Wow.... I opted for the J1900 for my torrent server. I would not use a J1800 as a daily driver for anything other than web browsing.
Not all Kabini products require active cooling.You may get away with passive on Atom. But Kabini needs active. A fan is also cheaper than a big passive heatsink so....
The big savings come from the high level of integration, whether you have passive or active cooling does little to improve cost or power usage for that matter. The active cooling solution may actually end up both cheaper and more energy efficient for systems under constant load. Other setups may favor passive heat sinks.Do the small core CPUs even need a fan? I'm guessing the savings for the OEMs are fairly substantial, less money for the CPU and the cooling solution, cheaper mobo since it's a SoC.
You'all are making me feel bad I built some ITX rigs using AM1 3850 Sempron quad-core 1.3Ghz APUs. They overclock mostly successfully to 1.65Ghz, and at that frequency they're "bearable" in Linux Mint for web browsing, but when overclocked, the DVD drive doesn't work. So I had to down-clock them.
I haven't found any customers for them yet. They cost me roughly $200 ea to build, including an SSD and 4GB of DDR3.
Sigh. No wonder those APUs were marked down to $19.99.
Edit: I could pull the AM1 ITX boards and replace them with Haswell ITX boards. I have several, and a few unopened G3258 CPUs. Hmm.
Yup... Even small cores are needing a fan if you don't want to end it throttling.Do the small core CPUs even need a fan? I'm guessing the savings for the OEMs are fairly substantial, less money for the CPU and the cooling solution, cheaper mobo since it's a SoC.
I would not use Atom anything as a daily driver, even with Bay Trail improvements. Their single-core performance is likely that of a Core Duo, not even 1st gen Core 2, since the old netbook Atoms were basically Pentium 4s.
I would also set the minimum processor state to 100% or disable Speedstep, they are so sorely lacking in performance.
They're fanless. Just look one up lol. J1800/J1900 are fanless.Do the small core CPUs even need a fan? I'm guessing the savings for the OEMs are fairly substantial, less money for the CPU and the cooling solution, cheaper mobo since it's a SoC.
How much storage do you have on that server if it has no moving parts?The server I ended up building with the J1900 was stupidly cheap, and works great. Silent, no moving parts, I'm happy with it.
If I were to use a Bay Trail board to make a home server or HTPC
It's your choice of software and functionality. Don't behave like everyone must abide to it.Ew, no way. Bay Trail doesn't have enough CPU power to transcode video from a server, nor does it have enough single-threaded power to deliver a great GUI experience on a HTPC.
Hell my best HTPC with every MadVR trick running uses 60% of both cores on a G3258 at 4.5GHz to play 1080p Blu Rays. An Atom would be eaten alive.
It's your choice of software and functionality. Don't behave like everyone must abide to it.
It's a torrent server so it has 1 ssd and that's it.How much storage do you have on that server if it has no moving parts?
You're using madvr. Otherwise, it's fast enough for the gui and to play videos.Ew, no way. Bay Trail doesn't have enough CPU power to transcode video from a server, nor does it have enough single-threaded power to deliver a great GUI experience on a HTPC.
Hell my best HTPC with every MadVR trick running uses 60% of both cores on a G3258 at 4.5GHz to play 1080p Blu Rays. An Atom would be eaten alive.
You're using madvr. Otherwise, it's fast enough for the gui and to play videos.
My baytrail pc was stupid cheap.
Should be a federal crime to buy a Bay Trail DESKTOP.
Sure. I mean a $30 Pi 1 could just play video. My point is that for the money you can get a HTPC that is better if you chose large core Celeron instead.
Those Atom CPUs (much like most ARM CPUs) can stutter in the GUI like crazy on a large library in Kodi for example. I know for a fact my overclocked ION2 boxes cannot take my library as it is, they only work when a better machine is hosting that library via MySQL. My big core Celeron Chromeboxes can easily handle my library without MySQL, and they cost the same as any Bay Trail NUC. And it isn't just Kodi. WMC likes big cores, jRiver likes big cores, hell even Plex Home Theater likes big cores.
Getting the most for your money is the name of the game.
Hey I feel ya, a deal is a deal.
As Anand always said, there are no bad products only bad prices.
If you can get Bay Trail for way less than big core Celeron then why not. Something is better than nothing.
I ran a Gigabyte J1800N-DH2 motherboard (j1800) with SSD and 4GB DRAM 24/7 using an XFCE4 desktop on Debian 8 for a year+ and it was delightful. I cheated by reading Anand's initial review of Atom where he hinted that only an idiot would run a heavy O/S like Windows on Atom. For my target use case of video consumption (not creation), web browsing, P2P daemon, lightweight server roles (dns/dhcp/firewall with NAT), and linux kernel compilation, it was a good solution given the ~$70 cost and power consumption. It did take a while for the linux graphics driver to get sorted out and UEFI installation was initially challenging. I erred and let a power surge trash the motherboard and I currently await delivery of a Supermicro X11SBA-LN4F (Celeron n3700 quad core w/ 4 Intel NIC's). Patrick over at Servethehome kinda touts the board and characterizes it as "sweet" but he speaks to a minority niche of knowledgeable users. http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-x11sba-ln4f-review
I appreciate the concern that some folks are not smart enough to know how to spend their money. On the other hand, there is no shortage of resources available on the Web to assist in making an informed decision. I do not appreciate the suggestion that knowledgeable folks should be deprived of the opportunity to make good decisions because some folks are dumb.
haha fixing the stupid, just like the city putting those extra giant speed bumps next to schools to force people to slow down (and yet I still see people speed over them and hilariously go flying 5ft in the air).Actually, it should be against the law to *sell* a Bay Trail desktop. Being stupid enough to buy one is not a crime.
Ya, I am surprised you took the J1800 though. But I agree, as long as you know the EXACT task a pc is doing, buy the CPU for that task.
I'm just not a fan of dual cores anymore.