Atom-Based Mini-ITX Motherboard Available 240
LWATCDR writes "A company out of the UK is selling an Intel Atom-based Mini-ITX motherboard. It has a riser for two PCI cards, two SATA ports, and an IDE ports so it could make a great little NAS, firewall, MAME box, or low-power workstation. To add to the fun it has a real parallel port 'perfect for hardware hacking,' a real RS-232 port 'perfect for data acquisition,' and two USB ports. The price is around $100, give or take, and hopefully it will come down over time. All in all a nice system to run Linux, WindowsXP, BSD, or maybe even OpenSolaris on."
Atom-based? That's small! (Score:5, Funny)
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Brawndo is not just for the future now... (Score:2)
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nas not really (Score:5, Informative)
Sheldon
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On the downside the board i got didn't have onboard SATA (which i knew when i bought it, but for $50 i could live with that compromi
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YMMV
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What's that general rule of thumb based on? On 100mbps ethernet I can easily sustain >9MiB/s (~70mbps).
Rules of thumb (Score:2, Informative)
For general purposes, it's 10 bits to the byte. 8 for data and 2 for overhead.
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Kontron has one with 10/100/1000 (Score:3, Informative)
Serial AND Parallel (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Serial AND Parallel (Score:5, Funny)
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And parallel ports are still useful also, many printers still have a Centronics port in addition to the USB port. Often, the parallel port cabling is more reliable (and portable) that U
What is the total watts used? (Score:3, Interesting)
RS232's not dead? Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:RS232's not dead? Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly!! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Also handy for configuring managed switches (cisco, netgear, riverbed, juniper, etc).
Keyspan has the USB-serial thing covered, but needing to install drivers can get in the way sometimes.
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Very Nice (Score:2)
But even in the market Via pioneered, Intel and AMD now have superior offerings, both in performance and TDP.
Media Box? (Score:2)
Now,
Re:Media Box? (Score:5, Funny)
That said, the Radeon HD 3450 would be great for that, if only that was a PCI-E slot. A Radeon 9250 or GeForce 6200 is about the most you'll get in PCI nowadays though...
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Besides, it has a fan and has no optical sound output.
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You want a PS3 (Score:2)
That comes down to about $500 for the whole she-bang.
The flaw in your reasoning is that you want a PS3, which is cheaper, looks better, and is perfectly capable of being a streaming media player out of the box. Also, you can play games on it. I use it currently with TVersity on my main PC, though I've started tink
4 watts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:4 watts? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well then, perhaps they should have used a nice efficient AMD 580 or 690 series chipset, at 7 and 8 watts, respectively.
Of course, that *still* draws more than this CPU, but the market for boards like this tend to strongly favor fanless. Having a fan, not to support a slightly better CPU but for a mere northbridge, just seems like adding insult to injury, IMO.
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I'm running an EFIKA 5200B board with ATI 9250 graphics card, hard drive and CD burner with Debian Linux. Installation was via USB stick and serial port.
Limited features on that board (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, for someone who wants a reasonably quick and low power system and doesn't mind an analog video output (car-puter builders?) this would be a great little motherboard.
For me... No DVI and no reasonable way to add fast digital video out means it's not even on my lottery win wishlist.
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Like those little remote control helicopters that keep showing up on woot... I don't care that they're only $7, I simply wouldn't buy them because although I'd like to play with one I'm not willing to spend any money. So unless I can acquire them for free
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Even with a dual-slot PCI riser card, it would be tough to turn this board into a good HTPC mobo and a number of HTPC builder
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Speedy enough for a MAME box? (Score:2)
**Warning** Do not buy from this site (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you want to pay 219.75 USD for this device, I highly suggest you find a supplier in the United States.
**Warning** Do not buy from this site _FOR USA_ (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, the whole of
SATA Hub? (Score:2)
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Something like this:
http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad5sapm-e.asp [addonics.com]
or this:
http://www.sataport.com/ [sataport.com]
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Intel has a much better board (Score:5, Informative)
Most excellent news for hackers (Score:2)
4W CPU with active cooling? (Score:2)
Just regular Intel desktop boards (Score:2)
Supplier in USA (Score:4, Informative)
$80
I think this box would be an ideal computing appliance for the average user. Of course, I would recommend CentOS and a carefully configured set of applications and GUI.
Think, like, your mom and dad checking their email and looking for bargains on Craigslist. At 4 watts.
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Every version of this you could want (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.100/.f [mini-box.com]
And no... I have no connection with them
Seems like I also hit another page that had mini-itx boards with a Duo 2 processor. Now, I just need to find one with a Duo 1 processor, put it in a tiny metal case and use to cook b
Better than other Mini-ITX boards? (Score:2)
Is the "Atom" faster than a VIA C7? The C7 is not far behind the Atom in power consumption. With those CPUs, the power usage of all the other components makes the couple watts difference pretty negligible.
To be really intersting, they need a few things:
- Lose the fan. Low power, low heat, low noise
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Closer Supplier (Score:2)
More like around $81 (Score:2)
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Upgrade to D201GLY2 (Score:2)
For light
hooray - everything I don't want! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid 4cm fan that'll buzz like a mofo, then fail? Check!
No PCI-E slot, guaranteeing piss-poor video, Gbit ethernet or RAID? Check!
Onboard 10/100, not Gbit? Check!
Only one ethernet, making it harder to use as a router/firewall? Check!
Forced 'Legacy IDE' SATA ports? No AHCI, no eSATA, no NCQ? Check!
DVI? FUCK NO!
No hardware virtualisation functions? Check!
Largely useless PS/2, IDE and parallel ports? Check!
Made in a communist dicatorship with questionable human rights? Check!
BIOS bugs galore? With Chinglish changelogs and a slow website? Check!
Hundreds of pre-teen overclocking options? Check!
A generous 12 month warranty, more than anyone could ever need? Check!
Linux support? You'll let ME find out? Wow, bonus excitement!
Let me know if I missed any...
Re:hooray - everything I don't want! (Score:4, Insightful)
My computer has a 3GHZ (or so) P4, a gig of ram, an old 64MB video card, and 1.25TB of hard drive space. The processor is probably way overpowered for what I need. I built it over 4 years ago and haven't had any need to upgrade it it since, and I don't expect that I will need to for another several years. If XP gets too out of date I'll move to Linux before installing the Vista resource hog. I don't know why I'd need any of the features you list unless I was running a server, doing lots of photo/video editing, or playing the latest games, but like most computer users I'm not.
To address you point by point:
ECC: Who cares, it honestly does *not* matter if you have ECC ram.
4cm fan: Have you ever seen a northbridge with a big fan? They don't need big fans. If it matters to you, take it off, replace it with a quieter one, or put on a bigger heatsink.
PCI-E: Most people (including me) can get by on still-available PCI video cards. And people who buy mini-ITX video cards are not usually concerned about RAID. Side note: my work computer just got upgraded with a PCI video card because it has an apparently obscure PCI-E x8 port on the motherboard instead of x16 or AGP.
Gigabit: Again, who cares. It's not a server. I rarely find myself transferring gigabytes of data between two computers on my network.
Only one ethernet: When was the last desktop motherboard you bought with two ethernet ports?
Old SATA: For the third time, it doesn't fucking matter even for most power users.
DVI: All of the several monitors I own still use VGA.
Hardware virtualization: Hell, I don't even know what that means, and I'm too lazy to google it.
PS/2, IDE, parallel: I am typing on my IBM model M keyboard, it's PS/2. Ever try developing stuff to run off USB? It takes a lot more work than a parallel port to implement a USB connection. I know, because I've done both. The IDE may be unnecessary but the biggest cost is in implementing it is either board space or the connector cost itself, and both of those are pretty small.
Made in a communist dictatorship: Yeah, a lot of stuff is made over there if you haven't noticed yet.
"Pre-teen" Overclocking options: Why would that be bad? I won't use them, but I don't mind that they are there. It takes very little engineering, and even less production cost to include that.
12 month warranty too long: Why exactly is it "too long"? Would you prefer a 90 day warranty?
Linux support: Well, that's the only potentially valid point, but since it is using an Intel chipset and Intel graphics, I bet: (A) It is supported, and (B) you can confirm or deny that point easily via a web search.
You should be modded Troll, I don't know why you're +5 Insightful.
Imagine a beowulf cluster.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can get used xboxes from gamestop for $60 each, it looks like soon enough I'll be able to get atom boxes for about $200 each... They also have gamecubes down at gamestop for $50 each.
What is the cheapest way to cluster, and how many nodes would I need to beat any core 2 duo out on the market? And what distro should I use, and can I get real time frame rates in something like ray traced quake 3 at a decent resolution?
rhY
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:4, Insightful)
Small refined things always cost more, even if they aren't as powerful as the 'normal' sized item.
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:5, Insightful)
1) This CPU runs on **4 watts!** I'm not sure my cell phone can run on 4 watts in standby.
2) This system board is really, really small. It would make a simply superb POS system, home fileserver/email server/router/allaround network appliance, a great low-power system the size of a trade paperback
Yeah, the 10/100 ain't so great, but you can always put a GigE NIC in one of the PCI slots.
Let's review: Really small, really low power, really really powerful for its size and power footprint. Lots of neat things one can do with this.
doc
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My Nokia charger was rated for 1.5 watts. My current Motorola Razr comes with a charger that's rated for ~2.8 watts. Obviously, the wattage of a charger has to be higher than the battery output in order to charge the phone.
Make of it what you will.
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I bet some winmo phones run at > 4 watts standby
For an intel chipset mobo, 4 watts is great. I'm hoping Soekris will come out with something atom-based. A good networking-focused board with that CPU would rock. Not that I'm complaining about the CPU power of my net5501. I just wish there was a good multi-gige network board out there.
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This charger's maximum output rating is not a reasonable measure of the phone's usage.
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Nope. Just read the label on the charger. Output is 5V at 550 milliamps. 5V * 550mA = 2.75 watts. (I rounded up.) My old Nokia candybar phone had a 5V/300mA charger. Ergo, 1.5 watts.
On that note, I'm rather concerned by your statement. I'd hate to think about what 2.8 AMPS would do to my phone...
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The voltage is the only concern when we're talking about a battery not in use. If the battery isn't being used, a few milliamps will happily charge the battery if the voltage is high enough. If the battery is in use (as it usually is when I plug my phone in) there had better well be more watts pouring in than out!
Why does it have a fan? (Score:2)
Surely they can do better than that. There's no way that board is going to compete with koolu, zonbu, dectop, etc. in the tiny-pc game - they all have machines which are much smaller and suck less power.
I think I'll wait a month or so until somebody figures out the real point of the atom CPU.
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I'm thinking auto NAV/Entertainment PC. My 1KW inverter uses 4 watts on standby and I leave it on all the time. Think of it as a no boot time GPS NAV unit/media box. With a hard drive, I could load all 20 or so map CDs for my TOPO map and be all set for some serious backroads fun.
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:4, Informative)
In cell phone industry they have "3 watt limit" that is the maximum power consumption that a mobile phone can have. It is not about batteries but heat: you do not want burn your hands on mobile.
If you compare ethernet power consumption at 10, 100, or 1000 Mbit/s, you can see that it rises quite rapidly. For most of time home server is perfectly ok with 10 Mbit/s, when you stream video you may like to have 100 Mbit/s and when transfereing files gigabit is nice. But it is waste to keep 24/7 running server at gigabit.
I've had VIA Epia-based board as home dsl gateway, automation server, video server and dvb vdr box. It is some difference when you have system running 24/7 if it consumes 30W (my epia system with disk powersave) or 150+W (old athlon based computer that has about same cpu power).
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Just to give you an idea - even the top of the line smart phone right now doesn't consume anywhere near 4 watts under full load. Atom is an interesting idea for a MID device, but the power consumption is still far too high for too many smaller applications. Let's think about it, if your cell at idle used anywhere near 4 watts in standby, you'd kill the battery in less than two hours with the largest of cell phone bat
Accentuate the positive (Score:2, Informative)
As long as we're at it, let's point out a 99% efficient PSU [mini-box.com] to go with it.
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:4, Informative)
My cellphone has a battery that is 3.6V, 600mah, which works out to 2.16Wh (2.16 W over a period of one hour).
It can stay in standby for aproximately 72 hours before needing recharging, so actual power-consumption should be on the order of 2.16/72 = 0.03W.
Your mileage may vary, there are certainly monster-cellphones that use a lot more power than this. But seeing as my fairly typical cellphone uses on the order of 1% of 4 watts it's probably a fair bet that most cellphones use under 4W.
That's in standby. When talking it uses a lot more, perhaps on the order of a watt or so (which would mean it's empty after 2 hours of talking)
Re:Way out of date chip set and you can better boa (Score:2)
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Personally I find the bucket of old Socket 370 heatsinks I have laying about are great for this purpose, simply drill four mounting holes in them and you're good to go sans fan.
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The heatsink and fan are on the northbridge, not the CPU. The CPU is the tiny heatsink at the front.
RegardselFarto
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Re:RS-232!! (Score:4, Informative)
Plus, you lose USB ports that way. That PS/2 adapter looks like it'll block at least one adjacent port, maybe all four. Again, it's just an imitation for the real thing. A dedicated port for a dedicated function is going to be better.
=Smidge=
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Some EEPROM burners have this problem when used with USB-to-RS232 converters.
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I don't know if the "High Definition" in the Realtek name actually means anything or is just a marketing ploy.
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