• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Atom acceptability

A

Alyosha

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 1, 2003
Messages
1,884
I'm curious about the Atom based mini-itx boards out there for a couple different applications.

1 - Windows home server box - I'm currently running an old duron (socket A) system for WHS and would like to move to something lower power as it stays on 24/7. I'd have to assume that an Atom chip would be a step up from the duron, would you recomend the one or two core option? Would it really matter in a pretty light duty server?

2 - As a desktop - My parents are coming up on need a new computer; how do these work as a primary desktop for someone who does only interet, e-mail, word/excel?
 
I have a Mini 9 netbook with the Atom, it is just fine for casual use, web surfing etc. You can also buy dual core Atom miniitx boards for < $100. For the price might as well get the dual.
 
Alyosha said:
interet, e-mail, word/excel?
Click to expand...

How much they multi-task? For most light usage it'll be fine. Think of it this way, if a single core Pentium 4 box (~2 GHz-ish) is good enough for them, you'll be fine.
 
The Atom 330 Dual core is a very capable CPU and with 2GB RAM will handle pretty much everything the average web browsing monkey can throw at it.

I'm not sure but I think the 330 paired with decent graphics does a good job at HD-HTPC as well. I just use the PS3 for that.
 
Thanks folks. My parents are running a P4 2.4 GHz (800 MHz bus) with one gig of RAM. I'm guessing that moving to a dual core Atom with two gigs of RAM and a SATA hard drive and Win 7 would feel like a big upgrade to them.

We'll see, I just wanted to figure out if that was actually a viable option.
 
Alyosha said:
Thanks folks. My parents are running a P4 2.4 GHz (800 MHz bus) with one gig of RAM. I'm guessing that moving to a dual core Atom with two gigs of RAM and a SATA hard drive and Win 7 would feel like a big upgrade to them.
Click to expand...

The dual core Atom 330 is, as others have noted, quite capable for casual desktop use. But you'll probably want to go with an Nvidia ION board to get decent graphics performance; the Intel graphics hardware just isn't at nearly the same level.
 
For the power usage with the 945GC chipset it doesn't gain much over an undervolted e5200 with nvidia 9400 igp and gives up performance and expandability, so if you stick with the atom make sure it's an Ion board or one of the new boards for 2010. If you're willing to wait a while too the new i3 systems are supposed to be very efficient idlers too, while beating the current desktop atoms on expandability for server operations.
 
1) Definitely dual core just in case you might need that extra amount of CPU power. The added costs isn't that much in the grand scheme of things

2) As noted by everyone here, decent for light usage.
 
Man this thing runs cool with the little cpu fan on it.
was running 47-54C before the fan but with the fan blowing on it 24C!
I'm going to try and see if I can get WoW running on this next. :)
 
update,
WoW runs choppy on even lowest settings. To be expected.
Not sure if there is any way to tweak this, but for everyday web and stuff it is awesome.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
update,
WoW runs choppy on even lowest settings. To be expected.
Not sure if there is any way to tweak this, but for everyday web and stuff it is awesome.
Click to expand...

In your case it's two issues: WOW is relatively CPU heavy so the Atom isn't suitable for it, even the dual core version. The second issue is that onboard video in general isn't suitable for WOW anymore.
 
I don't consider Atom an acceptable CPU by today's standards. For your duron replacement, maybe, but definitely not for regular desktop use (at least, if you value your time).
 
Danny Bui said:
In your case it's two issues: WOW is relatively CPU heavy so the Atom isn't suitable for it, even the dual core version. The second issue is that onboard video in general isn't suitable for WOW anymore.
Click to expand...

Quite right.

I suppose, however, that this paired with a decent video card could be a good HD htpc.

As it is now, even with onboard video I expect it could do 720P fine.
 
Yes, you can get a PCI 8400GS and use linux with XBMC and watch 1080p H.264 videos in it's full glory.

If you have an ION board you already have that functionallity
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top