Nano crushes Atom

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It's clear from our limited testing of the VIA Nano that the company has a strong product at the ready. Virtually across the board, the Nano showed good performance versus its primary competition, and it has a number of other things going for it as well, like pin-compatibility with the established C7 core, an open platform, and hardware acceleration for certain types of encryption. Based on what we've seen here today, we hope many of the OEMs currently selling products based on the C7 adopt the Nano and offer products with increased performance.

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Source: HotHardware

Seems like the more power the nano uses it gives it the minimal gains. This looks more like Intel bashing considering for the products these guys are ment for low power usage seems to be the better choice. It's not like either of these are going to be used to play Crysis.

I hope it's true. The competition would be fantastic, and Intel seems to shine brightest when it's being nipped at the heels.

To me, the most important part is this. I could care less about all other aspects. I own the first generation EeePC and all I care about is its battery life since all I am doing with it is either using its wifi or using words or similar office tools. Even celeron 600-something mhz was enough for that.

Easy to win when your CPU uses 10x more power. Kinda defeats the purpose. Try against a 10W C2D instead.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

Easy to win when your CPU uses 10x more power. Kinda defeats the purpose. Try against a 10W C2D instead.

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We're looking at Atom vs Nano on the chart above you m8, not Atom vs 4600+ :stick:

Perkam

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Originally Posted by alucasa

To me, the most important part is this. I could care less about all other aspects. I own the first generation EeePC and all I care about is its battery life since all I am doing with it is either using its wifi or using words or similar office tools. Even celeron 600-something mhz was enough for that.

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Be calm, we won't see L2100 (25W TDP) in netbooks (only in bigger notebooks and desktops). :) The U2x00 (5-8W TDP) series will be for netbooks.

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Originally Posted by perkam

We're looking at Via vs Nano on the chart above you m8, not Atom vs 4600+ :stick:

Perkam

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What? Via vs Nano? I see Atom and Nano...

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Originally Posted by perkam

We're looking at Via vs Nano on the chart above you m8, not Atom vs 4600+ :stick:

Perkam

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this just shows that he doesn't even read the thread and just starts his usual intel defense... just like in every other thread around here. ;)

so what was your point shintai? i don't get it :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Shintai

Easy to win when your CPU uses 10x more power. Kinda defeats the purpose. Try against a 10W C2D instead.

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Actually @idle they are practically the same,while @load Atom draws 34% less power(while being slower more than that in CPU intensive tasks).
The 1.6Ghz ulv Nano part will probably draw less power than this ES part in pre-production board that died after a couple of days...

Nano has a 12.5% faster clock but uses 34.5% more power under load. But in all other aspects it trounces the Atom. If they could bring it down to 45nm they would have a winner.

I dont think so...seems to me that he just made an mistake. He obviously meant Atom vs nano, no need to nitpick on it...its silly.

Fixed. :up: The Nano barely has 20% more power consumption than the Atom, which, coming from VIA with greater performance than the Nano is a big step in the competitive direction.

Perkam

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Originally Posted by RaZz!

this just shows that he doesn't even read the thread and just starts his usual intel defense... just like in every other thread around here. ;)

so what was your point shintai? i don't get it :shrug:

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i believe it was nothing more than a type-o RaZz chill out and be quiet with the perk bashing

right in the article they talk about how their not really even meant to be compared though since their intended for different purposes.

But if you happen to want to make a desktop or normal laptop to run one for some crazy insane reason, then the nano would be the one to go with.

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Originally Posted by Zaskar

But if you happen to want to make a desktop or normal laptop to run one for some crazy insane reason, then the nano would be the one to go with.

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I would pick Atom for netpc.

But nano would certainly work better for those slim desktop which ASUS is releasing. (Sorry, I forgot the name.)

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Originally Posted by Lestat

i believe it was nothing more than a type-o RaZz chill out and be quiet with the perk bashing

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He's bashing Shintai, not me :D

Perkam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by informal

Actually @idle they are practically the same,while @load Atom draws 34% less power(while being slower more than that in CPU intensive tasks).
The 1.6Ghz ulv Nano part will probably draw less power than this ES part in pre-production board that died after a couple of days...

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intel needs to dump the, 945G that friggin northbridge consumes more then the cpu, well just look at the board, the active cooled part is not the processor. :ROTF:

Good thing that moorestown comes in 2009/10, soc ftw. :yepp:

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Originally Posted by perkam

He's bashing Shintai, not me :D

Perkam

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lol :D

how could i dare to bash perkam. no wai *cough cough* :D;)

no pun intented lestat ;)

One thing to notice is (iirc) the Atom chipset used in that test is a power hog.
Intel is dumping their old chipset stock, before they need to compete in power efficiency in general public.

i like battery life alot as well, but i would much rather have some low frequency core 2 duo and a 9 cell or 12 cell battery.
i feel that you cant really do alot with a pc with an atom or nano.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by grimREEFER

i like battery life alot as well, but i would much rather have some low frequency core 2 duo and a 9 cell or 12 cell battery.
i feel that you cant really do alot with a pc with an atom or nano.

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for a stupidly quiet media pc im sure a nano bit of ram and onboard gpu would make a nice media pc well i wouldnt say no to one anyway.

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Originally Posted by Shintai

Easy to win when your CPU uses 10x more power. Kinda defeats the purpose. Try against a 10W C2D instead.

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10X? :rofl:
You really don't know what's being discussed here, do you?

Nano:
Load - 74
Idle - 49

Atom:
Load - 55
Idle - 47

Try to keep up.




The Nano is clocked at 1.8Ghz. I think that if the Nano was clocked at about 1.5Ghz it would consume almost the same as the Atom in load, and the performance would be on par. Maybe a bit faster in multithreaded applications because of the 3 threads.

Also, this benchmark is using Via's old CN896 + VT8251 chipset. The Nano platform for netbooks comes with the new single bridge VX800 which consumes a lot less.


However, this iteration of the Atom platform also has its power consumption "haunted" by the 945G+ICH7 wich is a 3 year old chipset and consumes a lot more than the CPU itself. As soon as Intel makes the Poulsbo available for mainstream netbooks the power consumption will go down a lot.

Gaming and multimedia-wise (for those who are interested), the Atom+Poulsbo should be a bit more powerfull than the Nano+VX800. The Poulsbo sports a PowerVR SGX 535 (IGP DX10.1) and a PowerVR VXD370 (h.264 and VC-1 dedicated decoder) whereas the VX800 sports the oldie unichrome 9. I guess VIA believes the CPU can do the video decoding just fine and their probably not interested in gaming at all (although they even thought of making a portable gaming console with this platform).



Wrapping things up, we shouldn't count on this article to compare the power consumption of the Nano as a platform, since it's only using the new CPU paired with an old chipset that won't be present in the netbooks.

Nonetheless, it's great to see a very decent competition in the low-power x86 market.

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Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

*snip*

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That's the entire system power consumption. The Nano CPU alone consumes way more power than the Atom CPU alone. 10x could be perfectly possible.

If you want long battery life, go for Atom. If you want perfomance, forget about both...

another http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=597&type=expert

And an interesting point about power consumption at the end of the page

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=8

even the 700/900mhz @ eeepc are snappy critters

what all these low-watt cpus need is fast/er hdd/ssd

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Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

That's the entire system power consumption. The Nano CPU alone consumes way more power than the Atom CPU alone. 10x could be perfectly possible.

If you want long battery life, go for Atom. If you want perfomance, forget about both...

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Did you actually read my post or just turned the first sentence into "snip"?

That's not the chipset the Nano will be coupled with, so you can't compare their power consumption yet.


What good is a 2.5W CPU if you're going to pair it with a 10W chipset?

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Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

Did you actually read my post or just turned the first sentence into "snip"?

That's not the chipset the Nano will be coupled with, so you can't compare their power consumption yet.


What good is a 2.5W CPU if you're going to pair it with a 10W chipset?

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Yes, I read it... ¿? I can say that this 945 power sucker is not the definitive Atom chipset, and then what? The current platform sucks, that doesn't mean the CPU sucks. You quoted Shintai, and Shintai was talking about the CPU alone. So if you talk about the CPU alone your argument is not valid at all.

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Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

The Nano is clocked at 1.8Ghz. I think that if the Nano was clocked at about 1.5Ghz it would consume almost the same as the Atom in load, and the performance would be on par.

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That's simply impossibile.
At 1.6Ghz according to the whitepaper the nano has a max TDP of 17W (Atom is under 3W) which falls under 10W (8W) at 1.3Ghz.
8W vs 2.5W and probably worse performance (1.3Ghz Nano won't have better performance than a 1.6Ghz Atom).

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Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

Did you actually read my post or just turned the first sentence into "snip"?

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Shintai was referring to the CPUs alone (25W vs 2.5W is 10x more TDP so he was absolutely right), and so was STaRGaZeR, if you wanted to talk about the entire platform (and both the reviewed platform suck badly, their idle power consumption is higher than a geforce 8300 + X2 4850e) you shouldn't have quoted Shintai's post.

To bad Intel used an older not mobile chipset for Atom. What good is a 2 watt CPU when the chipset takes more then 10 watts? Huge mistake if you ask me. Still I bought Atom for my home server. I'm wondering how many days it will take to compile Gentoo but at least my parents won't be nagging about the power bill again.

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Originally Posted by Glow9

Seems like the more power the nano uses it gives it the minimal gains. This looks more like Intel bashing considering for the products these guys are ment for low power usage seems to be the better choice. It's not like either of these are going to be used to play Crysis.

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This was my thought.... also, they are using a bad power supply. If they compared the two power consumptions with power supplies suited to the low power draw Perf/Watt I think Atom would crush the Nano.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

10X? :rofl:
You really don't know what's being discussed here, do you?

Nano:
Load - 74
Idle - 49

Atom:
Load - 55
Idle - 47

Try to keep up.


.

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They utterly botched their power measurements. Also, is this a typo or what?? Does anyone think that on either the Atom or Nano a 8800 GTX (power sucker extraordinaire) would show an idle in the upper 40 W range?

correction: the nano isnt strong, the atom is even weaker than the nano! :P

they are both too slow even for lag free webrowsing and watching movies without having frames skipped...
and they are way too hot and consume too much power to be used in real mobile devices...

those power charts look very wrong, system idle power consumption of 150 watts for amd x2 and core2 duo is not right...
maybe with cool n quiet and eist disabled... even then its very high.
my x2 4400+ system pulls 120W under load... and thats a 90nm dualcore!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PetNorth

another http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=597&type=expert

And an interesting point about power consumption at the end of the page

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=8

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Quote:

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Using the same method to gauge the results of our CineBench 10 test, we find that the VIA Nano used 63,434 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy to render the scene while the Intel Atom used 65,893 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy - an advantage of 3.8% to the VIA CPU.

These kinds of power comparisons are incredibly insightful and you can clearly see how both teams of CPU designers have made trade offs for the either power consumption or speed. The VIA Nano L2100 is able to perform these tasks faster (by as much as 30% in some cases) while still using less total energy than Intel's Atom.

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Very interesting power consumption comparison indeed. :)

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Originally Posted by saaya

correction: the nano isnt strong, the atom is even weaker than the nano! :P

they are both too slow even for lag free webrowsing and watching movies without having frames skipped...
and they are way too hot and consume too much power to be used in real mobile devices...

those power charts look very wrong, system idle power consumption of 150 watts for amd x2 and core2 duo is not right...
maybe with cool n quiet and eist disabled... even then its very high.
my x2 4400+ system pulls 120W under load... and thats a 90nm dualcore!

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im watching silky smooth dvds on my 900mhz eeepc - no lag

these cpus are more than capable of playing dvd/webrowsing.. 20-30MB/s hdd/ssd is the problem

~100MB/s storage would make these cpus fly..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saaya

correction: the nano isnt strong, the atom is even weaker than the nano! :P

they are both too slow even for lag free webrowsing and watching movies without having frames skipped...
and they are way too hot and consume too much power to be used in real mobile devices...

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Maybe if you have 700 flash animations playing at once.

My 1.46Ghz Athlon XP 1700 in my back up rig, which I'm typing on now handles everything the web can throw at it just fine. Hell, I have an original Slot A 650Mhz Athlon that manages the web quite easily.

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Originally Posted by Sapo84

That's simply impossibile.
At 1.6Ghz according to the whitepaper the nano has a max TDP of 17W (Atom is under 3W) which falls under 10W (8W) at 1.3Ghz.
8W vs 2.5W and probably worse performance (1.3Ghz Nano won't have better performance than a 1.6Ghz Atom).

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lol TDP means jack nowadays and refers only to absolute peak consumption.. Those power consumption graphics prove that exactly. In idle the 1.6Ghz Nano actually consumes less than the 1.6Ghz Atom (0.1W vs 0.22W). The power consumption in these CPUs fluctuate so much that the only scenario where you can compare the platforms is by draining an equal-capacity battery in a similar-specced netbook (same screen, same RAM, etc).

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Originally Posted by JumpingJack

They utterly botched their power measurements. Also, is this a typo or what?? Does anyone think that on either the Atom or Nano a 8800 GTX (power sucker extraordinaire) would show an idle in the upper 40 W range?

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They are obviously using only the IGP in the Nano and the Atom. The Atom mobo doesn't even have a PCI-e connector.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saaya

they are both too slow even for lag free webrowsing and watching movies without having frames skipped...
and they are way too hot and consume too much power to be used in real mobile devices...

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That would be true.. if you were talking about 1080p movies and web-based 3D games.

Nano more power-efficient?

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Originally Posted by PCPer

Using the same method to gauge the results of our CineBench 10 test, we find that the VIA Nano used 63,434 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy to render the scene while the Intel Atom used 65,893 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy - an advantage of 3.8% to the VIA CPU.

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Perkam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

That's the entire system power consumption. The Nano CPU alone consumes way more power than the Atom CPU alone. 10x could be perfectly possible.

If you want long battery life, go for Atom. If you want perfomance, forget about both...

---

Quote:

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Using the same method to gauge the results of our CineBench 10 test, we find that the VIA Nano used 63,434 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy to render the scene while the Intel Atom used 65,893 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy - an advantage of 3.8% to the VIA CPU.

These kinds of power comparisons are incredibly insightful and you can clearly see how both teams of CPU designers have made trade offs for the either power consumption or speed. The VIA Nano L2100 is able to perform these tasks faster (by as much as 30% in some cases) while still using less total energy than Intel's Atom.

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So if it is getting the job done sooner, it is really using less power. If it ain't buggy, I easily go with the Nano for low power and performance=P PCI-E slot? For CUDA or something?

Much rather use a MATX and an E2180 or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by perkam

Nano more power-efficient?

Perkam

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Sorry didn't see yours but I agree!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PetNorth

another http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=597&type=expert

And an interesting point about power consumption at the end of the page

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=8

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Yeah, so the Nano wins thanks to watts per performance ratio. Say, it takes 8 seconds to load up a complex web page on the Nano, but 12 seconds on the Atom. The Atom ends up using 3% more power than the Nano to load up that web page.

So, who's the real winner here? 4 seconds saved and 3% power saved, thank you... (idle is nearly the same, so it could be within margin of error.. so it's almost moot and unnoticeable in real-world usage).

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Originally Posted by villa1n

Very interesting power consumption comparison indeed. :)

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Yeah.... and completely wrong. They are using high power rated PSUs for ultra low power boards. At < 20% loading, a 500W PSU drop efficiency like a brik... some to below 50% efficiency.

If they did the measurement right, the Atom board can be shown to consume no more than 34-35 Watts with drives and with a power delta of no more than 2 Watts idle to load.

All the sites so far that have published numbers have failed to specify what PSU they used. At these loads, it is impossible to draw correct conclusions when your 20-30W board is being driven by a massive power supply.

To demonstrate this I profiled the same board in these reviews using a CoolerMaster 500W RP-500-PCAR power supply, I used OCCT 2.0 with a CPU only selection and a 20 min custom duty cycle. I then compared the exact same board, just switched out PSUs and used a Sparkle 220 W 80+ efficiency PSU.

As you can see there is about a 20 W difference between the two traces, i.e. PCPer, Hothardware, and Ars have at least a 40% error in their measurements. In the case of the coolermaster PSU idle was 55.3 and on the Sparkle Idle was 34.0. Basically, I can reproduce the 55is-60is Watt numbers with easy, but only when using the worst possible choice of PSU for the job.

From the sparkle data I can derive a better approximation of the CPU loading power from idle to peak, http://www.silentpcreview.com/article773-page4.html . I am measuing 2.1 W idle to peak, and accounting for the efficiency at the input power around 34 W, the actual CPU consumption is around 1.6-1.7 W well within the TDP (as expected).

2 watts out 60 vs 2 watts out 34 is a huge difference, and the Atom tests are being dominated by the cruddy choice of PSUs. Taking this out, Atom take a strong lead in perf/Watt (I suspect). I would need to get my hands on a Nano board/CPU to do the same tests.

EDIT: BTW power is recorded on a data logger, a WattsUP Pro ES.

The review sites are getting sloppy.... very sloppy.

Jack

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saaya

correction: the nano isnt strong, the atom is even weaker than the nano! :P

they are both too slow even for lag free webrowsing and watching movies without having frames skipped...
and they are way too hot and consume too much power to be used in real mobile devices...

those power charts look very wrong, system idle power consumption of 150 watts for amd x2 and core2 duo is not right...
maybe with cool n quiet and eist disabled... even then its very high.
my x2 4400+ system pulls 120W under load... and thats a 90nm dualcore!

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Idle power for the X2 and C2D look ok accounting for the GTX 8800.... it is a power hog. Massive power hog.

I measure 170is to 190ish idle on quad core rigs with a single GTX 8800 in the system.

I don t adopt sides but arent eepc and such gonna be based on atom dual core?

I'm not sure people here are getting the real picture.

Via Nano is a 20w TDP CPU.Atom is 2.5w for midis and 4-8w for desktops/embedded IIRC.

The tests featured a desktop Atom with a desktop board.

Had it been a mobile Atom ( 2.5w ) and a mobile board ( ~6w ) things would have been totally different.However , that's not the full story.

Nanon burns a healthy amount of power when loaded.Try to get its power to Atom like level ; I'd say the Atom will outperform it by 50% of more.

Nano really competes with low ( not even ultra low ) voltage dual core Penryns.Try 2GHz at 17w.We're talking same system power draw as Nano.Wanna bet who is going to win ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by savantu

I'm not sure people here are getting the real picture.

Nano really competes with low ( not even ultra low ) voltage dual core Penryns.Try 2GHz at 17w.We're talking same system power draw as Nano.Wanna bet who is going to win ?

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Correct, I am testing a 201GLY2A right now. Idle power is at 37.1 W using the right PSU, about 3 W higher than Atom.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PetNorth

another http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=597&type=expert

And an interesting point about power consumption at the end of the page

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=8

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His conclusion is incorrect because he is measuring total efficiency of a power supply over that time and not of the system itself.

its time that reviewers use PSUs with higher efficiency for such review... heck there are even PUS out there that have 92% efficiency @ 20% load

http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_r...50W_Report.pdf

if im gona rebuild my HTPC this baby is gona power it. :yepp:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JumpingJack

His conclusion is incorrect because he is measuring total efficiency of a power supply over that time and not of the system itself.

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Maybe i don't fully understand, but wouldn't an overpowerful psu, be a detriment to both systems... or are you saying it is unfairly skewing the results in favour of the nano?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by villa1n

Maybe i don't fully understand, but wouldn't an overpowerful psu, be a detriment to both systems... or are you saying it is unfairly skewing the results in favour of the nano?

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It is unfairly skewed toward Nano on the power measurements. You could power both these boards with a 1200 W power supply if you wanted... why you would do this is beyond me... in fact, why you would use even a 200W power supply is beyond me. But that is what these numnuts did... they used a high rated power supply to power a low wattage board. Just because a PSU is rated at say 500 Watts does not mean that it outputs to that wattage to the board. The PSU will only output what the load is requesting.

Just a quick lesson in power supplies. Power supplies come rated in the total peak power they are able to deliver, sustained power is a bit lower....

Power supply makers are also interested in quoting you power efficiency, which is essentially the % of the power input that makes it to power output at a given load.

For example, say I measure at the wall socket 100 Watts, but the efficiency is only 80%, the actual power delivered is only 80 Watts.

Ok... now, here is the kicker. The efficiency quoted for a power supply is between 20% and 80% of it's rated power. Above or below that, the efficiency is drops of rapidly.

Here is an example Anandtech did of a recent 900 W PSU:
http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling...spx?i=3364&p=7

Notice at 200 W the efficiency starts to drop off rapidly, going to 73% at 90 W load... now look at how steep that curve is.... at 20 W (which is about what these boards are pulling) efficiency is down near the 40 or 50% range.

Ok... now think about it. If 30 or so W of the raw numbers in these reviews is wasted by the PSU, how much penalty does that put on a 2-3 W CPU vs a 17 W CPU?

Example ... 17 out 70 is much less than 17 out 30 (percent wise), but 2-3 out of 50 is nothing, you are essentially vs 2-3 out 30 is quite a bit different.

If you are thinking of building a very low wattage nettop like computer --- the last thing you want to buy is a 650 W thermaltake toughpower to power you Nano or Atom board. This is a much better power supply to build the system: http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-90-power-kit

And after all is said and done, the peak atom draw will be in the 30-35 range.

Not 60 like they review sites are telling you. In fact, their data is so far off... you should completely disregard any conclusions they make about power efficiency or performance per Watt. I am writing it off as either laziness or groteseque incompetency.


Jack

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

its time that reviewers use PSUs with higher efficiency for such review... heck there are even PUS out there that have 92% efficiency @ 20% load

http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_r...50W_Report.pdf

if im gona rebuild my HTPC this baby is gona power it. :yepp:

---

Now there's the ticket!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by villa1n

Maybe i don't fully understand, but wouldn't an overpowerful psu, be a detriment to both systems... or are you saying it is unfairly skewing the results in favour of the nano?

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The higher the power consumption the lower the variability is.

With a 600w PSU , a 4w CPU like Atom is in the noise region.We're talking a granularity yet to be found in PSUs.

JumpingJack posted a chart comparing the difference between a 600w and a 220w PSUs on an Atom system.The difference is on the order of 20w.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by savantu

The higher the power consumption the lower the variability is.

With a 600w PSU , a 4w CPU like Atom is in the noise region.We're talking a granularity yet to be found in PSUs.

JumpingJack posted a chart comparing the difference between a 600w and a 220w PSUs on an Atom system.The difference is on the order of 20w.

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20 watts out of ~55 ... which is ~35% error :)

Anyway -- the reviewers are not comparing the products that are actually competing in this space. They should be looking at Nano vs the Celeron 220, in the D201GLY2A --- it is about the same performance, but the Celeron 220 consumes about 20% less power.

Jack

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Donnie27

So if it is getting the job done sooner, it is really using less power. If it ain't buggy, I easily go with the Nano for low power and performance=P PCI-E slot? For CUDA or something?

Much rather use a MATX and an E2180 or something.

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If you read it carefully it seems that they entire comparison is a bug. Also in your quote they're comparing the entire platform, not the CPU only. In perfomance/watt the Atom wins, in absolute perfomance the Nano wins.

Either way I still don't get WTF they've paired a 2,5W CPU with a 6W chipset. Shrink it or something :stick:

Well i think intel did silverthorn/menlow more as a proof of concept, i dont think they expected that it is such a hughe demand for it. :p

I think you will see the real performance/watt king with moorestown. :yeep:

The 8800GTX aint used for the Nano or Atom. Hothardware have been a huge failure basicly.

Also even tho some dont seem to accept it. The power consumption of the Atom is alot lower than the Nano. Even tho this is a desktop model and they still have the crappy 945 paired. It will be good to see its next incarnation.

I also think Atom is quite abit cheaper than the Nano boards. Here a Nano board cost about the same as a Q9550.

Nano´s segment is also mainly targetted as an alternative to LV/ULV "standard" mobile CPUs.

I think 55watt is to much for an Atom at full load. VR-zone managed to pull only 39,8 watts.
Anyway I'm going to test Atom power consumption myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ownage

I think 55watt is to much for an Atom at full load. VR-zone managed to pull only 39,8 watts.
Anyway I'm going to test Atom power consumption myself.

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just look at the results JumpingJack provided, they have just used a far to big psu.

Isn't there a 'Poulsbo' motherboard that works with 'Z' Atoms and uses way less power?

I'm sorry but in my book, both platforms suck. 0 performance and yet rather high power consumption.
My IBM X60 drains below 15W idle with wlan and Bluetooth enabled, and that's with a 12" screen, rather strong Yonah Dualcore and 2Gigs of ram.
Of course it costs 5x as much, but the old rule still applies I guess.. what you get is what you pay for ^^

The power drain of either Atom or nano platforms are ridiculously high in any case. Of course, hothardware's measures are incorrect as always. You won't get under 30W idle though, which is still 3x higher than it should be.

^ +1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by R101

Isn't there a 'Poulsbo' motherboard that works with 'Z' Atoms and uses way less power?

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Yes, these are "desktop" types. Also the CPU used here cost 29$.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JumpingJack

20 watts out of ~55 ... which is ~35% error :)

Anyway -- the reviewers are not comparing the products that are actually competing in this space. They should be looking at Nano vs the Celeron 220, in the D201GLY2A --- it is about the same performance, but the Celeron 220 consumes about 20% less power.

Jack

---

Bang up job on all of the info and thank you very much! Yet I'll still say I'd rather have an E2180 and MATX:up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

If you read it carefully it seems that they entire comparison is a bug. Also in your quote they're comparing the entire platform, not the CPU only. In perfomance/watt the Atom wins, in absolute perfomance the Nano wins.

Either way I still don't get WTF they've paired a 2,5W CPU with a 6W chipset. Shrink it or something

---

Here's something for you to read carefully, no need for the stick since it looks like Jack explained it to both of us;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

Well i think intel did silverthorn/menlow more as a proof of concept, i dont think they expected that it is such a hughe demand for it. :p

I think you will see the real performance/watt king with moorestown. :yeep:

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Yes, I think the same. The real thing will come when everything (CPU, NB and SB) is included inside the same chip. Until then... is just a 'temporal' solution if you know what I mean :p:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Donnie27

Here's something for you to read carefully, no need for the stick since it looks like Jack explained it to both of us;)

---

:yepp:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shintai

Yes, these are "desktop" types. Also the CPU used here cost 29$.

---

I think one site said the board and processor sold for $79.

All the reviewers should be using a PicoPSU for something like the nano or atom.....

I'm kind of amazed that in 66 posts, nobody asked how these buggers overclock? Even taking into account that they're supposed to be low power only.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RTB

I'm kind of amazed that in 66 posts, nobody asked how these buggers overclock? Even taking into account that they're supposed to be low power only.

---

Overclocking low performance processors meant for low voltage, that's a new one:up:

Ok, that feature comparison chart, can someone please explain to me what to be concerned with there.

Like other posters have stated, competition is exactly what makes this industry/overall market a more enjoyable place. Go VIA, go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NapalmV5

even the 700/900mhz @ eeepc are snappy critters

what all these low-watt cpus need is fast/er hdd/ssd

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The lightweight OS doesn't hurt either. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JumpingJack

It is unfairly skewed toward Nano on the power measurements. You could power both these boards with a 1200 W power supply if you wanted... why you would do this is beyond me... in fact, why you would use even a 200W power supply is beyond me. But that is what these numnuts did... they used a high rated power supply to power a low wattage board. Just because a PSU is rated at say 500 Watts does not mean that it outputs to that wattage to the board. The PSU will only output what the load is requesting.

Just a quick lesson in power supplies. Power supplies come rated in the total peak power they are able to deliver, sustained power is a bit lower....

Power supply makers are also interested in quoting you power efficiency, which is essentially the % of the power input that makes it to power output at a given load.

For example, say I measure at the wall socket 100 Watts, but the efficiency is only 80%, the actual power delivered is only 80 Watts.

Ok... now, here is the kicker. The efficiency quoted for a power supply is between 20% and 80% of it's rated power. Above or below that, the efficiency is drops of rapidly.

Here is an example Anandtech did of a recent 900 W PSU:
http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling...spx?i=3364&p=7

Notice at 200 W the efficiency starts to drop off rapidly, going to 73% at 90 W load... now look at how steep that curve is.... at 20 W (which is about what these boards are pulling) efficiency is down near the 40 or 50% range.

Ok... now think about it. If 30 or so W of the raw numbers in these reviews is wasted by the PSU, how much penalty does that put on a 2-3 W CPU vs a 17 W CPU?

Example ... 17 out 70 is much less than 17 out 30 (percent wise), but 2-3 out of 50 is nothing, you are essentially vs 2-3 out 30 is quite a bit different.

If you are thinking of building a very low wattage nettop like computer --- the last thing you want to buy is a 650 W thermaltake toughpower to power you Nano or Atom board. This is a much better power supply to build the system: http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-90-power-kit

And after all is said and done, the peak atom draw will be in the 30-35 range.

Not 60 like they review sites are telling you. In fact, their data is so far off... you should completely disregard any conclusions they make about power efficiency or performance per Watt. I am writing it off as either laziness or groteseque incompetency.


Jack

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Ahh oh, i wasnt aware of the lower limits affecting efficiency of PSU's since i m usually only ever pushing the upper limits :P So basically the margin of error is ridiculous at that point, and it is not really a measurement of what the board is doing, but the powersupply. Gotcha.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shintai

Yes, these are "desktop" types. Also the CPU used here cost 29$.

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Actually, the Centrino Atom (Atom Z + Poulsbo) is announced only to be integrated in MIDs, at the moment. The netops are more cost-oriented than power-oriented, hence the different packaging between Atom Z (lower power) and Atom N (cheaper).

We can only assume it's going to replace the current 945G+ICH7 because Intel can surely make a more profitable single bridge @ 65/45nm than sticking two 130nm bridges. At least in the long run.

And the Poulsbo may actually never come to nettops, since it has no SATA controller (it could use one PCI-e 1x lane for an external controller though).

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...o-review.ars/8

250W PSU

http://media.arstechnica.com/reviews...edia/Power.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcool

I'm sorry but in my book, both platforms suck. 0 performance and yet rather high power consumption.
My IBM X60 drains below 15W idle with wlan and Bluetooth enabled, and that's with a 12" screen, rather strong Yonah Dualcore and 2Gigs of ram.
Of course it costs 5x as much, but the old rule still applies I guess.. what you get is what you pay for ^^

The power drain of either Atom or nano platforms are ridiculously high in any case. Of course, hothardware's measures are incorrect as always. You won't get under 30W idle though, which is still 3x higher than it should be.

---

There is some truth to that. Although, X61 > X60 anyday :p:

Perkam

It looks like Jumpingjack has won teh Internets :up: Someone get that man a cookie STAT! Anywho, Atom is better but the platform is f-ed, Intel needs to get a better chipset in there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by perkam

There is some truth to that. Although, X61 > X60 anyday :p:

Perkam

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In your dreams :p:
My pimped-up X60 kicks the X61's butt with its 2GB CL4 MDT ram and Seagate Momentus 7200.2 hdd :D

Anyway, back to topic... ;)

Well .... Ryan Stroud of PC Per and Marco of HotHardware were kind enough to email me back and specify their PSUs.... PCPer used an 750W silverstone and Hothardware used a whopping 1000 W Ultra ... so that pretty much explains why HHW was much too high.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ownage

I think 55watt is to much for an Atom at full load. VR-zone managed to pull only 39,8 watts.
Anyway I'm going to test Atom power consumption myself.

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Yeah ... see my just prior post.

I have also measured just the consmuption of the board and took the HD's and other periphrials out of the equation and then used the efficiency calibration to estimate the actual load that Atom is pulling:

- Idle measured = 25.4 W, correcting for PSU efficiency = 18.5 W
- Load measured = 27.1 W, correcting for PSU efficiency = 19.7 W

I would recommend the Sparkle PSU 220W 80+ FlexATX that I used in my measurements, or you could do a DC to DC converter -- a link I provided earlier.

Jack

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcool

I'm sorry but in my book, both platforms suck. 0 performance and yet rather high power consumption.

---

Again, the Atom N-series is designed to be dirt-cheap, and it does that very well. Intel is just taking the first batch of lower binned Atoms and selling them for netbook and nettop designs.

This is not a low-power champion or a performance champion. This is a price/functionality champion. For the first time we're seeing sub-400$/300€ netbooks with enough performance and battery life for internet browsing and multimedia playing.

If you want to compare power consumption, wait for the first Centrino Atom MIDs (Atom Z + Poulsbo) and then you will see how power efficient this platform can be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

Again, the Atom N-series is designed to be dirt-cheap, and it does that very well. Intel is just taking the first batch of lower binned Atoms and selling them for netbook and nettop designs.

This is not a low-power champion or a performance champion. This is a price/functionality champion. For the first time we're seeing sub-400$/300€ netbooks with enough performance and battery life for internet browsing and multimedia playing.

If you want to compare power consumption, wait for the first Centrino Atom MIDs (Atom Z + Poulsbo) and then you will see how power efficient this platform can be.

---

This is the idea I got from what this board is... I personally picked up the atom board because it was a 70 buck board that can function well as a NAS without chewing clawing up a lot of power.

Jack check out the Ars technica review..They used 250W PSU,and the numbers are even better for Nano(compared to Atom).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by informal

Jack check out the Ars technica review..They used 250W PSU,and the numbers are even better for Nano(compared to Atom).

---

I did... and I searched for the efficiency on that PSU... at full load it is 72% but nothing at 10% of it's rate power, it is also a discontinued PSU and I cannot find any numbers on it.

At these powers (i.e. load), there is a huge discrepancy between the different reviews that have popped up. Most all I can explain with the efficiency argument. The Ars numbers have me a bit perplexed, but then again they used a pretty low end PSU.... I have another PSU coming in the mail Friday, this one is 96% efficient at 20 W so I can remeasure. But there is no doubt, I am getting much lower power when I use the Sparkle 220W 80+ psu.

It will take much more work to understand the discrepancies...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2326852,00.asp here is another example, they use a 120 W PSU (again, a no-name brand that I cannot find efficiency numbers for) ... but their benchs also show Atom winning performance overall. I have only read a handful of reviews, but the numbers are all over the place.... which is weird, because the configuration (HW wise) is so fixed. They should be coming in better grouped.

LOL funny "review" there...

From a perfomance view, it is in full contradiction with any other review out there. Look at Cinebench numbers and compare with http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15204/8

Atom is in line; but Nano, in Extremetech, must be running at 500mhz LOL

My God... what a crap "review"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PetNorth

LOL funny "review" there...

From a perfomance view, it is in full contradiction with any other review out there. Look at Cinebench numbers and compare with http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15204/8

Atom is in line; but Nano, in Extremetech, must be running at 500mhz LOL

My God... what a crap "review"

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There are contradictions all over :)

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15204/9
That's incredible, a pentium m 760 is both faster and more power efficient than the nano :eek:
I really hope that Via will pair the Nano with a very good chipset (and that's what intel isn't doing right now) because the cpu is again nothing special (a (U)LV 45nm notebook c2d will probably be way faster while consuming the same amount of power).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sapo84

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15204/9
That's incredible, a pentium m 760 is both faster and more power efficient than the nano :eek:
I really hope that Via will pair the Nano with a very good chipset (and that's what intel isn't doing right now) because the cpu is again nothing special (a (U)LV 45nm notebook c2d will probably be way faster while consuming the same amount of power).

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Where does it say that :poke:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by from your own link

The Nano L2100 and Atom 230 take very different paths to completing the task with almost the same amount of energy consumed. The Atom takes quite a bit longer finishing, but keeps its power draw vastly lower as it works. The Nano consumes more power, yet finishes the work over a shorter period of time.

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And..

Quote:

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Of course, the L2100 is aimed explicitly at desktops,

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marvin_The_Martian

Where does it say that :poke:

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http://techreport.com/r.x/nano-vs-at...-cbr-intel.gif
The pentium m is clearly faster
http://techreport.com/r.x/nano-vs-atom/power-total.gif
more efficient
http://techreport.com/r.x/nano-vs-at...ask-energy.gif
more efficient

slower than a 3 years old notebook 90nm cpu, and it uses more power...
It may be a passable solution if paired with a very good chipset, otherwise :down:

See post 84# :toast:

Could it be the reviewer knows it's to early to tell and he has no real outcome so all options are being adressed?

:shrug:

This may be an off topic question.

If "the L2100 is aimed explicitly at desktops" is true, why are we comparing Atom with Nano ? Why are we not comparing Nano L2100 with desktop CPU such as Phenom and Conroe ? (or even single core celeron).

No question is why isn't he comparing one of the lower models nano's with only atom but that's just my opinion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alucasa

This may be an off topic question.

If "the L2100 is aimed explicitly at desktops" is true, why are we comparing Atom with Nano ? Why are we not comparing Nano L2100 with desktop CPU such as Phenom and Conroe ? (or even single core celeron).

---

It't not off topic -- Intel has touted this CPU as targeted specifically for low cost and low power (albiet low performance). These two attributes have historically been tagged to Via's C7 line.

So the concensus is to compare it to Nano, assuming like for like. One can argue the case either way ... Atom to Nano is ok... the non-consumer/retail/DIY Atom just happened to show up in the mini-ITX form factor in a boxed retail board. Hence the desktop to desktop comparision.

Frankly, it is in this space that Via will do very well with Nano. However, as you push down into the smaller form factors it becomes more advantaged to Atom.

I think alot here mixes performance together with cost and TDP that is what products like Atom is targetted at.

Also the VIA Nano cost alot more. A VIA Nano with board cost around 250-350$ The Atom here around 80-100$. Not even to talk about what a LV/ULV "regular" mobile CPU would cost plus board.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shintai

I think alot here mixes performance together with cost and TDP that is what products like Atom is targetted at.

Also the VIA Nano cost alot more. A VIA Nano with board cost around 250-350$ The Atom here around 80-100$. Not even to talk about what a LV/ULV "regular" mobile CPU would cost plus board.

---

PCper thinks it will come in around 100 bucks (nano+board combo). I picked up my Atom board from newegg at 65 or 69 bucks or so. I didn't think much of it myself, pretty simple board... 2 SATA and 1 IDE which I used to build a simple NAS to back up files. Given the application that I was thinking about using, and the costs ... the Atom board is much better suited.

I was not surprised at the performance delta to nano, but I was a bit surprised by the power reported by most of the sites.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JumpingJack

PCper thinks it will come in around 100 bucks (nano+board combo). I picked up my Atom board from newegg at 65 or 69 bucks or so. I didn't think much of it myself, pretty simple board... 2 SATA and 1 IDE which I used to build a simple NAS to back up files. Given the application that I was thinking about using, and the costs ... the Atom board is much better suited.

I was not surprised at the performance delta to nano, but I was a bit surprised by the power reported by most of the sites.

---

Previous/current VIA boards/combo of the same style costs 2-3 times more. So I wouldnt bet on it.

http://www.edbpriser.dk/Products/Lis...hArea=products

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JumpingJack

PCper thinks it will come in around 100 bucks (nano+board combo). I picked up my Atom board from newegg at 65 or 69 bucks or so. I didn't think much of it myself, pretty simple board... 2 SATA and 1 IDE which I used to build a simple NAS to back up files. Given the application that I was thinking about using, and the costs ... the Atom board is much better suited.

I was not surprised at the performance delta to nano, but I was a bit surprised by the power reported by most of the sites.

---

There is no way it is going to cost only 100.

The current C7 line of mini itx boards (CPU + mini-itx) costs at least 120 USD with low-end ones. Majority will cost 150USD to even 250 USD.

Have a look.
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/mainboards/via_c7

If Nano's performance is much better than C7, which is likely so, it is going to cost more than these.

Edit : Any word on dual-core Atom?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alucasa

There is no way it is going to cost only 100.

The current C7 line of mini itx boards (CPU + mini-itx) costs at least 120 USD with low-end ones. Majority will cost 150USD to even 250 USD.

Have a look.
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/mainboards/via_c7

If Nano's performance is much better than C7, which is likely so, it is going to cost more than these.

Edit : Any word on dual-core Atom?

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Dewd, JJ knows what he's talking about and most never argue but asks questions. If he says they're around $100 research what he says, then try to make your point.

C7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813153062

Quote:

---

JetWay J7F4K1G5D-PB VIA NanoBGA C7 Processor VIA CN700 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail
Embedded efficient processor, highly low power consumption
$99.99 3 Business Day Shipping $8.25
(Not available in HI, AK and PR)
In Stock

---

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Order=PRICE

C3 for $24 after rebate. That's the good news.

The bad news is they are all too slow for most uses. Then if you use a large PCI-E video card, you have to use a large power supply. Then you slap yourself when you realize you're limited to 1GB of RAM on a slow FSB:rolleyes:

Alright, I stand corrected. The lowest end C7 is 100 USD. (Not 120)
However, that is the lowest end of the chain. Unless VIA decides to be extremely aggressive in price, I don't see their new CPU + Mini ITX ( With decent features) going for 100USD.

C3, I've tried few of that before. It is only good for web applications and custom firewalls. For anything else, it is too ineffective in raw speed. Though it runs Ubuntu just fine.

I always thought it to be the other way around and alucasa the one who knew what he was talking about :shrug:

Anyway, that first newegg link isn't that board paired with a c7 aka not nano cpu? And c3 isn't quite a nano either? Or am totally on the wrong track :shrug:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alucasa

Alright, I stand corrected. The lowest end C7 is 100 USD. (Not 120)
However, that is the lowest end of the chain. Unless VIA decides to be extremely aggressive in price, I don't see their new CPU + Mini ITX ( With decent features) going for 100USD.

C3, I've tried few of that before. It is only good for web applications and custom firewalls. For anything else, it is too ineffective in raw speed. Though it runs Ubuntu just fine.

---

Hey, no biggie! I don't remember the site but VIA said they'd price the new products the same or similar. I saw one running Ubuntu and it wasn't that bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marvin_The_Martian

I always thought it to be the other way around and alucasa the one who knew what he was talking about :shrug:

Anyway, that first newegg link isn't that board paired with a c7 aka not nano cpu? And c3 isn't quite a nano either? Or am totally on the wrong track :shrug:

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Shrug:shrug: See^