could run with it. I intend for there to be a max of 2-3 fans in the system and the only storage will be an M.2 SSD.

The old system it powered was:

i5 3450

unknown GTX 400-500 series GPU with a 6-pin power connector

1TB HDD

slim optical drive

1x 80mm case fan

1x 92mm CPU cooler fan

Case lighting

 

Idea 1: APU system such as Ryzen 7 4750G. I would imagine I should be able to clock as high as I want with an APU using that kind of PSU right?

 

Idea 2: Locked i5 10400 + Low-profile GTX 1650. The GTX 1650 blows the vega 8 iGPU out of the water, but CPU performance would have to be sacrificed and even then IDK if it's low-powered enough.

 

Idea 3: If the i5 10400 is still too much power than maybe a T series CPU?

A ryzen 3600 + 1650 would be as far as I'd dare push it and that 1650 would be one without a power plug.

[Joduko]

14 minutes ago, jaslion said:

A ryzen 3600 + 1650 would be as far as I'd dare push it and that 1650 would be one without a power plug.

I don't dare use Ryzen or any unlocked CPU really as long as I've got a GPU. Yeah definitely the unplugged graphics card too. I don't think any of the LP cards have extra power input do they?

 

Do M.2 SSD use less power than HDD? I would assume so since there's no moving parts.

 

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Damprol said:

I don't dare use Ryzen or any unlocked CPU really as long as I've got a GPU. Yeah definitely the unplugged graphics card too. I don't think any of the LP cards have extra power input do they?

 

Do M.2 SSD use less power than HDD? I would assume so since there's no moving parts.

 

The ryzen 3600 has identical power consumption compared to the intel. You could also just get a 3300x which has lower power consumption. There are many 1650's out there that do not have a extra power plug and I would not get a low profile version due to the worse cooling it has if you can just get a normal one. M.2 is more efficient yes.

[Joduko]

10 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The ryzen 3600 has identical power consumption compared to the intel. You could also just get a 3300x which has lower power consumption. There are many 1650's out there that do not have a extra power plug and I would not get a low profile version due to the worse cooling it has if you can just get a normal one. M.2 is more efficient yes.

If we're talking 4c,8t parts How does the i3 10320 compare to the R3 3300x? The 10320 seems to reach higher stock speeds, but does it use more power than the 3300x?

[KaitouX]

20 minutes ago, Damprol said:

If we're talking 4c,8t parts How does the i3 10320 compare to the R3 3300x? The 10320 seems to reach higher stock speeds, but does it use more power than the 3300x?

Yes: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i3-10320/18.html

You can't really compare frequency between different CPU architectures, there are other things that affect performance, as you can see in that review the 3300x is often better in non-gaming applications. I believe you can drop the power consumption of the Ryzen CPU by lowering the PPT in Ryzen Master, Intel you can undervolt(maybe, not sure on limitations Intel puts on non-K CPUs and cheaper motherboards) for similar results, often you can lower the power consumption by quite a bit if you're willing to have slightly lower performance.

[Joduko]

 

13 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

Yes: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i3-10320/18.html

You can't really compare frequency between different CPU architectures, there are other things that affect performance, as you can see in that review the 3300x is often better in non-gaming applications. I believe you can drop the power consumption of the Ryzen CPU by lowering the PPT in Ryzen Master, Intel you can undervolt(maybe, not sure on limitations Intel puts on non-K CPUs and cheaper motherboards) for similar results, often you can lower the power consumption by quite a bit if you're willing to have slightly lower performance.

IDK how I feel about going with a 4 core part again because I was thinking of using this PC for some streaming. Isn't there something you can do with intel CPUs that uses their integrated iGPU cores to handle streaming?

[KaitouX]

11 minutes ago, Damprol said:

IDK how I feel about going with a 4 core part again because I was thinking of using this PC for some streaming. Isn't there something you can do with intel CPUs that uses their integrated iGPU cores to handle streaming?

If you want to stream, you should probably look into building a proper system with at least the 3100/3300x + 1650 Super, as you would be able to use the 1650S better nvenc encoder to get a decent quality stream, that 1650 does not have. You could probably apply the method to lower the power consumption above to the 3600/3700x and it might work out, but i certainly would not recommend doing it(I also don't really recommend using the others mentioned before, you should probably try looking into build a proper system from ground up if possible.).

[Joduko]

6 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

If you want to stream, you should probably look into building a proper system with at least the 3100/3300x + 1650 Super, as you would be able to use the 1650S better nvenc encoder to get a decent quality stream, that 1650 does not have. You could probably apply the method to lower the power consumption above to the 3600/3700x and it might work out, but i certainly would not recommend doing it(I also don't really recommend using the others mentioned before, you should probably try looking into build a proper system from ground up if possible.).

Okay that's good to know.

 

It looks like I will choose an APU. I wasn't expecting modern midrange CPUs to be using more power than the ones 8 years ago, but I guess the additions of hyperthreading and an extra 2-4 cores adds more consumption than IPC improvements and efficiency gains can make up for.

 

I'm not in a massive rush. I think I can wait until DDR5 memory to make its way into systems. That should give a nice performance bump to iGPU users. Although I do have my heart set on the SFF- low power concept so the traditional desktop build isn't what I'm going to do.