Atom X3/X5/X7 Windows device discussion thread

[Kaido]

Wanted to open up a discussion thread for all of the neat SFF computers & notebooks coming out with the slick new Atom chips:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/intel-unveils-its-next-mobile-maneuver-atom-x3-x5-and-x7/

These are the new 14nm Cherry Trail chips that power the Surface 3, which has the X7 chip:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-3/productID.314885500

CPU discussion over here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2341969&highlight=cherry

Device list so far:

Laptops: (notebooks, flips, 2-in-1's)
Microsoft Surface 3 ($500, tablet-laptop) X7
Toshiba Satellite Click 10 ($350 32gb & $370 64gb, 2-in-1) X5
Dell Venue 10 Pro ($TBA, 2-in-1) chip unknown, more info
Archos Flip ($TBA, Flip 2-in-1) X5 more info
ASUS Transformer Book T100HA ($TBA, 2-in-1) X5

Desktops:
Tronsmart Ara X5 ($150 SFF desktop) X5
Asus VivoStick PC TS10 ($130, stick PC) unnamed Cherry Trail chip
MegoPad T04 ($150, SFF desktop) X5

Tablets:
Teclast X98 Pro ($260, 9.7" tablet) X5
Dell Venue 8 Pro ($TBA, 8" tablet) X5, more info & additional info

 

[Kaido]

The 10" Toshiba Satellite Click 10 is up for pre-order: (ships 9/25)

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/15/toshiba-satellite-click-10-laptop-2-in-1/

$349 for the 32-gig or $20 more for the 64-gig:

http://www.toshiba.com/us/customlanding.to?page=satellite_click_series

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_Dk5Snp7E

Specs:

X5-Z8300 CPU
Windows 10
2.2 pounds (1.2-pound tablet)
Detachable keyboard (2-in-1 design)
0.36" (9mm) thick
10" 1920x1200 multi-touch screen
Front 8mp & rear 2mp cameras
32gb SSD (64gb optional)
2GB (non-user-upgradable)
Micro HDMI port

Looks pretty awesome for the price. After being burned by the last half-dozen Asus T100's I've worked on (both in hardware failure & lack of customer service in doing anything about the defects), I'm ready for something better from a different company.

 

[Kaido]

If you're looking for a SFF desktop unit, Tronsmart has the X5, which is a NUC-style mini PC for just $149: (they send you the appropriate power adapter for your country - shipped from China)

http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Tron...Gen-8-Graphics-2G-32G-2-4Ghz-5Ghz-351938.html

Key points:

Fanless
Stupid cheap ($150 shipped)
802.11n + BT 4.0
2GB RAM + 32gb eMMC
Windows 10

Rear ports: Power, Ethernet, HDMI, USB 3.0, MicroSD slot
Front port: (2) USB 2.0 ports, audio out & mic in unified port, power button

I'm holding out for an X7 desktop unit like this with a 64-gig SSD, anxious to try it out for lightweight gaming! First impressions & demo video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH-52KrR_i8

Review video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phkKo-IjLhY

 

[DaveSimmons]

Tronsmart has the X5, ... $150

Whoa, that could be perfect for a mom / grandma PC. It might make a good streaming box too.

I'd want one for my music jukebox except no 2.5" drive support and I'm not sure it has enough vents to prevent throttling.

 

[Kaido]

Whoa, that could be perfect for a mom / grandma PC. It might make a good streaming box too.

I'd want one for my music jukebox except no 2.5" drive support and I'm not sure it has enough vents to prevent throttling.

Yeah, I'm holding out for an X7/64gb version. I actually replaced my grandma's ancient Celeron tower with a fanless Baytrail MINIX box for $170 not too long ago & she absolutely loves it...amazing how far technology has come!

The nice thing with these units is you could always just plug in an $89 USB 3.0-powered 2TB drive for music if you want, and it'd probably be about the same size as the whole computer lol.

 

[Kaido]

On a tangent, Acer's new 8" gaming tablet has the X7 in it: (runs Android not Windows though)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9601/...ming-tablet-with-intel-atom-x7-and-android-51

$300 in November. Awfully compelling compared to an iPad Mini, which is $100 more!

 

[Kaido]

One note I ran across on storage on the X-series:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9601/...ming-tablet-with-intel-atom-x7-and-android-51

From the comments:

Valantar - Friday, September 04, 2015

The main issue is that the Atom X5 and X7 lack both SATA controllers and up-to-date eMMC controllers - they only support eMMC 4.51. Which, sadly, leaves it with gimped storage. Sure, you could bump it up to a decent size, but performance would still be awful. The only solutions possible with tech available today would be either adding a PCIe SATA controller + m.2/mSATA SSD, which adds cost, power draw and board complexity, or adding a PCIe SSD, which would be expensive enough to kill the product outright. A ~$500 tablet with a ~$200 SSD? Not going to happen.

In other words, the W10 version of this will sadly not arrive until either
a) the price of PCIe SSDs drop significantly (when DRAM-less options become available?)
b) the next generation of Atom x7 adds a more up-to-date storage controller (eMMC 5.x? UFS?)

 

[JWade]

Oh, I like the Acer Predator tablet, that looks good and I would think with 4 speakers it has good sound, that is what I am looking for, good sound on a tablet

 

[Face2Face]

Don't forget the HP 608 G1 - http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA5-8520EEAP.pdf

I actually have a demo coming in tomorrow for a personal review. The one I have coming is a X5-Z8500 with 4GB of memory. I also own a Surface 3, the 4GB - 128GB model. I plan on doing some performance comparisons.

 

[Kaido]

Oh, I like the Acer Predator tablet, that looks good and I would think with 4 speakers it has good sound, that is what I am looking for, good sound on a tablet

You might be interested in the Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Pro:

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/lenovo/yoga-tablet-series/yoga-tab-3-pro-10/

Reviewers are saying the sound is excellent due to the built-in soundbar, plus it has a pico projector & a nifty stand/hook system for propping it up.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The main issue is that the Atom X5 and X7 lack both SATA controllers and up-to-date eMMC controllers - they only support eMMC 4.51.

Interesting. So I would need that USB drive for a music jukebox, since I have ~350 GB of lossless FLAC CD rips. A little clunky but $150 + ~$60 for a 1 TB drive is pretty amazing price for a complete setup.

 

[Kaido]

Interesting. So I would need that USB drive for a music jukebox, since I have ~350 GB of lossless FLAC CD rips. A little clunky but $150 + ~$60 for a 1 TB drive is pretty amazing price for a complete setup.

Yeah pretty much...I'm anxious to see what my Kill-a-watt says the wattage is of the X5-series desktops. I'd imagine it's lower than your typical NUC, so it'd be pretty cost-efficient to just leave on 24/7.

 

[sm625]

Maybe on black friday for $89 it might be worth it.

 

[Kaido]

Don't forget the HP 608 G1 - http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA5-8520EEAP.pdf

I actually have a demo coming in tomorrow for a personal review. The one I have coming is a X5-Z8500 with 4GB of memory. I also own a Surface 3, the 4GB - 128GB model. I plan on doing some performance comparisons.

Nice, is this a business-oriented machine?

 

[Face2Face]

Nice, is this a business-oriented machine?

Yes it is, as the price is way too high for it to really be a consumer device. It also comes with a Pro version of Windows. I'm looking forward to putting it through it's paces.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Tronsmart Ara X5 ($150 SFF desktop) X5

Anyone with first-hand experience with one of these? I picked up a couple of MeegoPad T02 Compute Sticks, Ubuntu edition, off of GeekBuying. Had issues with the pre-installed Ubuntu not booting, so I installed Win10 Pro 32-bit, because that's what I had handy on a flash drive.

It looked a bit better than the MeegoPad, but I was concerned it had the same weaknesses... namely, that under a constant CPU load of more than around 10%, it would eventually overheat and throttle down the CPU speed to nearly unusable. That's what happens with the MeegoPad T02 units, in both Linux Mint 17.2 64-bit and Win10 Pro 32-bit, while running Skype for more than 10 minutes. It throttles from 1.33Ghz down to 0.49Ghz, and web browsing at the same time, will cause the CPU to throttle down to 0.24Ghz in Win10 Pro, and it will cause spontaneous (but controlled?!?) shutdown / restarts in Linux Mint 17.2.

One of the YouTube reviews does mention that the Ara X5 does throttle down, after watching videos for like 15 minutes. Which honestly surprised me, the box is quite a bit bigger than a MeegoPad T02, so it should be possible to fit in a much better heatsink.

For a comparison, my HP Stream 7, and Microcenter TW700, both 7" Bay Trail Atom Z3735F tablets, regularly boost to 1.8Ghz (from 1.33Ghz base) while web browsing, and do not noticeably throttle, even when I'm on Skype for 15 minutes or more. (I've never noticed the MeegoPad T02 boosting above 1.33Ghz, in Win10 Pro's Task Manager.)

 

[ninaholic37]

It throttles from 1.33Ghz down to 0.49Ghz, and web browsing at the same time, will cause the CPU to throttle down to 0.24Ghz in Win10 Pro, and it will cause spontaneous (but controlled?!?) shutdown / restarts in Linux Mint 17.2.

That sounds like one really messed up device. I wonder how it goes down to 0.24Ghz, if that is some new CPU feature or just a bug in Windows 10? Sounds like Z3735F uses 500Mhz/1.33Ghz normally. Maybe it's shutting down and turning on every 5ms and the program only runs at 10ms intervals (guess values) and just thinks the cpu is going half the speed because the kernel is running faster and knows what's up and hiding this information from it's programs, and Mint doesn't know how to handle this eccentric frequency switching CPU at all or is set to run at 15ms so it thinks the device died or instructions for each few cycles become lost so it crashes. I wonder if this behavior is documented anywhere, and if it's an intentional cpu "feature", and if most Meego users are experiencing the exact same thing with this device or if you got a rare lemon in the batch...

 

[VirtualLarry]

That sounds like one really messed up device. I wonder how it goes down to 0.24Ghz, if that is some new CPU feature or just a bug in Windows 10? Sounds like Z3735F uses 500Mhz/1.33Ghz normally. Maybe it's shutting down and turning on every 5ms and the program only runs at 10ms intervals (guess values) and just thinks the cpu is going half the speed because the kernel is running faster and knows what's up and hiding this information from it's programs, and Mint doesn't know how to handle this eccentric frequency switching CPU at all or is set to run at 15ms so it thinks the device died or instructions for each few cycles become lost so it crashes. I wonder if this behavior is documented anywhere, and if it's an intentional cpu "feature", and if most Meego users are experiencing the exact same thing with this device or if you got a rare lemon in the batch...

Well, it happens with two of them. So I don't think it's just a lemon.

And the speed changing, is just Intel's standard SpeedStep and Thermal Throttle. Base clock is something like 83.33Mhz, and it slowly steps down through the multiplers, as it overheats. It's running at only 2 away from TJmax when it's throttling, which isn't good. It just can't handle a sustained CPU load. It only likes "bursty" loads (web browsing). It can, however, handle playing back internet radio, which is maybe 5% CPU usage or less.

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/08/22/tronsmart-ara-x5-cherry-trail-mini-pc-unboxing-and-teardown/

 

[Kaido]

Anyone with first-hand experience with one of these? I picked up a couple of MeegoPad T02 Compute Sticks, Ubuntu edition, off of GeekBuying. Had issues with the pre-installed Ubuntu not booting, so I installed Win10 Pro 32-bit, because that's what I had handy on a flash drive.

It looked a bit better than the MeegoPad, but I was concerned it had the same weaknesses... namely, that under a constant CPU load of more than around 10%, it would eventually overheat and throttle down the CPU speed to nearly unusable. That's what happens with the MeegoPad T02 units, in both Linux Mint 17.2 64-bit and Win10 Pro 32-bit, while running Skype for more than 10 minutes. It throttles from 1.33Ghz down to 0.49Ghz, and web browsing at the same time, will cause the CPU to throttle down to 0.24Ghz in Win10 Pro, and it will cause spontaneous (but controlled?!?) shutdown / restarts in Linux Mint 17.2.

One of the YouTube reviews does mention that the Ara X5 does throttle down, after watching videos for like 15 minutes. Which honestly surprised me, the box is quite a bit bigger than a MeegoPad T02, so it should be possible to fit in a much better heatsink.

For a comparison, my HP Stream 7, and Microcenter TW700, both 7" Bay Trail Atom Z3735F tablets, regularly boost to 1.8Ghz (from 1.33Ghz base) while web browsing, and do not noticeably throttle, even when I'm on Skype for 15 minutes or more. (I've never noticed the MeegoPad T02 boosting above 1.33Ghz, in Win10 Pro's Task Manager.)

I have a first-gen compute stick as well - they throttle due to thermal limitations. The boxes either have a big passive heatsink inside or a fan, so they can run at load for extended periods of time. Basically the first-gen stinks stink. Cherry Trail sticks are due out soon, included from big-name manufacturers like Asus, so we'll see if the 14nm chips are enough to handle the thermal issues that were present in the early Baytrail models.

Typically the problem boils down to heat, and it really depends on the design. I have a ton of MINIX systems, which are sealed, but haven't had any issues. Sounds like the Tronsmart's passive heatsink gets too toasty after 15 minutes & slows things down in order to cool the system off. Just a guess, but I'd imagine something like that is what's happening.

 

[Kaido]

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/08/22/tronsmart-ara-x5-cherry-trail-mini-pc-unboxing-and-teardown/

Here's the heatsink: (no fan)

Heat output over time & subsequent throttling really depends on the design. My MINIX boxes run great 24/7, but my MeLE PCG03 (which has larger case, ventilation holes, and heatsink) gets REALLY hot even though it has the same style board inside.

 

[Face2Face]

I can say, while gaming with the compute stick the single fan does a pretty good job at keeping the SoC cool. The TjMax for the Z3735F is 90c (Z3735D is @ 105c), and the little fan helps keep the SoC away from that by 10-12 degrees.

Evidence below -

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyyGwCnUZ_FFC9RR0IkSzwqyzERN5p8B

In contrast, Cherry Trail SoCs run pretty hot. It could be because of yields, or the fact the CPU cores have shrunk by 68% compared to Bay Trail and extracting the generated heat is A tougher task?
While gaming on my Surface 3 I've noticed it's always thermally throttled. If I could keep it cool with active cooling, I'm pretty sure it could stay pegged @ 2.4GHz on all the CPU cores and 600MHz on the GPU at full load, as it usually does before it gets up to the 84-85c range.

If anyone is interested in seeing some gaming vids on the Surface 3 - Here they are - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyyGwCnUZ_H0Lns-SyUOZqhL6o2PDcS-

I use an On-screen-display (OSD) to show frame rates, usage, and temperatures. I should be getting a Core i5 SP3 soon, so I can make some comparisons.

I've thought about getting the TronSmart X to replace my Zotac PICO PI320, but I'm just going to wait for the Core i5 SKYLAKE NUC.

 

[Kaido]

The Toshiba Satellite Click 10 ships today. Picking up a 64-gig version to play with for business applications. Hoping it will be better than the last crappy half-dozen T100's I've played with (endless bluescreens, crashing, charging, and other issues). Love the tiny 2-in-1 concept, just hoping it's executed properly this time!

 

[TeknoBug]

The Surface 3 (not Pro) with the Z8700 performance is actually very surprising and can perform as a PC replacement for web surfing and office applications and from what I've seen can play a few games (CS:GO, DiIRT, PES 2015, Civ 5, etc). When the price goes down on the Surface 3 I might consider getting one.

 

[Face2Face]

The Toshiba Satellite Click 10 ships today. Picking up a 64-gig version to play with for business applications. Hoping it will be better than the last crappy half-dozen T100's I've played with (endless bluescreens, crashing, charging, and other issues). Love the tiny 2-in-1 concept, just hoping it's executed properly this time!

Very cool. I'm eager to hear your thoughts on it.

The Surface 3 (not Pro) with the Z8700 performance is actually very surprising and can perform as a PC replacement for web surfing and office applications and from what I've seen can play a few games (CS:GO, DiIRT, PES 2015, Civ 5, etc). When the price goes down on the Surface 3 I might consider getting one.

It does perform pretty good while gaming; however, the thermal throttling is real, and it does limit full performance. I also posted some gaming videos on the S3, just check the link above.