Intel Pentium J2900 - 2.67 GHz Quad Core

[TeknoBug]

I think this is the future actually. People don't need faster computers, but they could use lower power consumption and smaller form factors. Yes, even for desktops.

You may JUST as well buy low end laptops and hook up a mouse/keyboard/monitor, that's what I do when I'm on the road, I used to take along my Lanbox when working on site but not anymore.

And yes I don't think many are buying prebuilt desktop PC's anymore, especially when they come with mobile processors (saw an AMD E1-2500 PC and it couldn't even play a Youtube video at 720p).

 

[OBLAMA2009]

that this chip even exists really pisses me off. i bet this doesnt even perform on par with a core 2 pentium, but since its "quad core" its designed to mislead peeps into thinking its an upgrade.

 

[NTMBK]

that this chip even exists really pisses me off. i bet this doesnt even perform on par with a core 2 pentium, but since its "quad core" its designed to mislead peeps into thinking its an upgrade.

Probably depends on the task. Anything multithreaded should be faster on the Bay Trail Pentium, and anything which has dedicated hardware (i.e. Quicksync) should be much faster on the Bay Trail.

Still, it really has no place in a desktop. Tiny little nettops sure, but not a big desktop box you could fit an i7 in.

 

[crashtech]

Just my opinion, but I bet this processor has more power than it's target market will ever need. Does not take much for grandma to check email, play mahjong, and do some web shopping.

What scenarios do you envision where it will come up short for it's intended market?

We can't know what the intended market is. And if PC makers were being honest by conceding their budget offering is slower than a good PC from 2008, would even grandma buy it? If this is all they've got to offer, the intended market should shop for a second hand machine. They're misleading less informed people, plain and simple.

 

[jpiniero]

We can't know what the intended market is. And if PC makers were being honest by conceding their budget offering is slower than a good PC from 2008, would even grandma buy it? If this is all they've got to offer, the intended market should shop for a second hand machine.

Well, home users don't need new machines in the first place, hence the sliding PC sales. But things break, and Grandma isn't going to go to some shady place like Craigslist or eBay to buy a replacement, they're going to call up Dell or go to Best Buy. It's cheap and uses less power than their old machine.

 

[Infraction Jack]

It looks like this quad core is about the same speed as an e8400 or a celeron g530. As long as you can find a board with a PCIE slot it would be a decent low powered 720P gaming rig.
This would be perfect for playing F2P steam games and retro gaming LAN boxes.

 

[crashtech]

It's the same speed in fully threaded loads, but half as fast in 1-2 thread loads. So it's a massive downgrade from a decent C2D CPU when used by "the intended market." It's rather stunning to find anyone here willing to defend the decisions that allow such a product to exist. The whole thing is essentially a scam, what with the Pentium name, the "quad core" moniker, and the fancy sounding model number. I don't think it's that way by accident, the design is clearly to deceive. Caveat emptor.

 

[Roland00Address]

A device likes this needs to be about the same size as the amazon fire tv or smaller than a mac mini. There is no reason you need a big device with something that is a netbook chip.

A device like this also needs to be sub $200 in price with a windows license. Effectively we are talking about a windows tablet chip but without the touchscreen and using hdmi instead of a screen.

 

[jpiniero]

A device likes this needs to be about the same size as the amazon fire tv or smaller than a mac mini. There is no reason you need a big device with something that is a netbook chip.

They are probably just reusing the case design they had for Core Pentiums. Could do a new case design that works better with 10W processors later. I've been projecting Intel moving Celeron and Pentium to the Atom line completely, so this could be the beginning of that transition.

 

[crashtech]

They are probably just reusing the case design they had for Core Pentiums. Could do a new case design that works better with 10W processors later. I've been projecting Intel moving Celeron and Pentium to the Atom line completely, so this could be the beginning of that transition.

It should at best be called a Celeron, maybe a new moniker like Celeron-"L" or something. To call it a Pentium is disingenuous at best.

 

[evident]

i hate these netbook processors. i had to work on someone's netbook once, i never want to touch anything like that ever again!!

 

[bunnyfubbles]

It looks like this quad core is about the same speed as an e8400 or a celeron g530. As long as you can find a board with a PCIE slot it would be a decent low powered 720P gaming rig.
This would be perfect for playing F2P steam games and retro gaming LAN boxes.

naw, only has 4x PCI-e 2.0 lanes, and I think that bandwidth would be intended to go towards storage, ie SATA6/USB3. While that's likely enough for any budget card you'd pair with that CPU, its just another sign that this is basically a step above embedded, nothing more

 

[jpiniero]

naw, only has 4x PCI-e 2.0 lanes, and I think that bandwidth would be intended to go towards storage, ie SATA6/USB3. While that's likely enough for any budget card you'd pair with that CPU, its just another sign that this is basically a step above embedded, nothing more

As it should - the extra lanes would just waste power.

 

[Blue_Max]

This, plus a Geforce GTX 750(or TI) and SSD or laptop-class hard drive would be the best performance one could get with very, VERY low wattage. When paying for electricity, I can get behind that.

Still, it belongs in a laptop to extend battery life.

 

[Enigmoid]

This, plus a Geforce GTX 750(or TI) and SSD or laptop-class hard drive would be the best performance one could get with very, VERY low wattage. When paying for electricity, I can get behind that.

Still, it belongs in a laptop to extend battery life.

In all honesty this CPU is going to definitely hold back a 750 non TI.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If they used the savings on the APU to put an SSD in those machines, I could get behind it. But they still keep shipping PCs with junk 5200RPM hard drives.

You know, I was thinking about this when I was building my last case mod out of an old Macintosh from the early '90s.

I was able to use the original brackets to mount a brand new 3.5" SATA HDD. (The physical format hasn't changed in the least. I even used the original screws.) I didn't recycle the original PSU, but if I had I could have used a 4-pin Molex to SATA power adapter. (I have a few.)

The old Mac originally shipped with a 5200 rpm HDD that would have been good for about 10-15 MB/sec sequential, with about a 15ms seek time.

I installed a 5200 rpm HDD that's good for 80 or 90 MBps sequential, and has a ~12ms seek time. (I realize there are faster drives out there, but this is a typical boring 750GB OEM "value" drive. In my defense, I have a SSD in there too.)

The difference is that the entire operating system 20 years ago took up about ~15 MBs of disk space. As opposed to ~15 GB for a base install of Windows today.

So we've got, literally, a thousand times the work to do, with 10x the speed and virtually no drop in latency. That's 20 years of progress, right there.

HDDs have their uses, but so do rocks. It's the friggin stone age.

 

[Vesku]

In all honesty this CPU is going to definitely hold back a 750 non TI.

Yes, kind of wondered who exactly would want a Radeon R7 250 as it's actually a performance downgrade from similarly priced Radeon 7750 it replaced. For someone who buys one of these Bay Trail Celeron Pentium systems it might actually be the best combination of performance, price and power usage. The 750 would knock the R7 250 out of that sweet spot though if it was $20-30 less than it is now.

Going to reiterate, companies are charging $100+ too much for these low power desktops than consumers should reasonably expect given the component costs and performance. Sure they are low power but a Ivy Bridge or Haswell Celeron or Pentium system is not going to be using much energy either with "mom and pop" usage and in addition has more performance on offer if it's needed.

 

[jpiniero]

Going to reiterate, companies are charging $100+ too much for these low power desktops than consumers should reasonably expect given the component costs and performance

The tray price for the J2900 is $94. OEMs obviously aren't paying that but it's going to be hard for them to hit $200 without Intel cutting the price.

It should at best be called a Celeron, maybe a new moniker like Celeron-"L" or something. To call it a Pentium is disingenuous at best.

Intel is kind of overdue for a branding overhaul.

 

[Vesku]

The tray price for the J2900 is $94. OEMs obviously aren't paying that but it's going to be hard for them to hit $200 without Intel cutting the price.



Intel is kind of overdue for a branding overhaul.

J1900 is $82 tray price and yet retail CPU and board is just $121.12:

http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GA-J1...=celeron+j1900

That's with more features, dual gigabit, then you'll find in a OEM desktop. I'd be surprised if OEMs pay more than the listed tray price for the J2900 AND the motherboard it's soldered to combined.

 

[crashtech]

The lowest a desktop should go is a Celeron 1820T. Better performance at 2.4GHz than the E8600 at 3.3GHz, and at half the power (35W). MSRP $42.

 

[Red Hawk]

Huh, I find it interesting that we've gotten to the point where Intel is releasing a quad core under the now budget segment Pentium brand instead of the performance segment Core i series

 

[StrangerGuy]

If they used the savings on the APU to put an SSD in those machines, I could get behind it. But they still keep shipping PCs with junk 5200RPM hard drives.

Isn't it pretty obvious? Given their tight grip over PC OEMs, Intel would rather them omit SSDs completely in cost cutting instead of earning less with selling cheaper CPUs to include SSDs even though SSDs are by far the most important piece these days to make the PC experience not suck.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Isn't it pretty obvious? Given their tight grip over PC OEMs, Intel would rather them omit SSDs completely in cost cutting instead of earning less with selling cheaper CPUs to include SSDs even though SSDs are by far the most important piece these days to make the PC experience not suck.

Not really fair to blame just Intel. Do you know any amd kabini desktops with an ssd? I blame the manufacturers first and Intel and amd also for letting them get away with it. In fact they have done it much longer with amd all the way back to Brazos with the E series. At least then though the nomenclature was less confusing.

Edit: I still am not sure that for light usage not involving a lot of opening and closing programs that an ssd is essential. I have an i5 with a 7200 rpm hdd, and chrome or Firefox open almost instantaneously, programs a few seconds at most, and I can then just minimize them, and I just put it to sleep, so boot times are not a problem. I am sure an ssd would be nice, but the computer in no way feels slow or frustrating to use.

 

[Blue_Max]

Huh, I find it interesting that we've gotten to the point where Intel is releasing a quad core under the now budget segment Pentium brand instead of the performance segment Core i series

Maybe they're adopting AMD's "more slow cores" approach? I don't say that to be mean, but there could be more cores on the desktop soon?

It's impressive what they can do with 10W, but the i3 @ 35W just runs circles around it.

Still, I'd buy one of these for my grandma-aged family - it's more than enough for them and ~1/8 of the power of their old Intel Pentium4HT processor.

 

[Homeles]

i hate these netbook processors. i had to work on someone's netbook once, i never want to touch anything like that ever again!!

Today's "netbook processors" are decidedly faster than yesterday's.