Centrino SFF PCs?

[DrMrLordX]

So, is anyone selling any SFF systems based on Centrino yet? And do any of them have an AGP slot so we can avoid using the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 dingus? I'd so dig one of these.

 

[oLLie]

Try over at http://forums.sudhian.com. I thought Centrino was Intel's mobile CPU design. An SFF based on a notebook CPU, is that what you're asking? I'm not sure about that, but plenty have AGP slots.

 

[Yomicron]

Lippert is making a mini-ITX board that uses the Pentium-M, but it doesn't have an AGP slot. For anything larger than mini-ITX, you might as well just use desktop CPUs.

 

[oLLie]

Originally posted by: Yomicron
Lippert is making a mini-ITX board that uses the Pentium-M, but it doesn't have an AGP slot. For anything larger than mini-ITX, you might as well just use desktop CPUs.

Ah, when he said SFF I assumed he meant barebones system like Shuttle, or Biostar, or the like. Disregard my post, I believe I was mistaken.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Actually Ollie, your post helped a lot. I found this thread because of you:

http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.cfm?catid=44&threadid=42167

wherein several others dream of my dream: a PC based on Pentium-M with an AGP slot for some nice, passivly-cooled vid card(like one of those heatsink-cooled Radeon 9600s or heat-pipe cooled Radeon 9700 Pros). A system like that would be teh pwn!

Considering the fact that the 1.6 ghz Centrino did a pretty good job whipping a 2.4 ghz P4(533 mhz FSB as I recall), the 1.7 ghz would be nothing to sneeze at, and would make a marvelous replacement for my space-heater 1.4 ghz Thunderbird. And it would be smaller, quieter, and easier on my electric bill.

Oh, on a side note, a google search turned up this:

http://www.radisys.com/oem_products/ds-page.cfm?productdatasheetsid=1158

!!!!! teh wh00t

Sadly, this board's AGP slot is only 4x(not 8x) compliant. Not that running a modern AGP card in 4x mode would be a huge loss . . .

 

[Pandaren]

The Radisys board looks nice (I saw it linked off the Inquirer a few weeks ago), but I heard it is quite expensive

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think I saw a price of around $355 for it(yeouch), but I can't remember where I saw that. It also is a trifle out-of-date due to the lack of AGP 8x support and SATA support, but that is probably more due to the i855 chipset than anything else. A SATA raid-controller would fix half of that problem, but that would also increase the cost of the board(they could always just pull the damn Extreme Graphics 2 chip though).

Even still, I'm glad to see that it's out there, and I'm sure some enterprising company could get an updated version of the board with the above-mentioned changes for bulk-integration into bare-bones micro-ATX systems. Sure, the board's pricey, but using it(and the Pentium M) would reduce the need for engineering the case for noise-reduction and heat-dissipation. That should save on material, production, and engineering costs right there. Set a system like that up right, and the only fan you'd need would be on the power supply.