Is an Atom better than an Athlon XP 2400+?
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From: Gordon Henderson on 7 Sep 2009 11:05 In article <h835g0$ms6$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Gordon Henderson wrote: >> In article <h82ufn$10q$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, >> chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> I'm wanting to replace my ageing home desktop with a new small machine >>> that I can leave on most of the time. It's for very basic email, web, >>> openoffice use with the occasional light photo editing. Eventually would >>> like to add audio streaming. >>> >>> Something like this could be ideal: >>> http://www.asrock.com/nettop/spec/ION%20330.asp >>> >>> My question is how much difference (better or worse) would I notice when >>> compared to my current athlon XP 2400+? In particular, is the iPlayer >>> cpu or gpu dependent. >> >> I replaced my XP2400+ with an Intel Atom dual-core mobo some 6 months >> back. Not really noticed much difference - mplayer still works, audio >> is OK, X is fine too, but I don't do anything that demanding. > >That sounds good. What did you go for mobo-wise? I'm liking the nVidia >Ion based stuff. An Intel motherboard: http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12231 >>> Ideally, I want something that uses a minimum of power when idling, but >>> with enough grunt to do the above day-to-day stuff. >> >> My box idles at about 42 watts including a single SATA drive. > >Cool. I'm hoping the nVidia Ion implementation in the Asrock box above >will be even lower >-). The graphics will be the energy sucker... >>> Or would it be more efficient to get a more powerful beast, but have it >>> sleeping/hibernating the majority of the time? >>> >>> Sorry for the many variables, but I'm trying to sound out my ideas. Any >>> comments/pointers gratefully received. >> >> Depends on what you do! > >Clearly. I just need a low power, quiet PC which will let me do >everything I currently can on my athlon XP. Perhaps with a bit of extra >headroom. It needs to be cheap too. I put 2GB of RAM in mine too. >> I found that idling the CPU doesn't make any difference at all. Get >> suspend working for when you're not using it... Seems to work for my >> Atom based netbook thing.. > >Really? All the benchmarks I've seen show a significant drop in >consumption when idling the PC. I think with a tickless system it doesn't really matter because the CPU is basically off most of the time anyway. Because the CPU itself is only rated something like 4 watts it's everything else that's sucking the juice, so changing the clock speed isn't having much effect overall. The fan isn't on the CPU, it's on the northbridge/graphics chip. It does have an effect on my other Laptop with an AMD turion processor though that really makes a difference at 800MHz as opposed to 1.6GHz. I'm not into requiring a fancy graphics card, but the Intel ones runs compiz on my AAO if I want it. (Good for a gimic, but no-use in real-life for me) Gordon
From: chris on 7 Sep 2009 11:24 Gordon Henderson wrote: > In article <h835g0$ms6$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, >>> My box idles at about 42 watts including a single SATA drive. >> Cool. I'm hoping the nVidia Ion implementation in the Asrock box above >> will be even lower >-). > > The graphics will be the energy sucker... Under GPU load, possibly, but under other conditions the Ion chipset is much more frugal than the Intel one (from what I've read). >>> I found that idling the CPU doesn't make any difference at all. Get >>> suspend working for when you're not using it... Seems to work for my >>> Atom based netbook thing.. >> Really? All the benchmarks I've seen show a significant drop in >> consumption when idling the PC. > > I think with a tickless system it doesn't really matter because the > CPU is basically off most of the time anyway. Because the CPU itself is > only rated something like 4 watts it's everything else that's sucking > the juice, so changing the clock speed isn't having much effect overall. > The fan isn't on the CPU, it's on the northbridge/graphics chip. > > It does have an effect on my other Laptop with an AMD turion processor > though that really makes a difference at 800MHz as opposed to 1.6GHz. I think we're comparing different things. I'm interested in overall consumption when idling (HD spun down, etc) rather than just the cpu. As you say, the Atom cpu uses so little that it's insignificant. > I'm not into requiring a fancy graphics card, but the Intel ones runs > compiz on my AAO if I want it. (Good for a gimic, but no-use in real-life > for me) Yeah, that doesn't bother me either.
From: Gordon Henderson on 7 Sep 2009 16:15 In article <h838il$hv8$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Gordon Henderson wrote: >> It does have an effect on my other Laptop with an AMD turion processor >> though that really makes a difference at 800MHz as opposed to 1.6GHz. > >I think we're comparing different things. I'm interested in overall >consumption when idling (HD spun down, etc) rather than just the cpu. As >you say, the Atom cpu uses so little that it's insignificant. I keep meaning to move my desktop to using a flash disk module of some sort - that'd save me about 9 watts. My development box alreadyt runs off a 4GB flash disk module with /home NFS mounted off a server that runs all the time (another atom box) One day.. Gordon
From: chris on 8 Sep 2009 04:40 Gordon Henderson wrote: > In article <h838il$hv8$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, > chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Gordon Henderson wrote: > >>> It does have an effect on my other Laptop with an AMD turion processor >>> though that really makes a difference at 800MHz as opposed to 1.6GHz. >> I think we're comparing different things. I'm interested in overall >> consumption when idling (HD spun down, etc) rather than just the cpu. As >> you say, the Atom cpu uses so little that it's insignificant. > > I keep meaning to move my desktop to using a flash disk module of some > sort - that'd save me about 9 watts. My development box alreadyt runs > off a 4GB flash disk module with /home NFS mounted off a server that > runs all the time (another atom box) > > One day.. Heh. I'd love to have an in my new box, but that would double my budget...
From: chris on 8 Sep 2009 05:08
chris wrote: > Gordon Henderson wrote: >> In article <h838il$hv8$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, >> chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> Gordon Henderson wrote: >> >>>> It does have an effect on my other Laptop with an AMD turion processor >>>> though that really makes a difference at 800MHz as opposed to 1.6GHz. >>> I think we're comparing different things. I'm interested in overall >>> consumption when idling (HD spun down, etc) rather than just the cpu. As >>> you say, the Atom cpu uses so little that it's insignificant. >> >> I keep meaning to move my desktop to using a flash disk module of some >> sort - that'd save me about 9 watts. My development box alreadyt runs >> off a 4GB flash disk module with /home NFS mounted off a server that >> runs all the time (another atom box) >> >> One day.. > > Heh. I'd love to have an in my new box, but that would double my budget... That should be '... an SSD in my box...'. It was there when I wrote it...?! |