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I want the computer powered on 24/7 that's whay it's importent with low power consumption. I will use it as a NAS, and Web Server, SVN etc. I have looked at Asus AT3IonT-I Deluxe but it consumes 40W at load. However I can't find any other motherboard with lower power consumption.

  1. Is there other motherboard with lower power consumption?
  2. Is Nvidia ION wrong decision? What's the alternatives?

Requirements:

  1. Max power consumption 20W (at load)
  2. LAN 1G/s, 4Gb ram, at least 2 SATA, USB ports.
  3. No need for graphic card, sound card
  4. Compatible with Windows 7, Update: I want to host ASP.NET. Run MS.SQL Server under development. etc.
  5. 2 core Atom CPU Update: not necessary! However at least 1Ghz

A NAS with Linux is not an alternative!

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Requirements 4 and 5 throw... pretty much everything out the window. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Nov 13 '10 at 10:21
Why windows7? A server-focused linux distribution would have much lower system requirements. – RJFalconer Nov 13 '10 at 10:43
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@Amir: time to learn something new. mono-project.com/ASP.NET runs under linux, and hey, a fancy soekris.com consumes way less than 20w :) – akira Nov 13 '10 at 10:52
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it is very unlikely that you're actually going to access the server 24/7. So instead, go with a 40W model and configure it to wake from sleep whenever it's accessed. In the end you'll save way more power than having a 20W machine on 24/7. – stijn Nov 13 '10 at 11:23
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Have you actually looked at the prices of power to see if there really is a signification difference between 20-40watt? I don't know about the prices where you live, but 40watts on 24/7 for a year ~ is works out to be about 48 USD given MY current rates. You will probably waste more money trying to get this ultra-low-power 'server' then you would save in power costs. – Zoredache Nov 14 '10 at 11:16
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2 Answers

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In my experience, Atom does a little better than ION for power consumption, but ION does a little better than Atom for performance. That said, my experience is with Atom 280 and 330's. I haven't tried the new 510's yet, but I really like my Atom 330 home server.

That said, when looking at the whole system I think you'll be lucky to get as low as 20 watts at idle, much less under load. I think your energy budget needs to be somewhere closer to 45 watts at load and 25 to 30 at idle.

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Thanks, I build one based on ION chipset (Asus AT3IonT-I). 20w IDLE 40W at max load. – Amir Rezaei Dec 17 '10 at 23:18
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My Supermicro X7SPA-HF with 3x Western Digital Caviar Green disks uses 20w on load and 15w when under normal usage like downloading with a picopsu 90w.

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