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AMD Zacate mini-ITX Motherboards Preview

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Fordy 4th January 2011, 13:47 Quote
Nice.

I would love to pick a Gigabyte (or Asus, if price was right) one up for my impending DVR & NAS build; but just four SATA ports is a deal breaker for me. The NAS part is to serve up ISOs (Including BD) to PCHs around the house. So 12TB is a minimum, won't be that long before it's full, so I need 6 ports for 6 x 2TB = 12TB.

I was planning on getting a mATX s775 board to reuse my Q6600 (And replace my desktop with Sandy Bride) - looks like I'll still have to. Unless some more of these drip out that meet my requirements.
Zinfandel 4th January 2011, 13:49 Quote
Oh man, if these can play DVDs, use word and excel (with no complex calculations) and browse the net then it may very well be my next PC :D.

Do these have a release date/any performance reviews about?
DriftCarl 4th January 2011, 13:50 Quote
can anyone point me in the direction of where one would get a nice small PSU for these?
I am thinking about finally diving into a custom case build
jrs77 4th January 2011, 14:00 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by DriftCarl
can anyone point me in the direction of where one would get a nice small PSU for these?
I am thinking about finally diving into a custom case build

Buying a miniITX-case with integrated PSU might be the cheapest option for a very small PSU, even if you rip the case apart and only use the PSU.

Something like this http://www.scan.co.uk/products/antec-isk-300-150-mini-itx-case-black-desktop-slimline-with-150w-psu
Zinfandel 4th January 2011, 14:04 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by DriftCarl
can anyone point me in the direction of where one would get a nice small PSU for these?
I am thinking about finally diving into a custom case build

Pico PSU is the thing if you're looking to do a custom build and want to keep it small. Obviously most any discrete GPU is out.

Needs an external power brick mind, but still worth it imo. Scan have a uATX section also...

http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer-Hardware/All/Power-Supplies/MicroATX-and-Fanless
Psy-UK 4th January 2011, 14:11 Quote
I might plonk one of these into a custom NAS build if the price is right. :o
Yslen 4th January 2011, 14:47 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zinfandel
Oh man, if these can play DVDs, use word and excel (with no complex calculations) and browse the net then it may very well be my next PC :D.

It'll easily handle all that. PCPerspective shows the E-350 running Left4Dead 2 @ 1280x800, medium settings at an average of 30fps, while drawing less than 30W for the entire system.

Full HD playback uses only around half of the CPU. Even with the CPU fully loaded in Cinebench the whole system is only drawing 20W, so you'd be looking at 12-14W power consumption for DVD playback I reckon.

What I really want to know is how well the APUs score in the CustomPC benchmark suite, in comparison to atoms, ULV parts and even low-end desktop CPU/integrated graphics combinations from both AMD and Intel.
DriftCarl 4th January 2011, 14:55 Quote
ta for the suggestions,
I only really want it to replace my IRC/email/torrent/msn laptop thats a bit old now so I dont need anything too fancy. Need something cheap to run that I can leave on all the time. my main gaming PC is too power hungry for that :D
REMF 4th January 2011, 14:56 Quote
thankyou bit-tech, best coverage of fusion i have seen anywhere.

i like the gigabyte version, just wish silverstone still did lots of htpc style itx cases.
frontline 4th January 2011, 14:58 Quote
£96 for motherboard & APU? Think i might have to change my next buy from a netbook to a mini-itx build..
favst89 4th January 2011, 15:51 Quote
After seeing this and looking around I can't wait for some more benchmarks but if this finds its way into a laptop form its easily going to be my choice. Enough performance to work well and play some games even if it is at fairly low settings, while hopefully carrying on the amd way of being cheaper than intel but finally cutting back on the power usage.
frontline 4th January 2011, 16:00 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by favst89
After seeing this and looking around I can't wait for some more benchmarks but if this finds its way into a laptop form its easily going to be my choice. Enough performance to work well and play some games even if it is at fairly low settings, while hopefully carrying on the amd way of being cheaper than intel but finally cutting back on the power usage.

Laptops and netbooks already starting to appear:

http://www.laptopspec.net/2011/01/hp-pavilion-dm1z-11-6-inch-laptop-with-amd-zacate-chipset/

http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptops/news/2010/12/29/MSi-Unveils-Zacate-based-Wind-U270/p1
djzic 4th January 2011, 16:42 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fordy
Nice.

I would love to pick a Gigabyte (or Asus, if price was right) one up for my impending DVR & NAS build; but just four SATA ports is a deal breaker for me. The NAS part is to serve up ISOs (Including BD) to PCHs around the house. So 12TB is a minimum, won't be that long before it's full, so I need 6 ports for 6 x 2TB = 12TB.

I was planning on getting a mATX s775 board to reuse my Q6600 (And replace my desktop with Sandy Bride) - looks like I'll still have to. Unless some more of these drip out that meet my requirements.

not true, you can get 3TB drives from hitachi
Sheiken 4th January 2011, 18:43 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yslen
It'll easily handle all that. PCPerspective shows the E-350 running Left4Dead 2 @ 1280x800, medium settings at an average of 30fps, while drawing less than 30W for the entire system.

Full HD playback uses only around half of the CPU. Even with the CPU fully loaded in Cinebench the whole system is only drawing 20W, so you'd be looking at 12-14W power consumption for DVD playback I reckon.

What I really want to know is how well the APUs score in the CustomPC benchmark suite, in comparison to atoms, ULV parts and even low-end desktop CPU/integrated graphics combinations from both AMD and Intel.

Pretty impressive stuff!

Man I love Amd
frontline 4th January 2011, 19:53 Quote
Looks like the promo cost less than a Mini ITX board :) http://www.youtube.com/user/AMDUnprocessed#p/c/8E8F9496223D0A47/1/qUrXyDlfdXQ
Matticus 4th January 2011, 20:08 Quote
Oh wow, a spanner has firmly lodged itself into the works.

I was about to sell my 4gb of DDR3 and either get a 775 mini itx and stick my e8200 in it or a dual core atom/ion board. But maybe I will be better off keeping the DDR3 and selling my entire second system...

Any opinions/suggestions?
BioSniper 4th January 2011, 21:09 Quote
Look pretty good and I'm happy to see more than 4 SATA ports on the ASUS though I'm with Fordy on this one at the moment.
6 would be perfect (5 currently + 1 for expansion), maybe soon :)
bobwya 4th January 2011, 21:56 Quote
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fordy
Nice.

I would love to pick a Gigabyte (or Asus, if price was right) one up for my impending DVR & NAS build; but just four SATA ports is a deal breaker for me. The NAS part is to serve up ISOs (Including BD) to PCHs around the house. So 12TB is a minimum, won't be that long before it's full, so I need 6 ports for 6 x 2TB = 12TB.

+1
One the latter 2 boards might be perfect for my NAS plans. But I need a 16-lane PCIe slot (4-lane PCIe slot = fail) for future expansion. Will eventually get a multiport SAS/SATA 6Gb card (currently using port-multipliers.)

So BitTech get back soon to us with the full MB specs.!! Seems like this article was a tad premature...
HourBeforeDawn 5th January 2011, 00:21 Quote
I really want to see how well these will rip and encode, if its reasonable time wise then I will certainly wait for a 1.4 HDMI capable version and build a killer HTPC out of it. :)
Multiplectic 5th January 2011, 00:24 Quote
Guys, you might want to check the specs on the Asus board. In the 3rd photo, below the PCI-E slot, says "SATA6G". It looks like those are all SATA 6Gbps ports.

The MSI's photos are a bit small, but it seems those are SATA 6Gbps too (MSI has been using white ports for SATA 6Gbps ports, like in the 890FXA-GD70).
Bindibadgi 5th January 2011, 02:56 Quote
Yes they are all SATA 6G - I read the wrong documents from AMD about its southbridge and assumed they were 3Gbps. I've amended the article, thanks!
fluxtatic 5th January 2011, 05:02 Quote
The only thing I don't like about this news is that I don't have the cash together yet to build my long-planned NAS box. Before this it was nigh-impossible to find an integrated micro-ATX or Mini-ITX board with more than two SATA ports that wasn't outrageously expensive. 4 is all I plan to need, although the possibility of expansion later certainly doesn't hurt. After the confusing mess Intel is making of Sandy Bridge, I'll happily stick with AMD.
Raephen 5th January 2011, 12:38 Quote
Can't wait for reviews of the Asus or Gigabyte boards!
ATM I use an Asus AT3IONT-I (1,6 GHz atom 330 + NV Ion) for my HTPC setup, and while it's good enough for media play-back, more and more things I do shift from my main desktop to my HTPC, and tbh, the atom cpu can be buggering unrespnsive at times (I blame the out-dated In Order Execution), though over-clocking it to 2,1 GHz seemed to help, making it "feel" more responsive and upping the Win7 cpu index from 3,3 to 3,7. Still, if I can believe some of the previews I've seen of the E-350 Zacate, at normal clocks it has a cpu index of 3,8. I'd love to see how this baby can overclock!
Oh, before I forget: about a month after I bought the atom/ion combo board, I added an inexspensive HD5450 discrete GPU to the mix: couldn't really get Ion's hardware acceleration to really do... well, anything. With all recomended decoders/software/settings I scoured the web for, a simple VC-1 file still had 50 to 60ish % cpu usage. For the Atom, that's enough to make it unable to do anything else at the same time. with my trusty HD5450, the same file plays back with a 15-30ish cpu usage.
The above paragraph was prelude to my final hope: Hybrid Crossfire! I'd love the idea of doubling the amount of shaders to make my HTPC more multi-purpose (an MP-HTPC? :p ).
Xlog 5th January 2011, 15:35 Quote
Nice boards, but are there any news on ECC memory support in Fusion APUs?
Ergath 8th January 2011, 00:31 Quote
Nice - finally a really capable ITX solution without the frankenstein-esque need for S775 CPU or an additional graphics card (Ion doesn't count - atom isn't *really* capable).

But, dare, I say.... will it run Crysis?

I'll get my coat.
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