How far till Poulsbo?

[ShaunO]

Hey guys, anyone have any idea or would be able to find out an estimated release for Intels next ITX motherboard?

Right now the latest is the D945GCLF but this is not using the Poulsbo chipset so it is the 20W (!) 945 chipset.

It seems looking at the Intel website that the Atom N270 CPU + Poulsbo (945GSE) chipset are complete as seen here

Now just wondering when the Intel motherboard sporting these will be released, in the next month or so?

Cheers!

 

[Peter]

945GSE isn't Poulsbo, it looks like just a slower and probably cheaper version of the regular 945.

Poulsbo, Intel's actual UMPC chipset, has almost no I/O connectivity - just IDE and two PCIE x1 - and minimal graphics.

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/...2008/0310/kaigai01.pdf

While that is what you need in a UMPC, it would make for a rather pathetic mini PC.

I think for mini-ITX we'll be better off with VIA's new "Nano" CPU and one of their full-featured DX9 chipsets to go with it. Since they claim that the Nano can be put into existing mainboard designs, we may not even have to wait for too long.

 

[ShaunO]

Ahh I see, thanks for the info, you're right, a UMPC chipset wouldn't really be ideal.

But the 945GSE power usage does. 11W system TDP, excellent.

Will wait and see what VIA brings out though.

 

[Peter]

VIA's stuff is already "out", at least for being looked at ... VX800 or CN896 chipsets, Nano processor (U-series for low power fanless) or the older C7-Eden (slower, but reaches further down on the power consumption scale).

VX800 is five watts, its low-power flavor VX800U is 3.5. Processors range from 1 to 8 watt for 'tiny fanless', and up to 20 for 'cheap desktop' solutions.

So if you're desperate about power consumption, VIA can do it with less than five watts without sacrificing any I/O, just performance obviously.

If you want to match Intel's 11.8 watts, you can afford a 7 watt processor alongside the regular VX800. This buys you a 1.5 GHz Eden-ULV or a 1.2 GHz Nano.

(All figures according to respective web site materials)

http://www.via.com.tw/en/produ...series/vx800/index.jsp
http://www.via.com.tw/en/produ...series/cn896/index.jsp
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/

http://www.via.com.tw/en/produ...jsp?motherboard_id=670 (mainboard example, still with C7 processor)

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Peter
VIA's stuff is already "out", at least for being looked at ... VX800 or CN896 chipsets, Nano processor (U-series for low power fanless) or the older C7-Eden (slower, but reaches further down on the power consumption scale).

VX800 is five watts, its low-power flavor VX800U is 3.5. Processors range from 1 to 8 watt for 'tiny fanless', and up to 20 for 'cheap desktop' solutions.

So if you're desperate about power consumption, VIA can do it with less than five watts without sacrificing any I/O, just performance obviously.

If you want to match Intel's 11.8 watts, you can afford a 7 watt processor alongside the regular VX800. This buys you a 1.5 GHz Eden-ULV or a 1.2 GHz Nano.

(All figures according to respective web site materials)

http://www.via.com.tw/en/produ...series/vx800/index.jsp
http://www.via.com.tw/en/produ...series/cn896/index.jsp
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/

http://www.via.com.tw/en/produ...jsp?motherboard_id=670 (mainboard example, still with C7 processor)

The problem is, you're using a VIA solution. I tried this once, and will never do it again. I couldn't believe how slow it was at doing anything. I had 2GB RAM and ubuntu loaded on it an dit was still dog slow.
I'm much happier with my e2200 Shuttle k45. At most it can draw 100W as that's what the PSU is rated for. All I have in it is the CPU, 2GB ddr2, an 80GB SATA hard drive, a Dell notebook DVD drive and a d-link wireless pci card. It runs Vista and Ubuntu fine. I am going to try OSX on it and see if it can handle that.

The Atom and super low wattage solutions are not meant for PC work. They are for mobile devices and single use applications like kiosks ect. Now if they can get a dual core Atom I'll look into one, but a 1.6Ghz (hyperthreaded???) cpu just can't cut it for multi-tasking.

 

[Peter]

It's all about what you're trying to do. I've been setting up 2D media PCs using VIA's older stuff (1 GHz C7, CN700 chipset, Linux) for use as a DVD player replacement, TV viewing/recording and the usual office tasks, no problem there. Thanks to the pretty decent video accelerators in the chipset, the worst CPU load we saw with that was about 60%, and that was with DVD image enhancers cranked way up. We've measured 50W at the wall during this. Sure it ain't fast, but it's fast enough for its media tasks, and in office work, YOU are the slowest part.

Their new stuff is lots faster - 2x to 3x in the CPU, and quite some in the chipset as well - without going higher in power consumption.

This is well suitable for anything you'd reasonably (!) expect do be doing with a Mini-ITX box, and also plenty for normal home or small office tasks. For games or complicated computing tasks it clearly and obviously is not - so what you're arguing here doesn't really have a point, unless you're trying to confess that you made a poor choice there and now try to blame someone else for it.

You need to choose the right tool for the task, and you can hardly dispute that VIA's offerings cover quite some range of tasks - and I won't dispute that there are things that are way out of their reach.