Atom for sale at Newegg

[Idontcare]

Could be old news to most of you, but I saw on Newegg that they are selling the Atom/MB combo for $69.99 USD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121342

 

[Andrew1990]

Hmm, I dont see why they dont put PCIe slots on any of these low power motherboards. I myself bought a Pentium M combo here on these forums just because it DID have a PCIe slot so I could add a video card to make a portable gaming rig.

I guess these market a different crowd though, but still this is 2008, so I would at least expect a PCIex1 slot included.

 

[Idontcare]

It's a good question.

Surely its not because of cost, the chipset already does PCIe and the slot itself can't be any more expensive than the PCI slot. Unless the PCB traces require an extra PCB layer for signal integrity?

My best guess though is that it is done intentionally to maintain price/feature disparity between these boards and those that cost 2X as much.

 

[Zap]

Besides the missing PCI-E slot, my bigger concern is the lack of gigabit ethernet. Of course Intel manages to hit a price point lower than any other mini ITX board with similar performance, but still...

All in all, a worthy successor to the D201GLY and D201GLY2 boards.

BTW, mind if I move this to the SFF area? I think this thread may draw more attention there.

 

[JackPack]

PCI is the logical choice. It's universal... unless you want to install a SAS card or something crazy.

Sure, an x1 slot may offer double the bandwidth, but for a $69 kit, compatibility is more important.

 

[nerp]

No PCIe because Intel doesn't want to cannibalize its Celeron market.

 

[EvilSponge]

Thats a smoking deal for a small form factor MB look at how much the via epia boards are
Now only if it had gige ethernet...

-sponge

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: nerp
No PCIe because Intel doesn't want to cannibalize its Celeron market.

Yep I just read this on PC Perspective as well. Clearly it is a marketing decision, nothing to do with technical capabilities or costs of manufacture.

Believe it or not, this simple PCIe slot is the poster child of a vast area of contention between VIA's and Intel's take on the mini-ITX designs.

Intel is trying desperately to control how their Atom-based platforms are produced, what features they have and what price they sell for in an attempt to control their overall product line and keep Atom from cannibalizing the Celeron parts.

That means no PCIe slots, limited DIMM support and almost no retail availability for Intel's Atom.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=572

 

[nyker96]

This chip don't strike me as anything useful but then again it's low power usgae can be cool to have as a file server machine maybe.

Edit: read some review, the power consumption for the platform is around 50-60W, so I think the C7 can probably beat it in power consumption arena.

 

[nerp]

Didn't read it on PC Perspective, but same word choice and all! I bet I read something that was a copy/paste from PcPer. Oh well.. In terms of the market strategy, it makes sense. I think that Atom chip is welded to the board, even.

I'd bite for one but just 2x SATA makes it pretty useless for WHS. I also want a more efficient platform than 945. From what I've read Atom's low power gains are wasted with the 945 chipset.

Nice price though.

 

[Andrew1990]

Well a Pentium M system is supposed to take less than 70watts at full load with built in graphics of the GMA900. It is also more powerful than an atom and has motherboard support for PCIe and PCI at the same time in some mATX boards.

Benchmarks with Atom, Pentium M, and Celeron L all clocked at 1.6GHz
http://www.anandtech.com/syste...howdoc.aspx?i=3321&p=7

Seems this is a little weaker to a lot weaker than a Pentium M, although it may be a bit cheaper at $70 brand new price.

 

[Drsignguy]

Originally posted by: nerp

I'd bite for one but just 2x SATA makes it pretty useless for WHS. I also want a more efficient platform than 945. From what I've read Atom's low power gains are wasted with the 945 chipset.

Nice price though.

Yes, why did they use the 945 chipset?

 

[Andrew1990]

Originally posted by: Drsignguy

Originally posted by: nerp

I'd bite for one but just 2x SATA makes it pretty useless for WHS. I also want a more efficient platform than 945. From what I've read Atom's low power gains are wasted with the 945 chipset.

Nice price though.

Yes, why did they use the 945 chipset?

Maybe they had a lot of them in their warehouse they would never be able to sell otherwise? Or they just want to leave some room for future improvements so they can sell 2 boards instead of one.

 

[sonoran]

Atom was designed as a small (cheap to make), low-cost, low-power alternative to current processors, intended primarily for developing markets where people don't have the money to go buy $300 motherboards and $500 graphics cards. Its target is markets where people want complete systems that cost no more than a few hundred bucks. Think India, China, etc...

 

[Drsignguy]

I guess to focus on getting everyone the chance to own a personal pc and to access the WWW.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: sonoran
Atom was designed as a small (cheap to make), low-cost, low-power alternative to current processors, intended primarily for developing markets where people don't have the money to go buy $300 motherboards and $500 graphics cards. Its target is markets where people want complete systems that cost no more than a few hundred bucks. Think India, China, etc...

Also think Walmart/Best Buy and just about 4 out of every 5 home computer users in N America and Europe.

For my personal stuff I have zero need for anything more than what Atom can do...in fact right now I am posting from my P3 800MHz laptop that I have owned since 2002. It's plenty fast at everything I do that isn't business related.

How many people who shop Best Buy need dual-core let alone quad-core systems at home to check their email and watch a youtube video or two?

Welcome to a world of ubiquitous computing, exactly the thing Intel and AMD have been dreading (gross margins wise) and the memory guys are saying "welcome to our world".

 

[taltamir]

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...tel-atom-cpu,1947.html

That sheds some light on almost all the questions asked here..
Basically the atom CPU comes with a proper low powered chipset, but it is not suitable for full computers (its fitting for things like smartphones).
The ones on newegg on a full motherboard use an ancient intel chipset (i945GC+ICH7) that simple does not have the capabilities you asked for, and takes 10 times the power of the CPU (the little passive cooled copper block is the CPU, the twice the size copper block with the fan is the IGP northbridge!).
Note the sizes of the heatsinks: http://www.tomshardware.com/re...l-atom-cpu,1947-8.html
ICH7: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O_Controller_Hub#ICH7
i945GC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...ipsets#Core_2_Chipsets

It uses a chipset from mid 2005... it really needs a new chipset.

 

[Roy2001]

Yeah, with a 530W PSU you get that number. But Atom deserves/requires a sub-100W PSU. Try a PicoPSU-90. Read here

Originally posted by: nyker96
This chip don't strike me as anything useful but then again it's low power usgae can be cool to have as a file server machine maybe.

Edit: read some review, the power consumption for the platform is around 50-60W, so I think the C7 can probably beat it in power consumption arena.

 

[secretanchitman]

no point...rather get a celeron for that same money (pci-e).

 

[nerp]

I think if this chip maintains it's power figures with a dual core design on an updated chipset, then you might see the real potential of Atom.

 

[myocardia]

Actually, I'm somewhat excited about the new Atom notebooks*. They have enough power for what most people need a notebook to do, while having very good battery life (no i945 chipset), and don't cost very much.

edit: *Sub-notebooks, or whatever they call the Asus Eee.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Actually, I'm somewhat excited about the new Atom notebooks*. They have enough power for what most people need a notebook to do, while having very good battery life (no i945 chipset), and don't cost very much.

edit: *Sub-notebooks, or whatever they call the Asus Eee.

yep, i have one of the better ones out there. its called the msi wind, and simply put, its just AWESOME.

 

[PCTC2]

Actually, a long time ago in the Motherboard section I posted this.

I currently have 2 of these boards as low power webservers and they hold up surprisingly well even running a virtual machine within a host Ubuntu OS. Love these boards and if one dies, it's not an arm and a leg to replace it.

 

[pm]

Actually, I'm somewhat excited about the new Atom notebooks*. They have enough power for what most people need a notebook to do, while having very good battery life (no i945 chipset), and don't cost very much.

I just bought an Acer Aspire One from Newegg last night. It's 945 chipset based - so despite the Atom CPU, battery life isn't great. But it is small, light and cheap ($380) and should be fast enough for most things. I'll post up what I think of it when I get it. It's intended mostly to be a computer for my daughter, but before I hand it off to her, I'll spend some time messing with it myself.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16834115489

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
Actually, a long time ago in the Motherboard section I posted this.

I read your link. You weren't aware that every CPU that's based on the Core 2's are 64-bit, even the cheapy Celerons? Here's the spec page for the Atom 230 that's attached to your motherboards.

Originally posted by: pm
I just bought an Acer Aspire One from Newegg last night. It's 945 chipset based - so despite the Atom CPU, battery life isn't great.

pm, when did they make you a mod? Congrats. Anyway, I didn't look too closely at that one, but the Asus Eee that has the Atom in it has a 4.5-5 hour (actual) battery life, compared to half that or less for the older Eee's, even though it's screen is ~twice as big (10" compared to 7"), and it's processor runs ~twice as fast. I just assumed that that meant it couldn't possibly have the 945 in it. Hmm...must do more research.