[geeks] HP Microserver - Observations pt 2

[Mark Benson]

More crazy observations:

It runs Windows 7 64-bit pretty well. Not all that surprising it's designed
for Server 2008, butrefreshing that it's not crippled somehow.

If you want to run the onboard graphics as a desktop setup in Windows you will
need to go to AMD.com and download the chipset drivers from:
	Download Drivers->Embedded Graphics->Radeon Embedded->AMD758E|SB8X0 Chipset->
<pick your OS>
It's a big download - 228MB for Vista/7 - but it includes drivers for the
Graphics, SATA, Chipset and a few other bits. Basically all you need to run
the chipset in Windows. This is a good thing, because HP only Support Red Hat
and Windows Server 2008! It's also fully certified on 64-bit as you'd expect.

Once the drivers are installed, Aero and 3D graphics work perfectly well. The
performance isn't stunning but it's still conducive to reasonable desktop
performance and will probably just about run Google Earth at a push.

The Windows 7 Performance Rating for the system as it was delivered (1GB of
RAM) is 3.7. The Slowest part is actually the Windows Aero performance.
Game/Business 3D registers at 4.4 (impressive!) and the CPU and RAM at 3.9.
It's not exactly an exhaustive benchmark but it does hint at exactly how much
this chipset craps on Intel's Atom systems from a great height. if you are
looking for a nice Netbook in the near future the AMD Athlon II Neo is a
pretty handy platform!

I played Star Trek Online on it but I don't recommend you try games. It  was
slow and looked awful even at 1280x800. Iy did at least prove it was capable
of half-decent Direct3D performance. Hell it's a Server for pete's sakes!!
Being ATi-based it also doesn't suffer the crap-a-zoic hang-ups that Intel's
GMA chipsets do with 3D stuff.

That's all I have today. Tomorrow is 'play with the RAID' and perhaps 'try to
install Linux'.

--
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://markbenson.org/blog>
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"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."