Bad Axe Motherboard 300W idle?

from those two links, thats what i got as well. 35 amps at idle? i hope thats not correct. im not sure what would cause such a huge difference between those two boards, unless the 975 chipset pulls that much more power or something
 
I can't find the actul specs any where but I'm postive that the 975x chipset uses less power than the 965. I'll try to find the spec sheet, but I know I saw several reviews of the 975x, 965, and 680i and the in everyone the 975x used the least.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I have been reading about minumum loads since posting this. All the information I have found is regarding PSUs but seems equally applicable to MBs. As far as i can tell, the minimum load isn't the minumum power a device will draw, it's the minimum power that a device requires to perform without problems. So presumably the board actually uses the normal amount of power that a motherboard would, it just requires 300 watts to be pulled through it at all times. That's alot of power.

I'm very dissapointed after finding this in the specs. I'm trying to assemble a low power system utilising a Core 2 Duo E6600 and an Nvidia 7600 GT. The Bad Axe is the only intel board that allows DDR2 800 and ECC. But it appears I'm going to have to go with a "value" board instead. bye bye ECC, hello DDR 533. Meh.
 
I'm not sure what you read but I think you might be comparing Amps to watts. or comparing sleep usage to idle usage.

here is on test and with the 975X and it is clearly using less power. I know this review isn't with a BAX2 but there is only minimal diff in watt usage with manufactures.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/nforce-680i-sli_12.html

Again I don't know alot about power usage but I'm not sure I've seen a mobo that uses 43w at idle.

There has to be something in the way the companys are rating. It is not possiable to to have 43w idle because you have more than that with CPU, Video Card, and Memory usage. Maybe Intel is rating theirs with CPU and the other is theoretical usage of bare motherboard.

Just guessing but something smells fishy
 
I'm not sure what you read but I think you might be comparing Amps to watts. or comparing sleep usage to idle usage.

here is on test and with the 975X and it is clearly using less power. I know this review isn't with a BAX2 but there is only minimal diff in watt usage with manufactures.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chi...0i-sli_12.html

Again I don't know alot about power usage but I'm not sure I've seen a mobo that uses 43w at idle.

There has to be something in the way the companys are rating. It is not possiable to to have 43w idle because you have more than that with CPU, Video Card, and Memory usage. Maybe Intel is rating theirs with CPU and the other is theoretical usage of bare motherboard.

Just guessing but something smells fishy
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That's an amazing review that you found, msg1285. I spent more time than i want to admit reading about the Bad Axe and never found a review that showed the Bad Axe's power consumption.

I spent some time looking up what "minimum load" is and it's not a rating of power used, it's a rating of minimum power that needs to travel through the board for it to work properly. So what the specification means is that the combined wattage of everything you plug into your motherboard needs to exeed 300 watts or the board will have issues. That's a really tall order to fill, unless you're running some serious hardware. Basically the board requires hardware that idles at a higher power consumption than most computers pull at peak usage!

I sure do hope I'm wrong though, if anyone cares to correct me I'll be very happy. I really really want to be able to use the Bad Axe in a low power machine.
 
I think the most sensible interpretation is that with a minimum configuration (min ram, 1 HD, a low end processor, low end video card, etc) you will need a 300 watt PS to run the hardware at idle. Probably about the same for most modern MBs.
 
Monk0101 said:
I think the most sensible interpretation is that with a minimum configuration (min ram, 1 HD, a low end processor, low end video card, etc) you will need a 300 watt PS to run the hardware at idle. Probably about the same for most modern MBs.
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Intel isn't known for their great spec sheets. Their definitions of alot of industry standard terms arn't the same as other manufacturers. For example, their TDP isn't acutally the maximum thermal design point of their processors... But the thermal point during certain lab conditions... The TDP often exceeds the quoted value at stock speeds, and rapidly diverges from it during an overclock.

The minimum DC load is the amount of power required to be pulled from the power-delivery subsystems in order for the board to remain stable. I don't understand why the 975 requires ELEVEN amps to be drawn from the 5v line at idle... This just doesn't make sense. That's 55w from the 5v line at all times :eek:

My entire system pulls about 350w from the wall (8800GTS, conroe + WC setup) which translates to around 280w power usage (20% PSU inefficiency). I can't imagine a board requiring 300w to remain stable, ramping up into the 6-700s with a high-end single GPU.

Something's amiss here.
 
The minimum DC load is the amount of power required to be pulled from the power-delivery subsystems in order for the board to remain stable. I don't understand why the 975 requires ELEVEN amps to be drawn from the 5v line at idle... This just doesn't make sense. That's 55w from the 5v line at all times
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I agree with you. I'm starting to think that whichever engineer wrote this section had the board hooked up in a heavy power draw configuration (SLI), took some voltage readings while it was idle, and called it "minimum loading", despite the more common definition of minimum loading as the minimum required load for a device to funtion properly.

Thanks for the great response Arcygenical. I'm going to order the board under the assumption that the spec's min load is total BS and see if it'll work low power. Seeing as how I haven't read about anyone complaining about instability with the BX2 even with lower power components I think i have a very good chance of it working for my intended configuration.
 
category_five said:
I agree with you. I'm starting to think that whichever engineer wrote this section had the board hooked up in a heavy power draw configuration (SLI), took some voltage readings while it was idle, and called it "minimum loading", despite the more common definition of minimum loading as the minimum required load for a device to funtion properly.

Thanks for the great response Arcygenical. I'm going to order the board under the assumption that the spec's min load is total BS and see if it'll work low power. Seeing as how I haven't read about anyone complaining about instability with the BX2 even with lower power components I think i have a very good chance of it working for my intended configuration.
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Right, and if it doesn't, you've got a DAMN good case for a return - the restocking fee ;)
 
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