D945GCLF - complete with Intel Atom

I was lucky enough to get my hands on one of only 10 (approximately) D945GCLFs in New Zealand at the moment and I thought I'd share some of the stuff I'd learned about it for the advantage of others. Firstly, pictures:



Is the board itself, without this fan:



which happens to be one of the worst fans I've ever heard. Rattles and just begged to be taken off. Not like it provides any meaningful airflow anyway.

Curiously, after entering the BIOS, I found something interesting:



Hyperthreading on an Atom!

The heat output is insanely small compared to my D201GLY2 - this does not need active cooling. I'm planning to put Smoothwall on it (in the process of doing), but as a "final-cum-initial" gotcha, the integrated ethernet chip is going to be a pain for most Linux distributions (as well as Windows I imagine) as it's the Realtek RTL8101E.

Anyone else have one? What have your experiences been?

Yep, Hyperthreading is one of Atoms features. Also the larger HS+Fan is on the 945GC chipset and not the cpu, It's rated at 22W compared to around 2W for the CPU.

Still, kind of odd that they'd put the fan on there if it doesn't get all that hot. Perhaps just CYA on their part.

You're going to be one of the few people who have them at the moment, none of the north american shops are getting them for another week or two i believe.

I think everybody would be interested to see some benchmarks or impressions of the board doing regular desktop tasks in windows/linux.

Ultra-low power consumption and redesigned from the ground up…. Yeah, I would like to see some benchmarks… This could be slower than a 600MHz VIA, for all we know.

I'll see what I can do - I've just RIS'ed a copy of XP onto the machine and it's really, really snappy for what it is... if you've used an older AMD Athlon XP 2500+ or thereabouts I think would be what I'd equate it to just by the feel.

Any requests for benchmarks? I'll run the standard SuperPi type applications for the sake of my curiosity, but most of my normal suite isn't really designed for this level of board (3DMark on GMA950 graphics isn't really too fair ).

See how it compares in Sandra.

General:



SuperPie 1million:



Some SiSoft Sandra results:

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Dhrystone ALU : 3889MIPS
Whetstone iSSE3 : 3355MFLOPS
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Speed
Dhrystone ALU : 2.44MIPS/MHz
Whetstone iSSE3 : 2.10MFLOPS/MHz
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Power
Processor(s) Power : 2.05W
Dhrystone ALU : 1897.07MIPS/W
Whetstone iSSE3 : 1636.59MFLOPS/W
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Benchmark Results
Multi-Media Int x8 iSSSE3 : 29553iit/s
Multi-Media Float x4 iSSE2 : 19963fit/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Speed
Multi-Media Int x8 iSSSE3 : 18.52iit/s/MHz
Multi-Media Float x4 iSSE2 : 12.51fit/s/MHz
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Power
Processor(s) Power : 2.05W
Multi-Media Int x8 iSSSE3 : 14416.10iit/s/W
Multi-Media Float x4 iSSE2 : 9738.05fit/s/W
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Run ID : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz (HT, 1.60GHz, 512kB L2, 532MHz FSB)
Platform Compliance : x86
NUMA Support : No
SMP (Multi-Processor) Benchmark : Yes
Total Test Threads : 2
Multi-Core Test : No
SMT (Multi-Threaded) Benchmark : Yes
Threads per Core : 2
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0 P0C0T1
System Timer : 1.60GHz
Number of Runs : 64000 / 640

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz
Speed : 1.60GHz
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
L2 On-board Cache : 512kB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing

Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : Yes
Supplemental SSE3 Technology : Yes
SSE4.1 Technology : No
SSE4.2 Technology : No
EMMX - Extended MMX Technology : No
SSE4A Technology : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : Yes

According to the graphs, it's roughly level with the Athlon XP 3000+. Useability wise it's great, as I said above... and when you consider just how little power it's using, and how little heat it's putting out... it's just incredible.

Are there downloadable versions of the OfficeBench/PC WorldBench available? After some Googling I wasn't able to find a recent version to use. It'd be very interesting to compare them to the figures VIA have released for the their Nanos (here).

Originally Posted by oDii

the integrated ethernet chip is going to be a pain for most Linux distributions (as well as Windows I imagine) as it's the Realtek RTL8101E.

Realtek has pretty complete support for that chip, everything from DOS to Win9x, WinCE, WinXP, XP x64, Vista 32-bit and x64, Unix, Linux, Novell, and OS X 10.4 & 10.5. It seems to have the most support of any chipset I have checked the download page for.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

Originally Posted by pxc

Realtek has pretty complete support for that chip, everything from DOS to Win9x, WinCE, WinXP, XP x64, Vista 32-bit and x64, Unix, Linux, Novell, and OS X 10.4 & 10.5. It seems to have the most support of any chipset I have checked the download page for.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

Yeah, it is easy in that regard that they actually have drivers for it available, but difficult in the regard that neither Windows XP nor the Linux kernel Smoothwall is based on currently (2.6.16.60) had drivers built in. If they had used something a bit older it would have been much nicer for me , although from the output of lspci:

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Unknown device 0001
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Region 2: Memory at 48200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Region 4: Memory at 48000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Expansion ROM at 48020000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
                Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint IRQ 1
                Device: Supported: MaxPayload 256 bytes, PhantFunc 0, ExtTag-
                Device: Latency L0s <512ns, L1 <8us
                Device: AtnBtn- AtnInd- PwrInd-
                Device: Errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
                Device: RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
                Device: MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 4096 bytes
                Link: Supported Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Port 0
                Link: Latency L0s <512ns, L1 <64us
                Link: ASPM Disabled RCB 64 bytes CommClk- ExtSynch-
                Link: Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1
        Capabilities: [ac] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=2
                Vector table: BAR=4 offset=00000000
                PBA: BAR=4 offset=00000800
        Capabilities: [cc] Vital Product Data

it looks like that Intel had a spare PCI-E lane they wanted to use.

You have my sympathy for the troubles you're going to have installing it under Linux, but the Windows installation is cake. OS X installation is almost as easy, but I noticed it usually takes 2 reboots to make it work on the wireless RTL cards at least.

Originally Posted by pxc

You have my sympathy for the troubles you're going to have installing it under Linux, but the Windows installation is cake. OS X installation is almost as easy, but I noticed it usually takes 2 reboots to make it work on the wireless RTL cards at least.

Hey, this is new tech; no sympathies are needed here mate. Out of this I've learnt how to build my own modules in Linux. I was just communicating the fact that, as this formfactor is ideal for a Smoothwall or any form of imbedded system that would/might run Linux, there would likely be some issues during setup that one might not expect instead of everything working off the bat like it did with the D201GLY2 (for instance) due to it using a Realtek ethernet controller over an SiS.

Does the heatsink on the chipset get hot at all?

I was hesitating between this and the D201GLY2. I wasn't so sure the total power consumption is that much lower due to the 945GC chipset, and the Atom is considerably slower than the Celeron 220. I've also read that you can undervolt the Celeron on the D201GLY2 to reduce power/heat output.

Originally Posted by crabnebula

Does the heatsink on the chipset get hot at all?

I was hesitating between this and the D201GLY2. I wasn't so sure the total power consumption is that much lower due to the 945GC chipset, and the Atom is considerably slower than the Celeron 220. I've also read that you can undervolt the Celeron on the D201GLY2 to reduce power/heat output.

This is definately a lot less hot than the D201GLY2. Yes, the chipset does get hot but even under load shouldn't need much of an airflow... mine just gets the benefit of an old doublefanned Enermax power supply I had laying around and that is more than enough.

My i915Gmm board has the same ethernet chip, and under CentOS, there was a DKMS driver for the 8101, which took some know-how to get in there, but it was cake once it was there.

Only one LAN port?

Darn it. I need a board with two LAN ports on it, and I really want to avoid using the PCI slot. Mini-ITX cases go way up in size and price when PCI slots get involved.

Originally Posted by InorganicMatter

Only one LAN port?

Darn it. I need a board with two LAN ports on it, and I really want to avoid using the PCI slot. Mini-ITX cases go way up in size and price when PCI slots get involved.

May I ask why do you need 2 lan ports?

for a smoothwall perhaps??

Originally Posted by Stoly

May I ask why do you need 2 lan ports?

This:

Originally Posted by QwertyJuan

for a smoothwall perhaps??

ClarkConnect, actually, but the same basic concept.

USB Lan? http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...56&dcaid=17902

or http://www.globalsourcesdirect.com/s...Adapter/Detail

No idea if they are slow or what though. Never even heard of em before I typed it in google.

Hi, I have 4 quick questions about this Board / CPU combo.

1. Can you Over and Under clock the CPU?

2. Can it decode 1080p H264 24fps content at stock clocks?

3. Can you use the PCI slot for an add in Video card (for component/composite output)?

4. What does it score in Cinebench 10?