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Pentium-M In Mini-ITX Format
Hektor_Troy writes "A German outfit is going to introduce a Pentium-M based mini-ITX board. Finally good performance in a small size. The manufacturer claims it can be cooled pasively, but I'd like to see it first." "Good performance in a small size" is relative, of course -- I like the quiet little EPIA system in front of me pretty well ;)
I love making very small computers to bring along to lan parties. It makes me salivate to think that one day, very soon, I'll bring a 3 GHZ P4 to a lan party, in a package I can carry in one hand! Very smart move.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
The shuttle sff range have been up with the big boys since they got an AGP slot.
"Good performance in a small size"
That's what I keep telling my girlfriend!
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
and for purposes of karma whoring Kill M$ KILL KILL
Pentium M is quite a bit faster than any EPIA board. Interestingly enough Pentium M MHz per MHz is faster than the Pentium 4.
I think at the age of 27 I'm finally starting to outgrow gaming, so the concept of a "lightweight" PC that can be used for digital imaging and video storage interests me. My thirst for FLOPS isn't totally gone, so the Athlon64 has my attention as well. It's like trying to choose between a Civic and a monster truck. :(
That's all well and good, but for it to be really nifty, it needs an AGP slot. I mean, a PCI or integrated video card might be "good enough" for most things, but what if I want to game with it?
hey!
For once, I think we need some benchmarks comparing laptop processors to desktop processors. Just so we get an idea of how laptops actually perform rather than depending on the specs alone.
Like right now, how does the Pentium-M compare to the Pentium 4/Athlon XP?
Atleast we're sure that HTPCs can be faster now. . .
Why would you link to a secondary site talking about the companies announcement and not the actual announcement?
http://www.lippert-at.com/miniitx.html
-Eyston
"Good performance in a small size" is relative, of course -- I like the quiet little EPIA system in front of me pretty well ;)
Most of the new Pentium M laptops are mostly passive cooled. I can barely hear the fan on my friends laptop when it does kick in.
Why doesn't someone make a Mini-ITX case for this board, that comes with a laptop style cooler and has a small slit on the side of the case as an exhaust, just like a laptops?
I think this would make an excellent platform for the next XBox or any sort of PC-hardware-based game console. It runs cool and fast as the dickens! (I'd say it'd be a much better option than a very hot and power-hungry AMD or Pentium 4 solution).
:-)
I have a Pentium M notebook and I absolutely love it
Actually, it looks like they are building this board to qualify for a Centrino logo! This requires specific intel hardware all of which is in the demo photo. Unfortunately, this will cost a small fortune if you can even find it at retail. SBCs are horribly expensive, but do make allowances for extended/harsh environment [run with no fan at 120 degrees in the shade] needed for industry and public service. Think welded shut in a subway station or under a steel drop forge type apps.
If they can make a better product than the soekris boards I might get interested. It is generally accepted that Intel chips have not been capable of being passivly cooled since the early Pentium days. I'd say the pentium 166(??) was the last passivly coolable design before active cooling became mandintory. A router doesn't need that much processor to operate unless its some sort of ultra-utilized mega router.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
All I have to do is hit that little power switch thingy, and there... it cools itself down without a sound.
Erm, the Centrino name means "includes Pentium M and Intel WiFi mini-PCI card" or something along those lines. I see TV adverts for Centrino many times a week so it seems to me they're marketing it pretty heavily.
Although the VIA/Centaur isn't exactly the fastest thing around, to me that isn't the most limiting factor of the EPIA line.
The abysmally slow onboard 3D graphics are what just really disappoint. I mean, I've built 8 EPIA-based systems but they've always been for use as workstations (Internet browsing), or simply mom and pop kind of computing usage.
Now, take a look at the article. Are those graphics memory slots I see? I know Intel Extreme 2 isn't exactly winning any awards but it's certainly better than the horrid S3 EPIA 3D. That, more than the processor, is what really interests me about this board.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Then you must not be using Linux. Some cool folks like this guy (not to mention this guy) are working hard at making Linux work on the EPIA -- but it doesn't have to be this hard. I've been keeping my eye on these MiniITX boards for some time now, but I'm waiting until I can do everything I want (play DVDs and DivX files, maybe run a couple emulators) without reverse-engineering drivers. Maybe this new board will make it happen.
Just because they aren't 10GHz Pentium IX's is pretty meaningless for many. The mini-itx thing is a Godsend to some of us.
:-)
I use the EPIA EDEN 533MHz system for the two weather stations on my mountaintop observatory site. They are plenty fast enough, considering all they do is run the weather app and Opera/Eudora/network-clock/antivirus/firewall.
I don't have AC up here yet, so low power consumption is way more important than beating somebody in a pissing competition over UT2k fps or Photoshop rendering speeds!
has anyone been paying attention to the mini-itx community? Commell Systems has had mini-itx pentium4 based boards out for months in both mobile and desktop processor versions.
as far as i know, this has been around for a while and now there is a mobile version too
who is bored by hardware comparisons such as these? The technology could be anything, the thread always plays out something like this:
.... "
The article says Left-handed Sprugel-Fipp MX545454-X shows very good performance next to the Loop-handed Rifkind-Muppet QX345454-D.
Then someone says "Kewl! I bought a Sprugel-Fipp last week! I knew those Loop-handed Rifkind-Muppet models were duff!"
Then someone says "No, you can't make a simple comparison like that without looking at how each model caches - you're comparing apples an oranges! (insert words 'insensitive clod' if necessary)"
Then there's a brief but heartfelt flamewar culminating in the fans of Loop-handed models to say "Yeah but just you wait until the NEW Rifkind-Muppet model!"
And finally the Sprigel-Fipp fan says "Huh. Yeah well I will (see you next time)
ad infinitum. Yawn.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
passively cooled hmmm...
I've been looking for a silent computer for a while and only found the hushtechnologies and the tranquil pc. Both run on via eden 1ghz mainboards customised to be fanless (the 1ghz would normally have a fan), that's not much horsepower but as fanless computers go that's cutting edge.
I'm actually seriously considering buying one, they cost more, but for home recording (computer in same room as instruments) it will make a huge difference especially when recording queit sources.
So if this board is passively cooled and running at 1600 then it should end up in the hush and the tranquil... and the 'Silent Computer' just got 60% faster!
The Pentium-M will be a nice boost over the performance of the VIA C3 based EPIA boards.
The other great things about this board:
- Two ethernet ports on board - for Gateway usage. Internal port is the Gigabit port, for fast file serving. The external 100Mbps port is plenty of bandwidth for any reasonable Internet connection.
- It appears to have a CompactFlash interface on the bottom. For the ultra quiet system, a 512MB or 1GB CF card provides a lot of space.
- Pentium-M based - Low power consumption.. My server sits idle most of the time, and it lightly loaded for a good portion of its actual usage. The Pentium-M can be downshifted to a lower clock speed when not under load, to save even more power.
- Wireless LAN on board - nice for the all-in-one Linux server.
I could even see using one of these for a quiet workstation.. It supports dual head displays ( which I can't live without now).
The only questions are Availability and Price.. The product announcement says it's intended for OEM's producing gaming, entertainment, and other high performance embedded applications. That does not sound promising for end-user availability.
The spec's say that there are dual LVDS outputs for Dual Head LCD displays.
This seems odd, since the industry has gone to DVI for digital LCD connections. I wonder if LVDS is used in laptops (since the Centrino technology is intended for laptops).
So, the questions are:
- Will the LVDS output work with the few LVDS capable monitors, such as the amazing widescreen LCD from SGI, the 1600SW?
- Are there converters available to go to DVI? The only one I could find is intended for the 1600SW, and it's very expensive and hard to find.
Pentium-M IS a Netburst-based CPU, just like the P4. What Intel did was to shorten the pipeline, thus increasing the IPC, making the CPU do more work per clock cycle. Thus, the Pentium-M is what the P4 SHOULD have been, had Intel not implemented a long pipeline to get higher clockspeeds for marketing purposes. It is a "P3-like" P4, but it's still a P4.
On the other hand, what if you want to hook up a floppy? I don't use my floppy much either, but it's like the jumper cables in my car. I don't need them very much either, but when I need them - I really need them.
In fact, every modern motherboard (manufactured after year 2000) can boot from USB devices, which can be USB hard disks, USB CD-Rom, USB floppy drives and event USB ZIP drives. Unfortunately, i tried to boot from a Card-reader plugged on the USB: it crashes the 3 computers i tried. :-(
Go check your BIOS...