I'm looking to replace a 5 year old P4 xeon with a fancy little atom based board...

 

I'd like 4 onboard SATA ports, and a PCI express port for more sata... I dont see myself ever having more than 6 or 8 disks.

 

What would you buy? under 150 is preferred for board/cpu...

You are replacing a P4 xeon and I will assume you have a regular case.

 

Then I will skip on the "fancy little Atom" board and buy a cheap regular micro ATX AMD (important - one not using DDR3 memory and if possible based on AMD740G chipset) board - usually it comes with 6 SATA ports.

If you ever need two more SATA - plenty of choice for under $20.

 

Then I will pair it with the 15W AMD 2650e CPU (2x the power of the Atom and available from Ebay @ $20-25)

 

Power consumption probably will be equal.

 

Important in this configuration is to have a quality but lower wattage PSU 250-300 Watts max (even the Corsair 400 may be overkill as it will run under the the 20% load with very poor efficiency most of the time) but these are extremely rare.

 

 

A lot of us use the Supermicro X7SPA-HF, and as long as you get verified memory, it is a rock solid little board with low power and low heat.  Once you get a taste of IPMI, you'll never want a headless system without it.  Lowest price I found right now is $188 at Provantage.

You might want to search Newegg for open box Supermicros, they pop up often. Right now the X7SPA-L-O is about $123 shipped. Ewiz is a great place to buy Supermicros if they are offering one of their $15 off coupons.

Are there any issues putting a Flex ATX Supermicro mobo in an ATX/mATX case?

Right now I have a mini-itx.

 

Why NOT one using DDR3?

I recently bought a used Supermicro X7SLA-H for only $100.  A bit older, takes slower RAM, and has only 4 SATA ports, but it should be able to support up to 20 drives with the appropriate SATA cards.  Look on eBay for another one of these, it might be a nice choice for you.

Right now I have a mini-itx.

 

Why NOT one using DDR3?

 

A was talking about the AMD 2650e CPU.

 

The memory controllers on the AMD platform are build in the CPU itself and this particular model (a bit older but with 15W TDP) lacks the DDR3 functionality - thus it wont fit and work in any motherboard that uses DDR3 memory (figuratively speaking).

 

And I believe the AMD740G is the lowest power consumption chipset (it still will depend as a whole of the motherboard layout) and this combination can compete IMHO with any Atom based board.

Right now I have a mini-itx.

 

Why NOT one using DDR3?

 

A was talking about the AMD 2650e CPU.

 

The memory controllers on the AMD platform are build in the CPU itself and this particular model (a bit older but with 15W TDP) lacks the DDR3 functionality - thus it wont fit and work in any motherboard that uses DDR3 memory (figuratively speaking).

 

And I believe the AMD740G is the lowest power consumption chipset (it still will depend as a whole of the motherboard layout) and this combination can compete IMHO with any Atom based board.

 

Truth. Looks pretty cheap, too. I will look into it.

 

Truth. Looks pretty cheap, too. I will look into it.

 

If you are going to look into it and you know for sure that you will be limited to 6-8 drives then it maybe a good idea to look for a very low power (200-250-300 Watts max) good quality PSU. They do exist but it is niche market and kind of expensive.

 

 

An Intel i3 530 with an H55 chipset can compete with the Atom's for a very low power system when idle or when serving up files.

An Intel i3 530 with an H55 chipset can compete with the Atom's for a very low power system when idle or when serving up files.

 

But someone can buy a cheap AMD MB, a cpu and the PSU for the price of this i3 530 alone

An Intel i3 530 with an H55 chipset can compete with the Atom's for a very low power system when idle or when serving up files.

 

But someone can buy a cheap AMD MB, a cpu and the PSU for the price of this i3 530 alone

 

The last time I picked up an Intel i3 530 and motherboard, they were sold together as a combo for $120 at Fry's. So that would make the CPU alone about $60? So lets see you pick out an AMD MB + CPU + PSU for $60. Go. 

 

Obviously, they likely cost more when not in a deal. I was commenting on the power draw numbers only, and not on the current prices.

 

The last time I picked up an Intel i3 530 and motherboard, they were sold together as a combo for $120 at Fry's. So that would make the CPU alone about $60? So lets see you pick out an AMD MB + CPU + PSU for $60. Go. 

 

Hehehe, I did pick one too at "that" time. In fact I believe it was for $115 or $110 after $10 MIR and I still keep the Biostar motherboard from that bundle.

Instead used the MSI micro ATX with two PCIe x16 slots for under $50.

 

Yeah...there were the good times.

 

However I did try to find similar deals in the past few months and there are none (change in the Fry's lost leaders policy???).

So if you find one again I am all for it...

 

Truth. Looks pretty cheap, too. I will look into it.

 

If you are going to look into it and you know for sure that you will be limited to 6-8 drives then it maybe a good idea to look for a very low power (200-250-300 Watts max) good quality PSU. They do exist but it is niche market and kind of expensive.

 

 

 

I have a very nice fanless 250watt high efficiency thermaltake PSU right now. It has served me well and will be in the new box.

The last time I picked up an Intel i3 530 and motherboard, they were sold together as a combo for $120 at Fry's. So that would make the CPU alone about $60? So lets see you pick out an AMD MB + CPU + PSU for $60. Go. 

 

Lol, lemme guess, Biostar TH55B HD or Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2H/UD2H + Core i3-530/540? Seriously wishing I bought two of those instead of the MSI 890GXM-G65 + Phenom II X6 1055T (I got one i3 combo and one X6 combo). For the things I use my PC for, the i3 kicks the X6's butt majorly while having much lower power consumption. Nowadays, Fry's doesn't offer MB/CPU deals like that anymore.