Getting the Best out of an Ivy Bridge HTPC: Windows 8, madVR and More..
by Ganesh T S on January 20, 2013 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Intel
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
- Windows 8
- Passive Cooling
Power Consumption and Thermal Profile
The power consumption details and case temperatures at full load were recorded in our earlier piece covering the build of the HTPC. However, we have made some updates to the system with the addition of an extra RAM stick as well as an additional SSD This time around, we decided to run a stress test with Prime 95 and Furmark for 24 hours. As can be seen below, CoreTemp reports that the core temperatures went as high as 86 C before settling down to around 80 C. The TDP rating of the Core i3-3225 is 55W, and CoreTemp reported between 53.8 W and 54.6 W throughout.
We removed the GPU loading and let Prime 95 alone run for some time. With almost no load on the GPU, the power consumed by the processor jumped down to around 40 W. This thermal budget allocation is pretty interesting, with less than 30% allocated to the GPU and the rest to the CPU. The i3-3225 doesn't have a Turbo mode, and hence, it is unable to take advantage of the headroom offered by the idle GPU.
Average power consumption numbers for various scenarios are presented in the table below. Unless explicity specified, the specified scenario was tested using Windows 8 Pro x64.
| Passive Ivy Bridge HTPC (Core i3-3225 / Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe) Power Consumption | |
| Windows 7 - Idle (Display off) | 27.71 W |
| Windows 8 - Idle (Display off) | 24.86 W |
| Windows 7 - Idle (Display on) | 28.02 W |
| Windows 8 - Idle (Display on) | 26.66 W |
| Sleep | 2.00 W |
| Prime95 v25.9 + Furmark (Full loading of both CPU and GPU) | 88.75 W |
| [Updated: New!] Prime95 v27.7 + Furmark 1.10.3 (Full loading of both CPU and GPU) | 89.77 W |
| Prime95 v25.9 (Full loading of CPU only) | 58.25 W |
| [Updated: New!] Prime95 v27.7 (Full loading of CPU only) | 62.56 W |
| 1080p24 H.264 Blu-ray Playback from ODD - CyberLink PowerDVD 12 | 38.15 W |
| 1080p24 VC-1 Blu-ray Playback from ODD - CyberLink PowerDVD 12 | 37.64 W |
| 1080i60 VC-1 Blu-ray Playback from ODD - CyberLink PowerDVD 12 | 39.73 W |
| 1080p24 VC-1 Blu-ray ISO Streaming from NAS - CyberLink PowerDVD 12 | 34.78 W |
| 1080p24 H.264 MVC Blu-ray ISO Streaming from NAS - CyberLink PowerDVD 12 | 37.86 W |
In our initial piece, we had noted the case and heat sink temperatures in the Fahrenheit scale. Since the configuration has changed (and the system consumes more power now), we have refreshed the case / heat sink temperature figures below. We have also shifted to the Celsius scale, as requested in some of the reader comments.
Chassis Temperature in C (Top and Faceplate) after 24 Hours of Full CPU / GPU Loading
Chassis Temperature in C (Side Bolted to the Heat Sink) after 24 Hours of Full CPU / GPU Loading
Heat Sink Assembly Temperature in C after 24 Hours of Full CPU / GPU Loading
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damianrobertjones - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
It's hardly difficult to use Windows 8! Heck a few of the ladies in work purchased laptops for their kids over xmas with Windows 8 and they're having no issues.... WHy are you??? Makes no sense at alllotharamious - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
No real useful advantages. But, it's $40. Oh yeah, and new task manager, new file copy dialog, storage spaces, data deduplication, WAY less naggy updates, fast boot (way faster than 7), extra dimension in your start menu for more stuff.Nothing at all.
ol1bit - Friday, January 25, 2013 - link
My Win 7 HTPC works just fine with my network streaming Silcon Dust dual tuner.I rebuilt by gaming PC with Windows 8 and after a week I couldn't take it anymore, re-installed Win7-64bit.
-Stupid UI
-Dumbed down for Grandpa and Grandma
- Stupid colors in office (aka none per se)
- COD4 and older games don't work.
Win7 has none of these issues, so if the only benefit I get is a netflix app that uses a tad less power, and a crappy UI forget it.
JlHADJOE - Sunday, January 27, 2013 - link
"Fast boot" is fast because it changes normal shutdown to "hibernate".If you force the OS to do a proper reboot, there's no improvement over 7.
justniz - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
Actually you can do a lot more with Linux than just surf YT. Check out MythTV. It is a VERY capable PVR/HTPC suite.In my opinion, much better than any product available for windows, and free too.
SantaAna12 - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
Aii yii yii!No I dont have Windows Pro 8.....pay up!
a2f - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
Is there any way we could get a look at how you have configured the various settings for the LAV filters and madVR for our own personal testing?Mangix - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
in regards to the refresh rate issue, which i am not too familiar with, have you tried modifying the EDID in the registry to help fix it?link: http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Re...
dubya911 - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
How do the final capabilities of this compare to the plethora of android mini PCs floating around? Things like the MK802, G-Box etc seem to have a beta version of XBMC with network storage support now. Or if you want to move upscale a bit googleTV, Roku etc?Other than the fun of putting it together is there an upside? My napkin math puts this build north of $600. That is a lot of delta to make up.
edlee - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
You are absolutely right.I have a set up One Raid -5 Xeon E2-1235 file server with a bunch of different DLNA servers programs to work with different client devices.
for example:
PS3 media server for my PS3
Servio for my Sony blu-ray players and smart tv devices
Plex for my roku
Qloud Media server for my android clients
This way I dont have to setup an expensive HTPC in every watching location, and the Xeon e2-1235 is comparable to i7-2600 so it has all the processing power to handle video transcoding in software, until these apps update their encode engine to take advantage of quick sync.