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Anyone using mini ITX atom boards?

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MonMotha:

It's not the bus speed in most cases (which is usually 533MHz on these ITX boards - comparable to an old Core2).  The Atom has plenty of memory bandwidth for most applications.  Besides, MAME isn't exactly hurting for memory bandwidth on anything resembling a modern PC.

The issue is that the Atom's CPU core is VERY simple.  It's strictly in-order, and I believe it can only issue one instruction per clock per thread.  While these are dual core and hyperthreaded, this means that it can only attain an IPC of, at best, 4, and that's if you've got 4 threads running that just happen to use completely different parts of the two cores.  A Pentium 3 can pull that off on a single core without hyperthreading, and it supports out-of-order execution.

Figure a 1.6GHz Atom is about like having a 1.6GHz Pentium (original) with modern SSE instructions.  While it would be 16 times faster than a 100MHz Pentium of yore, and you've got two of 'em (2 cores) a 1.6GHz Core i7 will kick the everloving butt out of it, even though it's got the same clock speed, since it can do so much more in one clock cycle.

Some of the modern ARMs they're throwing in cell phones and tablets are actually capable of more advanced instruction scheduling (minimal out-of-order issue, and they're superscalar) than these Atoms, and their starting to get the clock speeds comparable.  And they do it all while drawing about 1/6th the power of what an Atom solution does and at similar price.  Intel just has no idea how to make a small, low cost, low power CPU.  They're great on the high end, but they just have no experience on the low end.

Note that you can get mini-ITX boards that take "conventional" CPUs and offer conventional CPU sockets.  You can't use a really power hungry CPU on them, since there's no way to heatsink the 80W+ monsters, but you can usually put a dual core ~2GHz Phenom II or similar on them.  That'll kick the crap out of any Atom based board in the same formfactor, albeit at 3-4x the cost and about 5-6x the power consumption.

Corbo:

You can still get low heat/low power without going down the Atom route.  Take a look at the Zotak ITX boards, I'm running a Zotak 9300 with a core2duo 2.6 and 4gb RAM.  Not cutting edge but much quicker than an Atom.  I've removed the fan from the CPU heatsink as it's in a small case, and mounted a 120m case fan near to it which is quiet.  I'm using an external laptop power supply and a 160w picopsu.



I've had an Atom in the past and unless you're only running older games I wouldn't be able to live with the performance trade off.

(p.s. yes I know my DC hyperspin theme isn't working correctly yet)

syph007:

Hmm thanks for the info, I think a mini ITX with normal cpu socket is the way I'm going then.  They cost a bit more, but size is the most important for me, I need small form factor to fit in the bartop.

I'm liking this board:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121507

with this 35watt cpu

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116394&Tpk=i3-2100T

I know that's alot for a cpu, but the 35 watts is appealing. I have a 120 watt pico psu I want to use, and not max out.

RyoriNoTetsujin:

You shouldn't have any issues cooling an i3 with the stock cooler, but just in case, a word of warning: If you're planning on using an aftermarket heatsink on the CPU, just know that most of them (1155 or 1156 "compatible") are NOT going to fit properly on a mini-ITX board.

On the 3 or 4 1155 chipset mini-ITX boards I've looked at (and I own this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157238) there are solder points, and sometimes even small chips on the BACK side of the board that will be in the way of a normal aftermarket heatsink's footprint. Especially if they use a back plate of some kind... I learned this the hard way.

Basically, you need to either be prepared to mod the heatsink mount, or be very sure that you're purchasing a heatsink that uses Intel's pushpin style mounting.  The pushpin type (basically all of intel's stock coolers) are safe.

Also, are you planning on actually using that PCI-E slot? Again, be careful with the heatsink selection.  The socket is so close to that slot that many will overlap and render that slot useless... again, I learned that the hard way with my i5 build...

syph007:


--- Quote from: RyoriNoTetsujin on June 27, 2011, 10:44:34 am ---You shouldn't have any issues cooling an i3 with the stock cooler, but just in case, a word of warning: If you're planning on using an aftermarket heatsink on the CPU, just know that most of them (1155 or 1156 "compatible") are NOT going to fit properly on a mini-ITX board.

On the 3 or 4 1155 chipset mini-ITX boards I've looked at (and I own this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157238) there are solder points, and sometimes even small chips on the BACK side of the board that will be in the way of a normal aftermarket heatsink's footprint. Especially if they use a back plate of some kind... I learned this the hard way.

Basically, you need to either be prepared to mod the heatsink mount, or be very sure that you're purchasing a heatsink that uses Intel's pushpin style mounting.  The pushpin type (basically all of intel's stock coolers) are safe.

Also, are you planning on actually using that PCI-E slot? Again, be careful with the heatsink selection.  The socket is so close to that slot that many will overlap and render that slot useless... again, I learned that the hard way with my i5 build...

--- End quote ---

All good points, thanks!  Did you end up finding an aftermarket heatsync, or did you do a mod?  Im hoping I can get away with the stock one.  I didnt have any plans to use the pci-e slot, so I wasn't too worried about that part.

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