Intel Atom....any good?????

[OBLAMA2009]

no offense but that had to have been the stupidest purchasing decision ever. at least you now know not to go into computer design as a profession

 

[grimpr]

Bad timing with Brazos systems on the door.

 

[CPForYou]

no offense but that had to have been the stupidest purchasing decision ever. at least you now know not to go into computer design as a profession

So which route would you have gone?

System needed to be:
1. Low Cost
2. "Low" Power Consumption
3. Able to be hooked to an LCD TV for the purpose of streaming and playing movies only.
4. Decent amount of storage for file server for the whole family (family of 5).

 

[veri745]

So which route would you have gone?

System needed to be:
1. Low Cost
2. "Low" Power Consumption
3. Able to be hooked to an LCD TV for the purpose of streaming and playing movies only.
4. Decent amount of storage for file server for the whole family (family of 5).

AMD Brazos mini ITX board, RAM, HDDs

It would work as both file server and HTPC

 

[drizek]

I don't agree with the tone above, but yes, Brazos would have been far superior to Atom. An Athlon X4 system could have also been built for under $200. A bit overkill maybe, but it is better than an atom which you already find to be slow.

 

[ArchAngel777]

The Atom is great for granny who has no idea that a computer could be faster. That is about the ONLY scenario where it can work. You also pretty much need to install a flash blocker if you plan to surf with it. I shudder to think about having to use something that slow.

 

[toyota]

my 1.33 Atom with HT cant even play a 720 video smoothly which is silly for this day and age.

 

[AtenRa]

I have used ATOM D510 (Dual Core 1.66MHz + HT) and it could play 720p really easy.

AMDs Brazos has the same performance with Atom but better graphics and it can play BD (1080p). In windows, Browsing and Office both ATOM and Brazos are the same.

If you use a ATOM/Brazos include an SSD and every day(Internet, Office) performance would be much better than having a dual Athlon II with mechanical drive.

 

[veri745]

The Atom is great for granny who has no idea that a computer could be faster. That is about the ONLY scenario where it can work. You also pretty much need to install a flash blocker if you plan to surf with it. I shudder to think about having to use something that slow.

I find that worst place for slow systems is with the computer illiterate.

My parents, for instance, refuse to upgrade their computer (meh, it's a P4, probably good enough) or internet connection (256kbps DSL -- way to slow). The result is that they don't like to use their computer at all.

I wouldn't build a system for someone that was noticeably slow for the targeted usage.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

So which route would you have gone?

System needed to be:
1. Low Cost
2. "Low" Power Consumption
3. Able to be hooked to an LCD TV for the purpose of streaming and playing movies only.
4. Decent amount of storage for file server for the whole family (family of 5).

i would have gotten i3 550 for that purpose

 

[CraigRT]

So I went w/ the following:

Foxconn D52S w/ Intel Atom D525
2GB RAM (1 x 2GB)
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB Hard Drives (x2 RAID 1)
CoolerMaster Elite Power 350W Power Supply (old power supply laying around).

It's pulling high 40 watts with this setup. If I load it up, it reaches high 50 watts.

Is it slow? Yes it is!

Does it work? As a file server for the whole family, and hooked to a TV to stream Netflix and do light browsing, it does the job.

Now if I had only read up on the 25 watt Core i5, I might have went that route instead, but hey, I spend less than $90 for the motherboard and atom processor, and $30 for 2GB stick, $180 for the two hard drives. I used existing power supply, case, keyboard, and mouse. Not bad for spending, $300 on the build.

Nice, if its does its job on the cheap, its a success as far as I'm concerned.
If that were a gaming rig you'd be out to lunch
Also, 6 posts in 10 years is astonishing.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

I find that worst place for slow systems is with the computer illiterate.

My parents, for instance, refuse to upgrade their computer (meh, it's a P4, probably good enough) or internet connection (256kbps DSL -- way to slow). The result is that they don't like to use their computer at all.

I wouldn't build a system for someone that was noticeably slow for the targeted usage.

ha that reminds me of my aunt. she constantly complains that her citrix runs slow, so i tell her to spend $5 a month more to double the speed of her dsl but its been two years and she still hasnt bothered to do it

 

[StinkyPinky]

I find that worst place for slow systems is with the computer illiterate.

My parents, for instance, refuse to upgrade their computer (meh, it's a P4, probably good enough) or internet connection (256kbps DSL -- way to slow). The result is that they don't like to use their computer at all.

I wouldn't build a system for someone that was noticeably slow for the targeted usage.

I recently upgraded my parents from some ye olde athlon to a AMD Athlon x4 2.9Ghz, 4gb ram, 90GB SSD, and an old 8400GT I had....and they were blown away. I think it's the SSD that impresses them as they say everything is now "instantaneous" .

They are still using a 17" lcd though....hmmm...

 

[BadThad]

Atom is great for one thing only....low power consumption. Having owned an Atom since they were released, I can say it's one slow-ass CPU. It's barely enough for web surfing and playing YouTube videos....and I mean barely. It's pretty sad when a Celeron can rock it with ease.

 

[veri745]

I recently upgraded my parents from some ye olde athlon to a AMD Athlon x4 2.9Ghz, 4gb ram, 90GB SSD, and an old 8400GT I had....and they were blown away. I think it's the SSD that impresses them as they say everything is now "instantaneous" .

They are still using a 17" lcd though....hmmm...

Newer LCD's are almost pointless for old people. Whenever I come to visit, they always have the resolution turned down to like 1024x768 because "it makes the text on the screen bigger".

 

[86waterpumper]

meh, atom is not that horrible for normal surfing and youtubing if paired with the nvidia ion graphics. My 1.6 netbook will overclock to at least 2.1 ghz, and at that speed it feels fairly snappy, and will play 1080p video with ease. I agree for gaming or any other purpose go with something else.

 

[drizek]

Newer LCD's are almost pointless for old people. Whenever I come to visit, they always have the resolution turned down to like 1024x768 because "it makes the text on the screen bigger".

DPI scaling in windows 7 is actually quite usable. There is no excuse anymore for low-res displays.

 

[Zap]

ha that reminds me of my aunt. she constantly complains that her citrix runs slow, so i tell her to spend $5 a month more to double the speed of her dsl but its been two years and she still hasnt bothered to do it

Next time she complains, just tell her that you already gave her the fix, but she refused to do it, so it is completely her fault.

Newer LCD's are almost pointless for old people. Whenever I come to visit, they always have the resolution turned down to like 1024x768 because "it makes the text on the screen bigger".

LOL, sounds like my mom and my aunt. Aunt has a 22" widescreen and mom used to have a 19" widescreen. Both of them just used horrible low resolutions, and they LOVED it!

meh, atom is not that horrible for normal surfing and youtubing if paired with the nvidia ion graphics.

AMD Zacate is like Atom with ION, but even better in some ways.

 

[jacktesterson]

I will never buy another ATOM CPU again.

I bought a 11.6 inch Netbook, It has a ATOM in it.

I kept it for 2 months, and it was just to painful for me.

It struggled with playing DIVX movies at times. Not acceptable.

 

[toyota]

I unzipped and installed an old game on my sig pc before the Atom pc even got a few seconds into the actual unzip process. it literally sat there for nearly 4 minutes after I clicked unzip before it ever even did anything. total time was over 20 minutes where as it was just under 4 minutes for sig pc. even my Athlon XP 2400+ is faster than the Atom cpu that I have.

 

[veri745]

DPI scaling in windows 7 is actually quite usable. There is no excuse anymore for low-res displays.

Yes, but when my mom looks for a way to fix the small text, which feature do you think she finds first?

 

[drizek]

If you go into the start menu and search for "make text bigger", it will take you right into the DPI settings in the control panel.

 

[grimpr]

AMDs Brazos has the same performance with Atom but better graphics and it can play BD (1080p). In windows, Browsing and Office both ATOM and Brazos are the same.

Well, i guess you hadnt sat down and worked with a Brazos system and you come to conclusions through benchmarks and synthetics, you will be pleasantly surprised with the *real life* performance of a Zacate Brazos board or netbook. Compared to that chewed, spitted and sticked gumstick of a cpu like Atom is mana from heaven.

 

[Vic Vega]

My Asus 1201N netbook has the dual core 1.6GHz Atom 330. I find it does a good job paired with the nVidia ION chipset/video. 1080p playback is smooth, doesn't even max the CPU. Windows 7 Enterprise runs great. Very snappy system, in fact I'm typing on it now.

Boot up is rather slow but I almost never turn the thing off, just shut the lid and let it standby. I've thought about tossing an inexpensive SSD in, as the slowest part of the unit is definitely the hard drive (5,200 RPM) and the system often is waiting for it.

Overall it's a good CPU for moderate work and entertainment. It is not a gaming machine (Windows based flash games play great though, thanks to having 4 threads) and is not some high end media developer machine but it does well for what I want and is far from slow. I'd take it over a P4 system any day.

I bought the machine in April of last year. I'm sure there are faster netbooks out there now but oh well, I'm not losing sleep over it.

 

[alkemyst]

atom processors are great for the person that needs maximum battery power and is only doing email/general office/web.

For one most gaming video cards kill the battery efficiency of any laptop. The dual video options today are a nice deal.

I feel really bad for the people that went whole hog into a netbook and bring it to me because it's "never ran right and much slower than my old laptop".