Intel Shortage
According to DigiTimes, Intel is scaling down its processor shipments to DIY distributors during the 4th quarter of 2018, by up to 2 million units (25% of the initially expected 8 million deliveries). DigiTimes also reports that motherboard and graphics card manufacturers expect reduced sales through the first half of 2019, due to a few factors, lack of Intel CPUs being one of them. What does this mean for Fully Silent PCs? Intel’s 35 W TDP “T” series CPUs are very fanless friendly, and have made their way into a majority of my Pre-Configured PCs. It seems that desktop CPUs for DIY distributors are at the bottom of Intel’s priority list, and their 35 W TDP processors are at the bottom of their desktop CPU priority list. I’ve had a lot of trouble finding 35 W TDP Coffee Lake CPUs, and it looks like that is not going to change any time soon. Fully Silent PCs is currently out of stock of all of Intel’s 35 W TDP processors, other than the remaining stock on hand of the Kaby Lake i7-7700T and Skylake Pentium G4400T.
AMD Alternatives
Luckily, AMD now has competitive alternatives. While Intel’s 65 W TDP processors are still available, they are not compatible with all fanless CPU coolers and cases. AMD’s Athlon 200GE, Ryzen 3 2200GE, and Ryzen 5 2400GE can fill the void. Many of my Pre-Configured PCs now include these AMD processors for lower energy use, lower heat generation, and lower cost. If you are looking to build a fanless PC yourself with AMD’s 35 W options, you can find them at QuietPC.com in the UK. The Athlon and Ryzen processors have the added benefit of having more advanced integrated graphics than Intel’s desktop processors. The Athlon 200GE has similar graphics performance to Intel’s desktop processors, and the Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 have similar graphics performance to Nvidia’s discrete GT 1030 graphics.
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| AMD Athlon 200GE – Radeon Vega 3 Graphics
# of Cores – 2 # of Threads – 4 Base Frequency/Core – 3.2 GHz Max Frequency/Core – 3.2 GHz Cache – 5 MB TDP – 35 W Integrated Graphics – Radeon Vega 3 Passmark Benchmark – 5,051 Passmark Graphics Benchmark – 1,145 |
AMD Ryzen 3 2200GE – Radeon Vega 8 Graphics
# of Cores – 4 # of Threads – 4 Base Frequency/Core – 3.2 GHz Max Frequency/Core – 3.6 GHz Cache – 6 MB TDP – 35 W Integrated Graphics – Radeon Vega 8 Passmark Benchmark – 7,229 Passmark Graphics Benchmark – 1,912 |
AMD Ryzen 5 2400GE – Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics
# of Cores – 4 # of Threads – 8 Base Frequency/Core – 3.2 GHz Max Frequency/Core – 3.8 GHz Cache – 6 MB TDP – 35 W Integrated Graphics – Radeon RX Vega 11 Passmark Benchmark – 7,285 Passmark Graphics Benchmark – 2,310 |
Good Media PC
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Better Media PC
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USB for External DAC Audiophile PC
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