James Allsopp wrote: > Hi, > I'm using an old Core 2 processor in a case with 5 hard drives, one of > which is an SSD. It's a server but doesn't get hit particularly hard, so > I'm wondering what the options are to try and conserve power with it as > it's generating rather a lot of heat. I've looked at powertop, but there > didn't seem to be a huge amount there.The processor only scales between 2 > and 3Ghz with an ondemand governor. I upgraded the processor from a E8460 > and doubled the ram to 8GB, with the same hard drives and this was when I > noticed the temperature increase.
The E8400 is a 2 core, 2 thread 65W CPU with a top speed of 3GHz. It came out in 2008. An AMD Ryzen 5 3400G (4 cores, 8 threads) is $150; a low-end motherboard is $70; 16GB of RAM is $100. The resulting machine would be more than twice as fast on single-thread tasks, and could handle four times as many processes at that speed. Officially it would draw the same 65 watts, but AMD's calculation is for the maximum draw over a long period of time whereas Intel's calculation is for the normal draw over a long period of time; you should expect the AMD to run cooler and draw less power for the same workload. In the meantime: make sure the system is free of dust; make sure that fans are running; make sure that the airflow makes sense to bring air in on one side, across the CPU and RAM, and out on the other side. -dsr-
