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Pentium-M In Mini-ITX Format

Posted by timothy on from the oh-be-passive dept.

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 ;)

23 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Excellent! by SargeZT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
    1. Re:Excellent! by El_Ge_Ex · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I love making very small computers to bring along to lan parties.

      I'll see your LAN party and raise you this:

      mini-ITX board + cheap 3d processor + Linux = ???

      Give up? Here's a hint. It makes Microsoft's Xbox Development team shake in their boots.

      -B

      PS What would be more interesting? An Apple Game Console, or an IBM Game Console???

    2. Re:Excellent! by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A couple of the guys I know already have Shuttle systems they bring to LAN parties, those are one handed deals. They aren't low end either, usually they have some of the best hardware of all the attendees.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    3. Re:Excellent! by cscx · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said, "It makes me salivate to think that one day, very soon, I'll bring a girl to a lan party."

    4. Re:Excellent! by FrostByte03 · · Score: 5, Informative

      the Pentium M is not a Pentium 4M, its a Pentium 3 enhanced, P3 core, larger L1 64kilobyte cache L2 1megabyte with the P4 host bus interface, longer pipeline at 12 stages. Intel added an extra pin on the chip to prevent it from being plugged into existing motherboards and hence a new license agreement. What I like about the chip is that the 1.7Ghz Pentium M is faster than the Pentium M 2.2ghz and consumes (about) 27watt only... Radisys has a microATX board with AGP http://www.radisys.com the E7501 chipset can be used with the Pentium M chip its a matter of time till someone makes a mboard with the chipset with AGP http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/pentiumm/penti umm.htm FrostByte

  2. 'finally good performance'? by Neophytus · · Score: 4, Informative

    The shuttle sff range have been up with the big boys since they got an AGP slot.

  3. yay for me by fuckfuck101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.
  4. Performance by Stonent1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pentium M is quite a bit faster than any EPIA board. Interestingly enough Pentium M MHz per MHz is faster than the Pentium 4.

    1. Re:Performance by foonf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Interestingly enough Pentium M MHz per MHz is faster than the Pentium 4.

      Not that interesting. The regular P3, which the Pentium-M is based on, was also faster, clock for clock. The Athlon certainly is. But the very things that cause this (a really long pipeline and some other stuff I've forgotten) are what allow it to scale to the high clock speeds it can. For a while after the P4 came out it was widely thought to be a failure because of those trade-offs, but then they ramped it up to faster clock speeds and more software came out taking advantage of SSE2.

      --

      "(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
  5. I'd love to build a new PC... by Boone^ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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. :(

  6. Yeah... by MoronGames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!
  7. page hits by Eyston · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  8. Passive laptop coolers? by niko9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "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?

  9. XBox 2 by pimpinmonk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 :-)

  10. Re:more Pentium M less P4s by mabhatter654 · · Score: 3, Informative
    It's really a next gen P3 not a P4! It's a like P3 with support for 400MHz ram and other goodies every one wanted when the travisty of P4 came out. There's more to it than that, but it's a far more efficent processor than a P4---more ops at less MHz and watts.

    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.

  11. Standard Components by Eamon+C · · Score: 3, Informative
    I like the quiet little EPIA system in front of me pretty well.

    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.

    1. Re:Standard Components by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 3, Informative

      Huh. I've got a VIA C3 on a PC Chips M787 board (yeah, I know, but it was $260 Canadian) and it works fine on linux. The only problem I've had is getting the sound to work on Mandrake 9.1, but Knoppix/Morphix KDE work fine. (I installed the latter, since I couldn't figure out how to get Knoppix to install.)

  12. Performance or Utility? by Shturmovik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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! :-)

  13. is this news? by rewdy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  14. Am I the only one by BillsPetMonkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
  15. Perfect for Linux home gateway by -tji · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  16. Pentium-M is P4-based, not P3 by Alereon · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Pentium-M is P4-based, not P3 by connorbd · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is not true. The Pentium-M/Banias is a P6, and it was designed by the same Israeli design team that produced the ill-fated Timna chip. I think Banias was given to them because Intel knew that an overclocked P6 (a Tualatin at least) could spank a Pentium 4, and the Israeli team knew more about the P6 architecture than anyone else in the company. Banias borrows some ideas from the P4, but it's essentially a Pentium Pro milked as far as it can possibly go, which puts it as the direct successor to the Pentium III.