Hardware Intel Pineview review and Jetway mini-ITX mobos

Jetway's latest mini-ITX motherboard uses Intel's latest Atom "Pineview" platform. We compare it against previous Atom products to see the difference.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/02/10/intel-pineview-review-and-jetway-mini-itx/1

 

but can it play crisis?

(sorry)

 

I've got a D510 intel board in a server, works a treat, apache, samba, ushare and lots of other goodies.

Idles about 0-1% CPU and spikes at about 30% with samba going flat out and a ushare stream, I really don't need any more performance than that

 

Not impressed Thanks for the four SATA-headers though, for server-use the two connectors seen on most old atom boards just isn't going to cut it.

 

indeed, I have a 65W AMD X2 2Ghz running on a HD3200 with PicoPSU that is putting in lower idle consumption than all but one of those in your tests, this is without me undervolting the CPU as I've not got the tools on win7 yet.

Obviously under full load with stock speed/voltages etc it touches 70w, but its so much more powerful than an Atom even when the clocks and voltage are locked at a much lower speed/level to bring consumption down, that I fail to see the benefits of a dual core atom.

If I used a 45w e chip I'd be in an even better position, for my mediaPC scenario I'm happy to spend the extra bit of power to have a usable system when I need it.

never a truer word spoken.

 

Nice to see the power figures, these were with a single hd?

The atom does the jobs it was designed for, which is not much I suppose. It's worth remembering that the atom is less of a product and more of an attempt to make money from the various iterations coming from Intel's low power development roadmap, the stated goal is a super low power cpu to go head to head with the ARM and such. ARM of course are developing more powerful cpus. In the end I guess the winning architecture will decided by the software each platform runs, the old Intel x86 instruction set has massive support thanks to MS but is becoming less relevant as more software is designed to run in architecture neutral browser space or the cloud (yuck). Which brings us to Android, but that's a story for another day

 

Same conclusion as with low-cost NASboxes or other devices with a harddrive: a lack of Gigabit networking on any device is a serious letdown.

 

bit tech have missed the point of the atom it is supposed to be a low power solution my main gaming rig uses ~30 watts switched off !!!! but it does its job if i was looking for a home server an atom would be my starting point my only gripe is the lack of sata ports but with a pci express slot that can be solved easily enough.

normally i don't disagree with bit-tech reviews but on this occasion i would have to.

 

additional;

I have found that the intel make of the dual core atom ( olive mount) has gigabit networking or so they say ( source: www.mini-itx.com ) if you are after that sort of thing

 

These mobos are junk. How long have we had DVI connectors now? Why aren't they on there? No gigabit eithernet? This isn't 1999. Even the power consumption of 29W is poor. Full fat desktop systems can get close to 30W at idle (takes some careful effort). I believe CULV laptops can get get to <10W with the screen on! Why does the NM10 even have a heatsink? Such a low spec chip like that should easily get by without one.

 

The problem is not the Atom CPU really, but the crap GPU provided with this solution.

I've got the Zotac Atom330 + ION and it's capable of playing EvE Online @ 1280x1024 (low GFX-settings) with no problems. Sure, it's noticable slower then my main-rig, but it's decent enough to play the game. Same stays true for WoW and alot of other MMOs or older games.

EDIT: Oh, and it draws only a maximum of 40 Watts out of the plug in the wall at 100% (CPU + GPU)!

Nobody is really trying to play any modern 3d-shooters with an Atom-board, they're ment to be a low-power, low-noise office-solution capable of watching HD-videos and playing flash-games or stuff like WoW on reduced GFX-settings.

So take the Atom-boards for what they are, and don't compare them to full-blown PCs.

 

should be using less then 5-15w max to even get the 80+ cert what PSU is it

 

it is an antec psu ( or two I should say they have a 650 watt and a 550 watt one connected together ) it came with the case but I do intend to change ( when the bank and the wife let me ) it as it came out before the more up to date dc-dc psu's came out so it is not that good but better than most oem psu's you get with cases

I do think case manufacturers should put 80+ psu's in their cases as standard or no psu at all
esp people like antec etc

 

Surely someone could so something with the ultra low voltage CPU's (under the Pentium and Core 2 guises ) on a motherboard ? A bit like the Pentium M desktop 'solutions' back in 2005/2006. I had one as a gaming rig and it drew bugger all from the wall with a fairly respectable 2ghz Pentium M and a 7600GT.

These CPU's are being used in stuff like the Dell and Alienware laptops like the m11x, clocked at 1.3 and being a lot more sensible for a 2010 desktop PC than an Atom, more pricey obviously but still low draw and good performance.

 

^^this. Really surprised when I read the conclusion. I can't seem to really get my head around why they didn't get the obvious.

 

Because the Atom is rubbish, you can already get platforms that are better, a 1.6ghz Atom is bettered by a 1Ghz Athlon 64.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Atom-Athlon-Efficient,1997.html

Get a low power x2 on the same hd3200 platform you'll have a much faster and usable machine than anything with an Atom in even if you lock that CPU down to 1Ghz and never use the highspeeds it'll still batter the Atom under load.

 

well.. yes Atom is rubbish. I installed Windows 7 on Eee PC 1000HE and many basic operations leave you waiting. If you have to wait several seconds for control panel application to open then something is SLOW. It's just as simple as that.
When I click something I except immediate feedback. Not a wait cursor every time. Using computers should be fun and effortless.
Especially in the year 2010.

 

Yes...and they don't, do they? Atom the way it's sold today or shown here is too weak for HD-Videos.

 

Zotac ION ITX A-E, 2GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 800, WD Scorpio Blue 2.5" 320GB, WinXP Pro

Plays any HD-content you throw at it.

The problem is not the Atom-CPU, but the crap GPU most manufacturers are using. With the nVidia ION you've no problems at all.

 

True, but not applicable in this discussion, we're talking "Pineview" plattform here, not ION. And this plattform has an integrated GPU in the NM10 right?
If the "new" Intel plattform is too weak...well ...they haven't gotten it, have they?

With ION I wouldn't wonder if even the "Old" Atom could play HD-content (as it's offloaded onto ION anyway.)