Surprised (positively) about Zacate speed and price

[velis]

Just bought one for my uncle.
I decided not to skimp and I went with ASUS E35M1-I deluxe because I also wanted my own fans to do the noise instead of those 40mm crap ones typically provided with other Zacate products.
The entire setup:
MB / CPU: ASUS E35M1-I deluxe + E350 @1,6GHz
RAM: 2x1GB Corsair dominator series (extra height heatsinks)
Disk WD Scorpio black 500 GB
CD : Some Liteon slimline
Case: LC 1360MI 75W
Case fan: Scythe slipstream slim 800 (120x120x12mm)

This cost me a paltry 300€

Had som problems mounting the disk: The monting holes are for 3,5" drives only, so the Scorpio is hanging off a single screw
The entire setup is totally workable. I notice a bit of lag switching between tabs in firefox 7.0 (250 - 300ms to switch), but otherwise the system typically waits on the disk, not the CPU.

Youtube videos play without problems. 320p == 30% (@800MHz), 720p == 70% @ 1600MHz and 1080p is 80% with frame droping. Trying to figure out the problems.
Mediaportal client works like a charm, though I have been unable to turn on Vector Adaptive. Don't really know how to do that...

Anyway, even though it's a bit late and this proc isn't all the rage at the moment, I will have this setup for the following few days and I can do some preformance testing should anyone desire so.

Now to go undervolt the sucker and plug it into my kill-a-watt

 

[velis]

Update:
The whole setup takes <20W at idle
33W at full load running Prime95

It also plays my BD-rip of Gladiator with no frame dropping at 50% CPU usage (ffdshow DXVA).
The codecs installed are SAF 6.00 (not unlocked)

 

[Zap]

Is that power draw while undervolted?

Looks like that case isn't available in the USA. Googled, and all links were EU.

 

[velis]

No, the power draw is everything at stock. The only custom BIOS setting right now is setting RAM from 1066 (default) to 1333.
I took the case precisely because of low power PSU. The original intent was for Thermaltake Element Q, but the supplier couldn't deliver it so I took this one.

Can't seem to find undervolting in BIOS. It only allows overvolting.
The manual states that additional options appear if I jump the overclock jumper on the MB. However, when I tried to do that while assembling, the only result I got was RAM error status light glowing. Haven't tried that since.

 

[cebalrai]

No, the power draw is everything at stock. The only custom BIOS setting right now is setting RAM from 1066 (default) to 1333.
I took the case precisely because of low power PSU. The original intent was for Thermaltake Element Q, but the supplier couldn't deliver it so I took this one.

Can't seem to find undervolting in BIOS. It only allows overvolting.
The manual states that additional options appear if I jump the overclock jumper on the MB. However, when I tried to do that while assembling, the only result I got was RAM error status light glowing. Haven't tried that since.

You can set the BIOS to 1333 but the CPU only supports 1066 AFAIK. The E-450 comes out any day now and will support 1333. In fact it's been out for mobile platforms for a month now...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I really like my Zacate rig. Unfortunately, it's been bluescreening occasionally with "STOP 0x124" errors. Unsure why. Possibly the PSU in the Rosewill ITX case is weak or something, don't really know.

 

[toyota]

I just found it to be way to anemic. it is silly in 2011 to have a cpu struggle at all with some flash and 1080p videos. just a regular Athlon X2 provides a WAY better daily user experience.

 

[cebalrai]

I just found it to be way to anemic. it is silly in 2011 to have a cpu struggle at all with some flash and 1080p videos. just a regular Athlon X2 provides a WAY better daily user experience.

What kind of flash videos? The zacate I used to use handled them perfectly well.

 

[Arkaign]

What kind of flash videos? The zacate I used to use handled them perfectly well.

Not flash videos per se, but rather web sites that use general flash content. It's a bit chuggy on the Zacate, and even worse on Atoms. Zacate and Atom are both kind of bleh imho. I do think that we're within a generation of having something in a similar power profile that doesn't suck though. I think something in the range of the stock Athlon II 250 performance levels would be a great deal at 10 watts or less, and I'm sure it's close.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I just found it to be way to anemic. it is silly in 2011 to have a cpu struggle at all with some flash and 1080p videos. just a regular Athlon X2 provides a WAY better daily user experience.

Most of your issues are probably PEBKAC. There's a ThinkPad X120e with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 in our house. With new drivers for everything and most of the bloatware (doesn't come with much) uninstalled it can play 1080p .mkv video files just fine. CPU usage remains relatively steady at 25-30%. It's far from struggling.

For Flash (YouTube) in 1080p with the latest version of the player and drivers, usage depends on what is being watched but it's almost always at 50-60%.

Also, an Athlon II X2 is pretty crap now. The Celeron Dual-Core is significantly faster and consumes less power, and Zacate consumes less power than both.

 

[zebrax2]

Flash player 11 seems to improve performance in flash a lot maybe that would help with the issues some of you are having with flash

 

[toyota]

Most of your issues are probably PEBKAC. There's a ThinkPad X120e with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 in our house. With new drivers for everything and most of the bloatware (doesn't come with much) uninstalled it can play 1080p .mkv video files just fine. CPU usage remains relatively steady at 25-30&#37;. It's far from struggling.

For Flash (YouTube) in 1080p with the latest version of the player and drivers, usage depends on what is being watched but it's almost always at 50-60%.

Also, an Athlon II X2 is pretty crap now. The Celeron Dual-Core is significantly faster and consumes less power, and Zacate consumes less power than both.

yeah blame me as if I had anything to do with how the cpu performs. Zacate flat out sucked on some pages with heavy Flash and did not always play 1080p perfectly. at least not from youtube. heck it did not take hardly anything at all to make the cpu go right to 100% just doing normal tasks.

and considering I used the Athlon 2 X2 at the same time as Zacate I might know what the hell I am talking about when it comes to comparing them. the only thing slower than Zacate is the freaking Atom garbage which I also had.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

yeah blame me as if I had anything to do with how the cpu performs. Zacate flat out sucked on some pages with heavy Flash and did not always play 1080p perfectly. at least not from youtube. heck it did not take hardly anything at all to make the cpu go right to 100&#37; just doing normal tasks.

and considering I used the Athlon 2 X2 at the same time as Zacate I might know what the hell I am talking about when it comes to comparing them. the only thing slower than Zacate is the freaking Atom garbage which I also had.

Right...

Most reviews seem to agree with what I'm saying. It's fine for any type of 1080p. If for you it's not, you need to do some tweaks because there's definitely something wrong. It shouldn't use any more than 35% of the CPU to play 1080p .mkv and it shouldn't take any more than 70% to play 1080p YouTube.

I've also used the Athlon II X2. Where you really notice the difference is in CPU-intensive tasks, and a bit when you're multi-tasking. That being said, the Athlon II X2 consumes MUCH more power.

I've also used a netbook with the Dual-Core w/HT Atom N570. It's much slower in single-threaded than Zacate, and you can definitely feel that in normal everyday tasks. Where it only has a chance is in multi-threaded where it closes the gap, but both are too slow for any workload that needs to be done in a reasonable time.

Zacate seems just fine for most normal users, especially with 4GB of RAM and a 7200RPM HDD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Zacate seems just fine for most normal users, especially with 4GB of RAM and a 7200RPM HDD.

This. For browsing on the internet, Zacate is just fine.

 

[toyota]

This. For browsing on the internet, Zacate is just fine.

and so is a Pentium 4

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

and so is a Pentium 4

Not really, no. This is especially false if you're comparing using a recent Operating System like Windows 7/Vista. Zacate is a lot more responsive.

 

[toyota]

Not really, no. This is especially false if you're comparing using a recent Operating System like Windows 7/Vista. Zacate is a lot more responsive.

my fathers 3.0 P4 with HT was just as responsive and handled Flash and youtube videos just as well if not better than Zacate. I was trying to convince him to get a new pc by showing him how his would struggle with certain things. all it did was end up making his current P4 with HT look good and making me look silly. I only wish I would have video taped the comparisons to see what you guys defending the Zacate platform had to say.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

my fathers 3.0 P4 with HT was just as responsive and handled Flash and youtube videos just as well if not better than Zacate. I was trying to convince him to get a new pc by showing him how his would struggle with certain things. all it did was end up making his current P4 with HT look good and making me look silly. I only wish I would have video taped the comparisons to see what you guys defend the Zacate platform had to say.

For video if it had a GPU with a dedicated hardware video decoder, sure (that is, unless you mean 1080p YouTube because there you'll see the CPU skyrocket to 90&#37;-100% usage). For HD video with no hardware acceleration the Pentium 4 is atrocious. It's also immensely more inefficient than Zacate, and adding a graphics card into the equation makes it even more so. It could be comparable to Zacate given 4GB of RAM and a dedicated GPU, but at the cost of needing a much bigger chassis, creating a lot more heat, and consuming huge amounts more power.

For multi-tasking or applications that use a decent amount of RAM (which these days are a lot) or even only email and web browsing, going with the typical 4GB for Zacate will be much better as well than the 1-2GB max for the Pentium 4.

 

[Vesku]

Toyota, please link me a m-itx board in the sub-$150 price range with similar or better power characteristics but a decent jump in performance from these bobcat m-itx boards. Next year we should see some but if you know of one now I'd like to take a look at it.

To replace your father's P4 system you would be looking at a low end micro-atx motherboard and SB celeron or pentium, m-itx SB doesn't quite squeeze into the zacate arena.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Not flash videos per se, but rather web sites that use general flash content. It's a bit chuggy on the Zacate, and even worse on Atoms. Zacate and Atom are both kind of bleh imho. I do think that we're within a generation of having something in a similar power profile that doesn't suck though. I think something in the range of the stock Athlon II 250 performance levels would be a great deal at 10 watts or less, and I'm sure it's close.

4C SBs are already idling on 5W at 1600MHz, even a single core SB with HT the same clocks will crush Atom and Zacate. Is not a question whether Intel can do it or not, it's more like seceding unprofitable markets like netbooks to AMD while keeping the rest to itself.

 

[fuzzymath10]

The problem with low power CPUs is that not everything can be offloaded properly. Some encodes are too complex for the DXVA decoder to handle. So generally it would work, but then everything falls apart with a pokey website or MKV file. And falling back onto a netbook-grade CPU for those situations pretty much ruins the whole experience, and would hardly be different than running on a P4. I have a Core 2 Duo laptop from 2008 that, despite the terrible x3100 IGP, can easily handle 1080p internet video because the CPU is good.

For media (excluding gaming), Intel SB makes more sense if it fits in the budget. The Intel IGP works great for decoding, and when it doesn't, the CPU can handle it. AMD Llano would be fine too, but again it's probably a bit better to fall back onto a faster and more efficient CPU.

 

[Binky]

Some people don't need the speed. My woman survives just fine on an Atom 510 that drives me nuts to use. It's just too slow for me. For her it's fine.

If it works, and it draws less power, it seems pretty good to me.

 

[alyarb]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=32368117#post32368117

 

[velis]

The pro vs against debate is irrelevant here. I was given a budget of 200&#8364; and for that I had to either buy a used computer or assemble a new one. Usage is e-mail, skype and web browsing. Movie playback / youtube distant 17th.
Since I already had lots of parts for a new one, I took that route and still kept the actual expenditure low enough.
I have seriously considered i3 and llano, but both of them required 200&#8364; or more just for MB and CPU. The top-of-the-line MB for this zacate was 150&#8364; and this tipped the scale in its favor.

 

[Dadofamunky]

I just found it to be way to anemic. it is silly in 2011 to have a cpu struggle at all with some flash and 1080p videos. just a regular Athlon X2 provides a WAY better daily user experience.

Shoot, my daughter's ancient Athlon X2 4400+ (system which I originally built) backs you up on that statement.