Low power fanless build advice

[rdwild]

What's the current best CPU/MB combo for low power (fanless if possible), with support for onboard SATA RAID (mirroring at least).

 

[CopaMundial]

The CPU/Motherboard are not going to be the things that drive you beyond a fanless solution.
That would depend on what else you have on the system... but to answer your question all of the LGA1155 CPU's are pretty low power (65 and 95W).

This would seem to be the lowest power option w/ RAID support while still maintaining a good level of performance.

Intel Core i5-2400S Sandy Bridge 2.5GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 65W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400S
$203 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115075

ASUS P8H67-M PRO/CSM (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
$125 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131711

With that build you could run with the integrated graphics to avoid additional power, heat, noise, and airflow restriction from a video card.

You could drive that with a lot less, but this is an excellent choice for a fanless power supply:
SeaSonic X series SS-400FL Active PFC F3 400W ATX12V Fanless 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
$135 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151097


A note on the motherboard, I went with the '-M' motherboard thinking that it would leave you the option of using a smaller micro-ATX case.

 

[kilo_17]

If your not using this build for anything really demanding, you could try an Intel Atom or AMD Fusion setup. Those are available fanless, and are pretty low power I believe. You'd have to check if they have RAID, I'm not sure about that.