Intel Atom 230 all in one m/b with homeseer?

Post by **drmacchi** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:48 pm

Hy all guys, i'm planning to buy this one http://www.eprice.it/default.aspx?sku=1772552
mb , intel 945gc chipset, ddr II, intel atom 1.6ghz, only 4 watt tdp, all for 55 euros!. do you think with 2gb ram , good sata hd, could this system run homeseer with no problems? thanks for suggestions!. lorenzo

Post by **Niknik** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 3:58 pm

It should be more than enough for what you want.

You might even try to underclock it - as it should still be more than fast enough for homeseer even at 1GHz or even less.

Post by **Antoon** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:42 pm

I am running Homeseer on this board now without any problems.

Antoon

Post by **MindBender** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:15 am

And if you're still in doubt, Intel has announced a duo core version last week:
http://linuxdevices.com/News/NS8293905585.html
It will be available world wide halfway September, but I seriously doubt that because your board is on the market for some time now, but still hard to obtain. Unless you're willing to pay top Euro, of course

Post by **drmacchi** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:49 am

Hi Mindbender, i didn't take the board because my notebook has had touchpad damaged, was time to change it, so i bought a new laptop and the old one was perfect (centrino 1.5 , 512 ram, 120GB) to become HS machine.
Nice the News about Aom dual core, but i found somewhere that there is a Athlon-Xp low power, down-cored to 1GHZ, that has less power consumption and better performance. There is an accurate test on some website. big diiference is only m/b sizes: amd is only micro-atx at least.
cheers

Post by **Digit** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:44 pm

I think you mean this article:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Atom-Athl ... 31253.html

Post by **drmacchi** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:59 pm

That's it, Great Digit!
P.S , did yo give a look to my Tibbo configuration ?........

Cheers
Lorenzo

Post by **Digit** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:48 pm

Sorry, no, i just got out of bed. Still have a bit fever, can't think straight yet. I will have a look in the weekend.

Post by **MindBender** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:18 pm

I've read multiple articles on Atom versus Athlon, but I don't think it's a fair comparison: The only way the Athlon is consuming less than an Atom is when it's clocked down below it's specified frequency AND it's voltage is lowered below it's specified level. It may be nice as an experiment to know that the Athlon consumes less when it's used with parameters outside their specified range, but for practical applications that not really an option. Results may vary among identical processors and the factory test did not include this application. Just like with over-clocking, it may lead to an unstable computer system and that's not really an option when it's running my entire house. The Intel board does what I want straight out of the box; No tweaking required.

Microprocessors aren't manufactured differently for different clock speeds. They are all manufactured the same and at the end of the line they are tested and designated their frequency and speed. Less usually can't harm, but if it were such a good idea, the manufacturer would have sold them as such.

Besides that, there's really not that much to win anymore. I don't care very much whether my processor uses 4 Watt or 2 Watt if it doesn't need to run on batteries. What does worry me is that the Intel board, equipped with 2 GiB of RAM in total consumes a whopping 45 Watt. That's rather penny wise, pound foolish. It seems that the north bridge, the one with the huge heat sink and cooling fan (which presence already tipped me off) is still a power-hog.

So I fully agree with your solution: An old Centrino laptop is running my house too. It cosumes about 27 Watts of power, it has a built-in display, it makes hardly any noise, it doesn't take up a lot of space and last but not least: It's got a built-in UPS

Post by **Digit** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:47 pm

AFAIK the AMD Athlon was tested with the specs coming directly from the manufacturer: 1 GHz and 0,9 V. So the people at THG didn't do some experimenting with those parameters mentioned above i think. So in my opinion the comparison is valid.

And you're right, you have to consider power consumption of a system as a whole; it is good to know individual numbers, but when absolute differences in consumption become this small, it doesn't really matter anymore.

Post by **Niknik** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:07 pm

That's exactly what they did by the way.
The Atom uses less power then the AMD, but in a full system (motherboard, RAM, etc.)it ends up more power than the AMD system.

Post by **drmacchi** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:53 am

My laptop too consumes 27W, then with screen disabled, it's 22W! it works alone in the roof and i check it from a client pc when i need............

Post by **drmacchi** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:07 pm

The new AMD Cpus! : dual core with only 22 watt TDP

Source: (italian language)

http://www.hwupgrade.it/News/cpu/due-cp ... 26480.html

Just a little summary: total (cpu+m/b+graphic system)power consumption is better with AMD solution than with Intel ones. Performace is better too.
Price in US market should be around 70$ for an "all included" cpu + m/b chipset amd740g with ati on board vga.
Lorenzo