Intel’s 3400 chipset for its socket 1156 platform accepts CPU’s from the cheap Intel Pentium G6950 and Core i3-530 to the higher end Xeon X3430 to X3470 CPUs. Both Clarkdale and Lynnfield based CPU’s offer outstanding power consumption (for early 2010) at relatively low costs. After reviewing the Supermicro X8SIL-F, I purchased a competing (price wise) Intel motherboard to review, the Intel S3420GPLC. As I soon found, Intel also makes a good board, however it lacks some of the Supermicro’s features.

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To update to my review of the Supermicro X8SIL-F, I took some Kill-A-Watt power consumption numbers with the Supermicro X8SIL-F to answer a few questions regarding power consumption with real server hardware compared to consumer-level hardware. Below I am focusing on idle power consumption as with the Intel Core i3-530, Xeon X3440, and other LGA 1156 CPUs the CPU utilization while running a NAS application will be very low. After a bit of testing I found the i3-530 again leading the pack in idle power consumption and the Xeon X3440 turning in very respectable idle power consumption numbers.

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The Supermicro X8SIL-F mATX motherboard is becoming a favorite for home servers, especially those built upon Core i3′s and Core i5′s because it provides lots of expandability in a small form factor, and has IPMI 2.0. The Supermicro X8SIL-F’s supported processors can easily handle a network attached storage (NAS) virtual machine as well as additional virtual machines for other purposes. As I eluded to in my previous post, the major difference between the revision v1.01 and v1.02 boards, at least as far as I have seen, is the support for the Intel Core i3 and i5 CPU’s as well as the Intel Pentium G6950 in the v1.02 X8SIL-F versus support only for Intel   CPU’s in v1.01. With the virtualization support and hyperthreading in the Intel Core i3 and i5′s as well as the low power consumption of Intel’s 32nm process, it is a great, low cost and low power combination.

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After using one of the the lowest power AMD CPUs around, the Sempron 140 Sargas (single core) in a WHS, I decided to go to the other extreme and try a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. With the release of six core AMD CPU’s, and the existence of the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, the  Phenom II X4 BE chip is not the highest end AMD CPU out there. On the other hand, WHS is currently based on the older 32-bit Windows Server 2003 kernel, so it runs on dual core CPU’s just fine. The impending release of Windows Home Server V2 VAIL means that 64-bit will be the new requirement and a bit more power will be needed for future WHS systems. A quad core is overkill but a six core CPU is basically a waste for WHS. Luckily, with the Phenom II X4 955 BE’s unlocked multiplier, we can emulate a Phenom II X4 965 BE through a very mild overclock, and some other AMD CPUs as well. The following is a quick review of what I encountered with the Phenom II X4 955 BE, and how I managed to get the Phenom II X4 955 to boot using the PicoPSU (to get comparable idle power consumption figures).

Phenom II X4 955 Boxed

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A few weeks ago I posted a quick guide to a command line method of shutting down a remote PC, using Remote Desktop. Today, a much better option, ASoft’s AutoExit. AutoExit is a great add-in for a Windows Home Server that consists of a simple add-in that runs on the WHS, and a client application that works on each individual PC.

To get the current AutoExit release candidate, please see ASoft’s Website here. The price is currently great insofar as it is free.  If you haven’t checked out ASoft’s AdminiMe already, see the ServeTheHome AdminiMe review here. It may be worth picking up the free version of AdminiMe or getting the full version while snagging AutoExit.

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Intel’s Clarkdale and H55/ H57 platforms are quite intriguing for several reasons. First, the performance is fairly good starting at 2.93ghz, and with hyperthreading, it is possible to get closer to a quad core performance in some tasks where multiple cores do well, such as video encoding. A second aspect is that Intel moved the IGP to an on package solution and really cut the power consumption/ heat dissipation of the platform. Finally, the cost of an i3-530 or i5-650 CPU plus a motherboard is often in the $200 or less range, making them quite affordable.

Two great uses for the chips are home servers and HTPC’s. Low power consumption and low heat generation ultimately enable lower acoustic signatures, as well as lower TCO through lower electric draw.

Core i5-650, Gigabyte H55M-UD2H, Dual Intel Pro/1000 GT PCI NICs

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