[geeks] New Intel Atom-based barebones system

[Mark]

On 15 Aug 2008, at 14:35, Lionel Peterson wrote:

>> Personally I am holding off for a Dual Core Atom. I think once it  
>> goes
>> Duo it'll pack enough punch for decoding HD media on the fly, which
>> will make it a much more viable possibility for a second machine on  
>> my
>> desk. If Intel launch a new mini-board with the Dual Core on it then
>> I'l be there faster than a speeding Duracell bunny. I even have a
>> desktop case to put it in when I get it now :)
>
> Mark,
>
> Intel has built a "miniITX" MB-only with some impressive spec's, but  
> the price is in the $200+ range, too rich for my "tinkering" systems. 
> [0]

I want a more optimal balance of power and efficiency than the  
Core2Duo. While efficient they are not as good as a Dual Core Atom is  
likely to be, they are just faster, too fast, they have too much CPU  
power, if that could ever happen. Also as you so aptly pointed out the  
board is very expensive and still has no CPU. Atom boards are cheap  
and still useful. Imagine the same cheap board with 2x the CPU power  
and barely 1.5x the power consumption, *that's* what I want :)

> The current Atom chip is "HyperThreaded" and while not the same as a  
> dual core chip, it is pretty good for general desktop use, esp. with  
> Intel's GMA 950 integrated graphics.[1]

I have a specific requirement for the board, namely as a DVR and Media  
player. A kind soul on here tested some 1080p and 720p H.264 video  
files on his Atom board for me a while back and, while it just coped  
with 1080p, it was stressing the CPU to hell and back, and would have  
rendered anything else running at the time (including the GUI I'd bet)  
unusable IMHO.

HT is a bit of a swizz, it's just a way of dividing one CPU up into 2  
performance units, there's no tangible gain from it for a heavy-weight  
media task like mine. It's okay for desktop work and low-fi stuff but  
that's not what I want my Atom PC for. I want Atom because it's  
ruthlessly energy efficient, near-silent running, and yet isn't  
anaemic on CPU power with that. A Dual Core version is on the cards,  
and would do that very job perfectly. There's also every possibility a  
future Dual Core Atom chip would be delivered on a board wit ha better  
graphics chipset that supported more media acceleration features,  
giving the board even more leverage as a media center.

As a side note, just how cool also would a Dual Core EeePC 90x be?  
Well it's gonna happen. Probably in the next 6 months. Same Dual Core  
Atom chip.

> For $70 + S/H (incl. CPU) they are cheap enough to play with, and if  
> they don't work out, the DDR2 RAM, SATA HD, and IDE optical drives  
> can be reused on another box down the road.

Eggs-achery. It's just the current CPU included is a little on the  
anaemic side for the application I want it for.

> The MSI system I pointed to was nice becuase it was the Atom CPU in  
> a small case w/PS for $140, and the  case has room for a full-size  
> (half-height) optical drive and a 3 1/2" HD...

I agree. That's ideally what I'd like, but with about 80% more CPU  
power. I don't need *another* Core2 machine. I already have a 4-core  
on my desk as it is.

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://markbenson.org/blog>
Visit my Homepage: <http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson>

"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."