A few weeks ago I needed to get a replacement PC for a non-power user in the office. All this person does is email, surf the web, & type a few documents. Very low requirements. He had an Intel D201GLY, which has a Celeron 215 (1.33Ghz) processor in it. I had noticed on it in the past it would get bogged down when it was doing things. I'm sure b/c its single core and does not have hyperthreading. Anyway the harddrive was dying on that box, and to be sure there was no downtime, I just ordered an Asus EEE box.
This user's only requirements are Windows XP, MS Office (will have to install it), IExplorer & Outlook Express. So I figured this would fit the bill perfectly.
So I ordered this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16883220006
$320.00
Came installed with a nice suite of office applications which would do for most people.
Anyway, from the get go I was surprised at how snappy it felt. It "felt" faster than the Celeron 215 which I didn't think would be the case. Its got to be the hyperthreading b/c everything else shows me that the Celeron should be faster.
After playing with it a little I went in to the BIOS and set it to manual overclock, level 3, which sets it to 1.75Ghz! So a nice little 9%+ overclock.
By the way, this system is perfectly quiet! At first I thought it didn't have any fans as I couldn't hear anything or feel any airflow with my hand to the vent. The only way I could tell their was a fan in there was to put my ear all the way up to the top vent and I could barely hear a little whisper hum, and barely feel a little bit of air blown in to my ear.
I ran some OLD benchmarks which don't have SSE2, SSE3, etc., just to see what type of raw single-threaded horsepower it had. From these benchmarks the Atom at 1.75Ghz (overclocked speed, standard was 1.6Ghz) is equivalent to about a Pentium 3 at 1.1Ghz with a much faster memory system and hyperthreading, however it "feels" much faster than that.
Atom gets some of its strength from a faster northbridge than most of the competition in this size. The i945 has a fast memory system & decent graphics compatibility & performance. The previous 2 systems that I had for this user were a 1Ghz Via & 1.33Ghz Celeron 215, both had slower northbridges. I wouldn't call the Atom a big upgrade over the Celeron 215 system as for the most part they are similar, except the Atom (once again assuming here due to the HT) doesn't seem to get bogged down when you're multitasking.
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box5.jpg <-- mainboard/bios details
I mounted it to the back of an old Dell 19" flat panel which unfortunately only has a VGA plug, so I didn't get to utilize the DVI which is one of the advantages that the EEE box has over the similar competition. By the way I did look at the MSI wind box, but it was considerably bigger, and wasn't as "ready to use" as the EEE box.
The only disadvantages I see with the EEE box are:
1. the mouse is TINY and virtually useless. I immediately swapped it out for a full size mouse.
2. doesn't have a CD rom, but I can't really count this as a drawback, as its a trade off for size. The whole EEE Box is smaller than a 5.25 drive.
And now for the pictures:
Mounted on the back of the monitor:
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box1.jpg
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box2.jpg
Screenshots of it overclocked:
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box3.jpg
Notice it still uses Speedstep when overclocked.
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box4.jpg
I did not notice any increase in heat or noise, etc. from the overclock.
The box barely feels warmer than ambient AND its on the back of a monitor which puts out a little bit of heat right next to it.
You can get the specs from anyplace, but the important parts to me were:
4 USB ports, card reader (SD plus a few other formats), DVI output, wireless b/g/n, though I only use LAN.
This user's only requirements are Windows XP, MS Office (will have to install it), IExplorer & Outlook Express. So I figured this would fit the bill perfectly.
So I ordered this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16883220006
$320.00
Came installed with a nice suite of office applications which would do for most people.
Anyway, from the get go I was surprised at how snappy it felt. It "felt" faster than the Celeron 215 which I didn't think would be the case. Its got to be the hyperthreading b/c everything else shows me that the Celeron should be faster.
After playing with it a little I went in to the BIOS and set it to manual overclock, level 3, which sets it to 1.75Ghz! So a nice little 9%+ overclock.
By the way, this system is perfectly quiet! At first I thought it didn't have any fans as I couldn't hear anything or feel any airflow with my hand to the vent. The only way I could tell their was a fan in there was to put my ear all the way up to the top vent and I could barely hear a little whisper hum, and barely feel a little bit of air blown in to my ear.
I ran some OLD benchmarks which don't have SSE2, SSE3, etc., just to see what type of raw single-threaded horsepower it had. From these benchmarks the Atom at 1.75Ghz (overclocked speed, standard was 1.6Ghz) is equivalent to about a Pentium 3 at 1.1Ghz with a much faster memory system and hyperthreading, however it "feels" much faster than that.
Atom gets some of its strength from a faster northbridge than most of the competition in this size. The i945 has a fast memory system & decent graphics compatibility & performance. The previous 2 systems that I had for this user were a 1Ghz Via & 1.33Ghz Celeron 215, both had slower northbridges. I wouldn't call the Atom a big upgrade over the Celeron 215 system as for the most part they are similar, except the Atom (once again assuming here due to the HT) doesn't seem to get bogged down when you're multitasking.
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box5.jpg <-- mainboard/bios details
I mounted it to the back of an old Dell 19" flat panel which unfortunately only has a VGA plug, so I didn't get to utilize the DVI which is one of the advantages that the EEE box has over the similar competition. By the way I did look at the MSI wind box, but it was considerably bigger, and wasn't as "ready to use" as the EEE box.
The only disadvantages I see with the EEE box are:
1. the mouse is TINY and virtually useless. I immediately swapped it out for a full size mouse.
2. doesn't have a CD rom, but I can't really count this as a drawback, as its a trade off for size. The whole EEE Box is smaller than a 5.25 drive.
And now for the pictures:
Mounted on the back of the monitor:
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box1.jpg
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box2.jpg
Screenshots of it overclocked:
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box3.jpg
Notice it still uses Speedstep when overclocked.
http://images.dr3vil.com//files3/84/eee-box4.jpg
I did not notice any increase in heat or noise, etc. from the overclock.
The box barely feels warmer than ambient AND its on the back of a monitor which puts out a little bit of heat right next to it.
You can get the specs from anyplace, but the important parts to me were:
4 USB ports, card reader (SD plus a few other formats), DVI output, wireless b/g/n, though I only use LAN.
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