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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 ;)

11 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 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."

    3. 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. 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

  5. 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! :-)

  6. 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.

  7. 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
  8. 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.