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From: Mike on 27 Dec 2009 22:41
>>
> Do you really need MiniITX, or would FlexATX work just as well. IME, you
> pay more for the smaller form factor, but often get less. I looked at
> getting the Intel Atom 330 board (D945CGLF2), but went with a Supermicro
> X7SLA-H-O instead.
>
> Another option is an old laptop. That could give you a lot of extra
> features that you might need (onboard screen, power supply/battery, self
> contained, and semi-rugged, etc.)
>
> Just wondering.

With the prices over here (NZ) going a more conventional form factor isn't
cheaper. More power for very similar money. i.e. not the absolute cheapest
option but close and good quality brands sees a Celeron E1400 and MSI
G31M3-L V2 for $NZ166 (2Ghz dual core Celeron and G31 chipset micro-ITX
M/B). Lot more power usage than a mini-ITX/ATom combo. Via boards are twice
the price :-(

Tried the old Laptop route. Too expensive and old enough to be flakey. Have
a Dell PIII laptop but it's CD drive no longer likes CDR's and is just
getting flakey. Folks over here are unrealistic in their expectations for
old Laptops. If I had a $NZ600+ budget I could entertain a new budget one
but..... Plus I have spare keyboards and a HP 1702 LCD screen that I could
use.

Thanks for your thoughts though. :-)

Regards
Mike


From: Vlad_Inhaler on 1 Jan 2010 06:33
On Dec 25 2009, 4:50 am, ray <r...(a)zianet.com> wrote:
>
> I've not had any experience with the boards you name, but I have
> experience with another low cost board. It's been a while since I got it,
> but it's the board on my main desktop computer now. Some time back, when
> gOS (green operating system) computer was announced, it was possible to
> get the gOS motherboard for $60. I did. Now running Debian on it. Comes
> with an integrated 1.5ghz VIA C7 - two DDR2 slots, support for both SATA
> and IDE drives. A web search should turn it up.

I have an older machine with a Via C3 running at around 900 mhz as my
'main machine' - desktop usage + nfs/samba exports. Slowly but surely
it is becoming too slow (cpu bound) for me and I have been thinking of
moving to an Atom x 2. What is your performance like?
btw, I have not had Flash installed on this machine for years. That
experience was just too painful.
From: ray on 1 Jan 2010 11:44
On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:33:43 -0800, Vlad_Inhaler wrote:

> On Dec 25 2009, 4:50 am, ray <r...(a)zianet.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've not had any experience with the boards you name, but I have
>> experience with another low cost board. It's been a while since I got
>> it, but it's the board on my main desktop computer now. Some time back,
>> when gOS (green operating system) computer was announced, it was
>> possible to get the gOS motherboard for $60. I did. Now running Debian
>> on it. Comes with an integrated 1.5ghz VIA C7 - two DDR2 slots, support
>> for both SATA and IDE drives. A web search should turn it up.
>
> I have an older machine with a Via C3 running at around 900 mhz as my
> 'main machine' - desktop usage + nfs/samba exports. Slowly but surely
> it is becoming too slow (cpu bound) for me and I have been thinking of
> moving to an Atom x 2. What is your performance like? btw, I have not
> had Flash installed on this machine for years. That experience was just
> too painful.

Relative to what benchmark? It's quite a bit faster, running standard
Debian, than the 1ghz C3 I had running fully optimized Gentoo. I have no
issues performance wise.
From: AZ Nomad on 1 Jan 2010 11:56
On 1 Jan 2010 16:44:38 GMT, ray <ray(a)zianet.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:33:43 -0800, Vlad_Inhaler wrote:

>> On Dec 25 2009, 4:50??am, ray <r...(a)zianet.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I've not had any experience with the boards you name, but I have
>>> experience with another low cost board. It's been a while since I got
>>> it, but it's the board on my main desktop computer now. Some time back,
>>> when gOS (green operating system) computer was announced, it was
>>> possible to get the gOS motherboard for $60. I did. Now running Debian
>>> on it. Comes with an integrated 1.5ghz VIA C7 - two DDR2 slots, support
>>> for both SATA and IDE drives. A web search should turn it up.
>>
>> I have an older machine with a Via C3 running at around 900 mhz as my
>> 'main machine' - desktop usage + nfs/samba exports. Slowly but surely
>> it is becoming too slow (cpu bound) for me and I have been thinking of
>> moving to an Atom x 2. What is your performance like? btw, I have not
>> had Flash installed on this machine for years. That experience was just
>> too painful.

>Relative to what benchmark? It's quite a bit faster, running standard
>Debian, than the 1ghz C3 I had running fully optimized Gentoo. I have no
>issues performance wise.

The via cpu's are basically souped pentium I's. They do not have
instruction ordering introduced with the pentium pro and seen on
pentium II and later processors.

Do you know if the atom has such an architecture?
From: Vlad_Inhaler on 2 Jan 2010 14:32
I saw a comparison of low power CPUs some months back in the German
magazine C't. The way it panned out (from memory) was that the Atom
had more power than the C3, but that the Atom was really held back by
the crappy chipset Intel were using. Slow and power hungry. This was
to prevent the Atom from invading the Celeron's market.
The review came up with an undertacted modern AMD processor which -
using a decent chipset - blew the Atom out of the water. The problem
with that is that it is essentially vapourware, I don't think AMD make
that particular cpu any more and like as not, the motherboard is also
end-of-life. I also can't remember if it could be passively cooled.

What next? Well, Intel were supposed to be coming out with a new
chipset (mentioned in that Intel benchmark article) a month or so ago
which would make the Atom more interesting. Occasionally I try and
check to see if it is available at a store near me. Not yet.
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