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Pentium M Goes SFF

Posted by timothy on from the letterman-was-here dept.

Jonesy writes "The folks at The Tech Report have reviewed an interesting new small form factor box (a roughly toaster-sized desktop PC) from AOpen based on the Pentium M. As expected, performance is on par with a Pentium 4, but noise and power consumption are much lower. The reviewer says, 'Subjectively, the EY855-II was simply amazing. At one point, I sat with the system at ear level two feet away. I closed my eyes and strained to hear it, but was unable to do so.' The one fly in the ointment: relatively high prices still on Pentium M processors, although that could change soon."

11 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. PS/2? by chudik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Interesting that they are still bothering with PS/2 for keyboard and mouse. I just got a new Dell at work. No PS/2, just 8 USB 2.0 ports.

  2. Re:Golly, I WONDER where they got that idea! by psyconaut · · Score: 3, Interesting

    'cept this is $324 bare bones (still needs memory, hard drive, etc.) and is bigger and uglier and still not as quiet. ;-)

    -psy

  3. Goes to show... by Sensible+Clod · · Score: 3, Interesting

    they've overhyped the Pentium 4 for 4+ years, and underhyped the Pentium III. The P3 was a far better chip, and still is. That's why they re-released it as the M.

    --

    The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
    1. Re:Goes to show... by adam1101 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The P-M is a pretty good chip, a 2.0Ghz Dothan is more than a match against a 2.0Ghz Athlon-64, while using less power. The only problem is that they are still very overpriced.

    2. Re:Goes to show... by MatthewNewberg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your close to the truth, the reality is the M is a mixture between the P4 and the P3 architectures. The M seems like a very good processor to run in Desktop Systems that do not do a lot of number cruching (number cruching such as games, video encoding, CAD, graphics rendering). Still the P4 architecture is good at processing larges amounts of data since the clock speed can be so high. To read more about the differences of the chips go to http://www.cpuid.com/PentiumM/index.php

      --
      mnewberg.com
    3. Re:Goes to show... by ciroknight · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is the Pentium M is not a Pentium III, but is based off of P6 (the same core archetecture dating all the way back to the Pentium Pro).

      They didn't really underhype the Pentium M, the M is for mobile, and that's exactly where it was aimed and designed for. They hyped it as the "Centrino platform", and it has sold like hotcakes in most modern laptops.

      The real issue is why it took so damned long for Intel to move Pentium M to *desktop* use. The minute they cancelled Itanium's whole branch, they should have moved Pentium 4/Xeon up to its role as the server processor, and moved the Pentium M to the desktop; instead they waited and let AMD get the competitive edge on them with the Athlon 64.

      I commend AMD for their forcing the market to keep moving, but I also hope Intel becomes more responsive and keeps its wheels spinning so that we can see technology keep moving, and not stagnate as it has the past two years.

      --
      "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  4. Bad hearing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They claim the computer is almost silent, so much in fact he could barely hear it from two feet away from the ears.

    My question is then if he has bad hearing. Because any harddisk and the PSU fan will be hearable!

    1. Re: Bad hearing? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 2, Interesting
      My question is then if he has bad hearing. Because any harddisk and the PSU fan will be hearable!

      Only if you have a loud PSU or harddisk. In my own system, there's 3 noise sources, in order: CPU cooler, PSU fan and harddisk. The latter is a single-platter, single head, liquid bearings, recent Seagate model. These are very quiet. And mounted on rubber vibration-dampers, almost inaudible. PSU fan speed is varied depending on load, and mostly very quiet too. Its noise only goes up during long compile jobs or 3D gaming. In the latter case, it doesn't matter anyway, since the noise of exploding rockets is more interesting. ;-))

      So yes, pick your components carefully, and you can make a PC practically silent.

      Anyway, I would welcome it if some manufacturers would put their heads together, and standardise some things on SFF PC's, like mainboard size, CPU location etc. Many SFF systems have a lot of characteristics in common these days (I'm talking physical appearance/layout here), some standardisation here would enable the same style of upgrading/replacing components, that made ordinary white boxes into mass-market items. Not being able to swap just the mainboard for example, is one of the reasons I didn't get a SFF box myself yet.

  5. This is not exactly a new idea by GundamFan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    AOpen has had a microATX 855 chipset board for a little while but really the Pentium M is the perfect fit for SFF computers so I am not complaining.

    The 855 chipset is a little dated though, not great for gaming. I wonder how well supported it is in Linux.

    --
    I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
    Mark Twain
  6. AMD Geode NX... by otis+wildflower · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... should be interesting, there's at least a Tyan board (K7M that handles AMD's low power K7 chip. It's socket A with DDR333 memory.

    This mobo is purely a microformat web/mail/office unit, no AGP or PCIe, but it could make a pretty slick little microserver or homebrew blade..

  7. Re:Old legacy junk on it ... by corngrower · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I can almost still understand the PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse, but you're right - the serial and parallel ports are not really needed and add to the cost of the product. Adapters are available for those that still need to have the serial and parallel ports.