[geeks] Intel Atom MB - Initial Impressions

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Jonathan Groll <lists at groll.co.za>
>Date: 2008/06/12 Thu AM 03:07:28 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Intel Atom MB - Initial Impressions

>On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:50:23AM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> >From: Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net>
>> >Date: 2008/06/11 Wed AM 11:48:20 EDT
>> >To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>> >Subject: Re: [geeks] Intel Atom MB - Initial Impressions
>> 
>> <snip>
>> 
>> >For Amy's machine, we just always build her system around an Intel board
>> >and chip and never have problems.
>> 
>> For non-professional use (i.e. home/desktop use) I agree, Intel MB & Chips *just work* - most other MB companies I've seen either play the "see how cheap I can make a MB" game or they are giving the user enough rope to fry their CPU/RAM with overclocking. Intel is really the more conservative, and in some ways, cost-effective solution, many times. If you are looking for performance/price extremes, I wouldn't look at Intel - it's not their strength - IMHO.
>>
>Isn't it odd that for the atom motherboard from the original post the
>NIC is a 10/100MBit made by Realtek? Is that a cost saving thing on
>Intel's behalf perhaps?

My guess is that Intel choose the Realtek Ethernet for it's power consumption and reliability, over Intel solutions that may be more robust, also consume more power. The "original" mini-ITX boards from Intel used SiS chipsets for similar reasons. Now that they have the power envelope low enough in the Atom CPU they have enough room for an Intel chipset (with the over-sized heatsink/fan) - the Atom CPU is passively cooled.

That is also the same reason that they didn't include Gigabit Ethernet or an expansion slot faster than plain-old PCI - the power envelope of the chips is probably too great. Remember, this is designed to be a low-cost, low-power system board intended for developing markets, not neccesarily the HTPC market segment...

Also note, Intel provides no Windows Server OS drivers for this MB (or any of their desktop boards) - they are pushing this as a desktop, not a Windows Home Server platform, network appliance, etc.

Personally, I am always struck by comments about what is missing, not what is included - for about $150 + case you can build a nice desktop machine with x64 support, a hyperthreading CPU, and a nice SATA II 3.0 Gb/sec HD using all new parts and with low power consumption. For the same $150 + case you can build a faster machine, or you can make lower-power machine (I guess, though "appliance boards" get expensive fast) - this system, and Intel's other mini-ITX boards represent but one point on that continuium...

Also, the Intel D201GLY2A with the TV-out is now available - not played with it, just saw it on a few websites over the past week.

Lionel
Lionel