The Atom love-in / confession thread. Do you like Atom-based hardware?

[ninaholic37]

Back in 2009, I bought a netbook with a single core atom cpu. one of the first atom cpu models. I was in awe at the low power consumption. This netbook at full load would consume less power than many desktops at idle. Even though it was much weaker than a desktop cpu, I did crazy things such as encode video on it. The cpu was so weak that I had to use google chrome for web browsing. At that time, most/all other browers were too demanding on a single core atom (with hyperthreading). Some/Many people dislike the atom, but I think they are wonderful. I like the concept of a tiny, minimalistic cpu which is cheap, energy efficient, and gets the x86/x64 job done. nothing fancy. bare bones. that's my kind of engineering :thumbsup:

In general, I like anything which is cheap and energy efficient such as athlons and Celerons and pentiums.

We think the same!

 

[2is]

no

 

[nerp]

We think the same!

I get it. The thing is, advancements are such that a new Skylake chip can use the same or less power than the Atom and you can encode that file in 10 seconds and turn the machine off instead of the atom encoding for an hour and using power the whole time.

Makes you think.

 

[ehume]

I get it. The thing is, advancements are such that a new Skylake chip can use the same or less power than the Atom and you can encode that file in 10 seconds and turn the machine off instead of the atom encoding for an hour and using power the whole time.

Makes you think.

If that's true. Have to see if Skylake bears you out.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I like seeing it in a landfill, does that count?

 

[Sonikku13]

I love Atom-based phones, such as the Zenfone 2... so much so that I have one. My grandma has an Atom-based tablet, which works for her.

I have heard that the Intel Atom is effectively a Cortex-A53 in IPC... is that true?

 

[ElFenix]

i've got a dv8p and a winbook 10", both open box from microcenter. if the winbook were up to the quality level of the dv8p, or if the dv8p had the functionality of the winbook, it'd be pretty dang good. frankly the resolution is lacking on either of them compared to the prior nook hd+ i have. the winbook would be a better media device if the speakers were front facing. though, for lying in bed, i think a convertible bent backward 270* might be best. don't have to hold it. kicing myself for not getting the lenovo yoga 11 at best buy for under $400 a few months back. almost certain it is/was a lenovo branded version of this no name chinese convertible

i've stopped buying a new tablet every 9 months, but really thought hard about getting a surface 3 the last couple days. fry's had 30% off meaning the lowest spec one was under $300.

/csb

 

[jhu]

I love Atom-based phones, such as the Zenfone 2... so much so that I have one. My grandma has an Atom-based tablet, which works for her.

I have heard that the Intel Atom is effectively a Cortex-A53 in IPC... is that true?

Per clock, it's about AMD Bobcat and slightly lower than PowerPC 7400.

 

[bhtooefr]

The Voyo's a knockoff of the Lenovo, it isn't actually a Lenovo as far as I know.

(BTW, your URL got censored, but I figured it out anyway.)

 

[Zstream]

What about the hp moonshot platform and the like?

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

I get it. The thing is, advancements are such that a new Skylake chip can use the same or less power than the Atom and you can encode that file in 10 seconds and turn the machine off instead of the atom encoding for an hour and using power the whole time.

Makes you think.

The way I understood it, Skylake as a platform still uses more power. When you take into account the whole system, with RAM, storage and everything.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The way I understood it, Skylake as a platform still uses more power. When you take into account the whole system, with RAM, storage and everything.

Skylake NUC would make the appropriate comparison.

 

[therealnickdanger]

I have owned a few Atom machines, but the only two that I currently have are an old Atom quad-core mITX server (330?) and a newer Z3735 budget tablet. Other than being too slow for games and 1080p streaming or 60fps streaming, I can't really complain. I knew what I was getting going in and spent next to nothing to get them.

 

[DrMrLordX]

What about the hp moonshot platform and the like?

wellllll that depends? It's not like Moonshot was using Avoton (first gen Moonshot used S12xx CPUs, not sure what future generations used, or if HP ever got past the first gen). The only thing that's for sure is that Intel isn't investing in future development of smartphone/tablet Atoms. Everything else is sort of up in the air.

That being said, stuff like Broadwell-D + virtualization sort of makes Moonshot obsolete, I would think.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm posting this from a Gigabyte Brix J1900 unit, and I have to say, I really like it. It's faster than I thought it would be, although I would hesitate to actually call it "fast".

It's the desktop J1900 Atom Bay Trail-D quad-core, which is clocked a bit faster than your usual Z3735F tablet Atom, and runs 64-bit OSes (no 32-bit UEFI shenanigans).

According to CPU-Z, it runs at 2415Mhz full-tilt (and stays boosted, it has a small fan inside), and according to RealTemp (ancient program), it's running at 2000Mhz (not accounting for "Burst" speeds?).

Either way, it's fast enough for web browsing, haven't done much media-watching with it yet. Some YouTube played OK.

Had some issues loading Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit on it. Initially, it installed (although I had to plug in a USB Wifi adapter that works with Linux, as the onboard cuts out after like 2 minutes, like clockwork). But I had several "Freeze" issues. I tried updating the kernel to the newest available in Mint's Updater, 4.4-22, and it still froze up, so I decided to install Windows 7.

That went fine, and it seems to run OK on Windows 7. (There's a newer video driver from Intel, 4425, that works with these systems, compared to the drivers on the disc that came with the unit.) (win64_153343.4425)

However, on one of the units, I had forgotten to change the default behavior of the power-management, which is set to sleep the PC after 30 minutes. When I came back to the PC, after a while, I turned on my HDTV monitor, and moved and clicked the mouse, and I was greeted by a BIOS sign-on screen, and a Windows screen that said it hadn't started correctly. So it didn't come out of sleep right. Don't know why.

So I've disabled sleep.

I'm also running Folding@Home on the CPU (3 cores out of 4, apparently, by default), and I'm getting like 600PPD, and temps are (according to RealTemp) ~50C, at 100% CPU load. Not bad at all, really, especially since it stays at max "Burst" clock too, according to CPU-Z.

So I'm pretty happy with the purchase, and I'm sure it's very power-efficient to boot, although the size factor was the most important factor in my purchase, not the power efficiency.

 

[AkumaX]

quad core bay trail yes, dual core no

 

[JimmiG]

Got a few Quad Core Bay Trail tablets:
7" Asus Memopad Android L, Z3735F, 1GB RAM, 8GB flash
Lamina 8" Windows 10, Z3735F, 1GB RAM, 32GB flash
Trekstor 10" convertible, Windows 10, Z3735F, 2GB RAM, 32GB flash

They work fine, especially the Trekstor with 2GB RAM. Good enough for web browsing, especially with Edge, light gaming, messing around with Win10 apps etc. The build quality is not as good as the Lamina, though.

Actually felt a bit sad when I read Microsoft was cancelling Atom. Wonder what that will mean for low-cost Windows 10 tablets, as that seems to be a pretty good way for Microsoft to get Windows 10 out to people.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Actually felt a bit sad when I read Microsoft was cancelling Atom. Wonder what that will mean for low-cost Windows 10 tablets, as that seems to be a pretty good way for Microsoft to get Windows 10 out to people.

Surely you mean Intel cancelling Atom Anyway, I have no qualms about Atom's death. It was always too slow even for everyday casual browsing. I've handled a few/owned and returned atom tablets and they often had inconsistent performance, as in I'd swipe from the right to bring up action bar and there would be a delay the first time I did it, but no delay on the second or third try, same with start menu, I'd press start menu and most of the time it would work instantly, but every once in a while it would take half a second for the menu to come up. Drove me nuts. Plus most of the Atom tablets were handicapped by 2GB of ram meaning you had to keep closing browser tabs or risk running out of memory.

I don't think Atom's death is that big of a deal. Phones yes, intel is essentially giving up on phones. Tablets on the other hand can be served with CoreM which is pretty power efficient and can be run fanless. The only problem with that is CoreM is more expensive, but it was such a high margin product anyway that hopefully Intel can drop the price to make it more affordable.

 

[sm625]

I actually did find my atom tablet that I thought I left behind when I moved. I am still debating on whether I should smash it and remove the cpu and pin it to my wall. One thing I am NOT debating is whether or not I should ever turn it back on. Hell no.... I dont need the aggravation. Its not even worth the aggravation of dealing with it just to watch a video in bed. Its that bad.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I have a 2009 HP 311 ION netbook that was my favorite device until the iPad 2 came out. The ION GPU meant I could play games and any 1080p mkv file, plus it had HDMI out so it was my hotel TV entertainment device. I have it overclocked to 2.2GHz, which basically meant back in 2009 it was almost as fast as Atoms ever got (which is sad in retrospect). I remember back when I got it on clearance I also got this 64gb SSD for a steal of a price ($100 when at the time 32gb ones cost $90+) and so it was my first machine with a SSD. I had it tri-booting OSX, Windows and Linux off that SSD and I used it every day.

I don't use it today because even overclocked it browses pages slower than my iPad Air 2, plus the screen is crap the trackpad is crap and the keyboard is crap. But damn, in its day!

I also have a pile of Atom ION HTPCs that I was very very happy to replace with Chromeboxes. Honestly Atom sucked.

 

[Face2Face]

Just grabbed a NUC with a N3700 inside, and it's working great so far. I still own the original Compute Stick, which is surprisingly capable, minus the WiFi. My daughter has an HP Android tablet with the Z3735F, and she likes it. I've tested many Bay trail and some Cherry Trail devices, and have been pleased for the most part.

 

[master_shake_]

bought a biostar n3150nh it's got the braswell quad core and it's pretty awesome for an itx machine.

one caveat is windows 7 does not have native drivers for the usb 2.0 or 3.0...

so i was not able to install windows 7 off usb.

had to use windows 7 install over network and ps2 keyboard.

lost all my usb to ps2 adapters...

 

[Gunbuster]

Using an Asus T100HA (Cherry Trail), for work once you load it up with Office 2016, Skype 4B, OneDrive personal and Biz, and chrome it feel just enough laggy to make you crazy. When does the next round of Atoms arrive?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Using an Asus T100HA (Cherry Trail), for work once you load it up with Office 2016, Skype 4B, OneDrive personal and Biz, and chrome it feel just enough laggy to make you crazy. When does the next round of Atoms arrive?

Would it matter?

Has there ever been a big enough performance boost between Atom generations to actually turn "enough laggy to make you crazy" into a pleasurable computing experience?

(Not that I know of. :thumbsdown: )

 

[Gunbuster]

Would it matter?

I think it could, going from my current z8500 to a z8750 is ~15%, throw maybe 8% IPC on top of that with next gen improvements and we're talking 23% faster. I think that could make it just snappy enough.