Turning a i5-4690 into an i5-4690S?

[gerr]

I am building a home server for media streaming and client PC backups. I want an i5 in case I need to do any transcoding on the fly, ie streaming a 1080p video to a lower resolution device like a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. However, since this server will be running 24/7, I don't want a power sucking CPU either. I really wanted the i5-4690S, but it was out of stock and Newegg had a sale on the full version, the i5-4690, so I bought it instead.

I read somewhere that I can basically turn this 4690 into a 4690S by simply limiting the CPU to 90% in the OS. Any truth this this?

 

[Barney6262]

Well if you set the maximum power/cpu usage I guess you would get similar results. However, there is a fairly good reason they are two different products, one is designed/programmed to do what you want it to do.

 

[hunter315]

An i5-4690S is a binned i5-4690, it runs at a slightly lower clock rate and lower voltage but turbos up to the same single core level. If you spend some time fiddling you can undervolt your i5-4690 to drop its power consumption, if you underclock it some too you can significantly drop its power consumption. Remember power consumption scales with the square of voltage and linearly with frequency so dropping the clockspeed and voltage 10% each results in a 90% performance but 73% power consumption.

 

[gerr]

90% of 3.5Ghz is 3.15Ghz rounded up to 3.2Ghz, so that's basically the same as the 4690S.

But 73% of 84W is 61.3W, which is actually slightly lower than the 65W a 4690S is rated at.

So ya, that's basically my goal, and will probably turn off Turbo also.

 

[gerr]

Once I install the CPU and make the changes listed above, I'll stress test it and see what it's running at and how much power it's using and post those results here.