Wait for Atom?

[cgl]

Hi all
I have been wanting (but procrastinating) about creating a home server that will run my backups as well as downloads, slimcenter and temporary ripping station. I have found an off-the-shelf setup that could work (I still have to choose the operating system, I am leaning towards ubuntu to start, but may go the Markspace or freeNAS route depending on how much work it is to set up).

In stock, off the shelf I have the following for a good price:

Tower Yeong Yang Slim Desktop 7301, mATX, USB, Audio, 8cm Fan, 250W
Motherboard Intel D201GLY2, SiS662, FSB 533,DDR2, LAN, S775
CPU Intel Celeron 220, 775P, FSB 533MHz
Memory 1024MB (1GB) DDR-2 PC-667, 533MHz. (1x1024MB)
Graphiccard Integrated SiS Mirage 1 graphic engine (128MB Shared)
Harddisc 160GB, SATA-133, 7200/ 8.9ms/ 16MB
DVD-ROM 20x DVDRW +/- R, +/-RW Lite-On 20A3H (20x DVDRW. 48x CDRW)
Card-Reader Apacer 15-in-1, USB 2.0
Sound-Card ADI AD1888 Audio-Codec
LAN-Card Broadcom LAN controllers 10/100 MBit/s
Peripheral Interfaces 6x USB 2.0 (2x Rear, 2x Front, 2x Intern), Serial, Parallel, 2xPS/2

But on order, exactly the same price (319 swiss francs) and coming soon is the Atom version:

Tower Yeong Yang Slim Desktop 7301, mATX, USB, Audio, 8cm Fan, 250W
Motherboard Intel BLKD945GCLF, i945GC, FSB 533,DDR2, LAN, S775
CPU Intel Atom Processor 230, 775P, FSB 533MHz
Memory 1024MB (1GB) DDR-2 PC-667, 533MHz. (1x1024MB)
Graphiccard Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accellerator (GMA950), 128MB Shared
Harddisc 160GB, SATA-133, 7200/ 8.9ms/ 16MB
DVD-ROM 20x DVDRW +/- R, +/-RW Lite-On 20A4H (20x DVDRW. 48x CDRW)
Card-Reader Apacer 15-in-1, USB 2.0
Sound-Card Intel 2-Channel Audio
LAN-Card Realtek LAN controllers 10/100 MBit/s
Peripheral Interfaces 6x USB 2.0 (2x Rear, 2x Front, 2x Intern), Serial, Parallel, 2xPS/2 (Keyboard/Mouse)

What do you guys think? Is the second configuration worth the wait? Is the atom really going to be much better performance? Is the different chipset going to make any difference in the power consumption if the box is run headless?

Thanks
Christian

[PeterDB]

Hi CGL,

The big advantage for choosing the Atom based board would really be power consumption.

However, having followed closely many reviews, the Intel D945GCLF (note, you mention the Intel BLKD945GCLF, which is the 10-pack for distributors) is that the height of the Atom CPU cooler including fan is higher than the backplate, meaning, that you might have issues with room in many itx cases.

/Peter

[PeterDB]

btw.. I am based in Switzerland too, where did you find the Atom board here?

/Peter

[Leon van Bommel]

What do you guys think? Is the second configuration worth the wait? Is the atom really going to be much better performance? Is the different chipset going to make any difference in the power consumption if the box is run headless?

Yes, since the Atom has already arrived it's basicly a dumb choice to go for the old configuration. The Atom is a bit faster, and the system as a whole should have a bit lower power consumption.

[Inspector 2211]

Judging from all the information I have (and I planned to use either the Little Valley 2 board or the Little Falls board in a mass production scenario, thus I did my homework), the "Little Falls" board is going to be:
- slower than the "Little Valley 2" board (see Tomshardware for benchmarks)
- more expensive than the "Little Valley 2" board
We were quoted volume quantities of the "Little Valley 2" board for less
than US$60, but were advised that the "Little Falls" board would be
in the mid-seventies.

The "Little Valley 2" board has been cannibalizing Intel's previous entry level business (i.e. a combination of Intel MicroATX boards and a single core Celeron CPU) and that's why Intel is "knifing the baby" - the Little Valley 2 board goes end of life at the end of June. Yes, you got that right, a month from now. (OK, retailers will probably have some stock throughout July or so.)

In a nutshell: Get the "Little Valley 2" board while you still can.
The replacement, "Little Falls", is both slower and more expensive.

[bobkoure]

"Little Valley 2" == D201GLY2 (AFAICT - see Little Valley 2)
I used to have to track Intel/AMD internal names with released product names. They tend to be... non-obvious.

[Leon van Bommel]

Toms comparison is based on a E2160 vs. an Atom. Obviously the Core based processors (and 2 of them: it's a dual core) are faster. But the Celeron 220 of the LV2 board isn't a Core 2 Duo in disguise. It's performance is also significantly behind an E2160, just like that of the Atom. I've seen that clock for clock, an Atom delivers around 90% of a Celeron M for multimedia. But the Atom runs at 1.6Ghz/4W vs the Celeron at 1.2Ghz/19W. Superpi is a different matter, but do you plan to run that all day? I must be on the wrong forum if that's the case

And the Atom based board is actually slightly CHEAPER than the old board. I'm certain, as we have them in stock since monday. People claiming the new board to be more expensive likely have some stock left of the old boards. Or they might want to score a few extra bucks on the new stock of course.

If you want to be certain to get a distinct jump in performance waiting for the dual core Atom might be an option. Esp. for the people running multiple streams this might be a better option. It won't be that long before it'll arrive, just a few months.

P.S. Since getting sued over a productname Intel chooses geographical names as their official productnames.

[Inspector 2211]

- Atom has no out-of-order execution but Celeron does, hence even at 1.6 GHz Atom is slower than the 1.2 GHz Celeron 220 on the "Little Valley 2" board. A 1.6 GHz Atom is roughly 3 times slower than the E2160. The 1.2 GHz Celeron 220 is roughly 2.5 times slower than the E2160.

- AMAX in Fremont, CA (a major Intel distributor, not a mom-and-pop retail shop), gave us a sub-$60 quote for 1000+ quantities the D201GLY2 (Little Valley 2) and with respect to the "Little Falls" board they said (a month ago, I admit):
[QUOTE]
We don't have a firm price from Intel yet. We are looking at around $76.50 ea now. We won't know the final cost from Intel probably around mid June when the boards are available.
[UNQUOTE]

- As to availability of the "Little Falls" board, do a Froogle search for "D201GLY2" and you'll get many hits. Do a Froogle search for "D945GCLF" (Little Falls board) and you'll get 0 hits. That's right, 0 hits. Nobody has it yet. mini-box.com estimates that they'll have it on June 6th.

[Leon van Bommel]

Luckily for you AMAX isn't a distributor.
http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/rese...eng/227304.htm
For your application I suggest buying in the official channel, pricing in general will be lower when using an official distributor then using a sub-distri or reseller.

And again, it's in stock. Each and every reseller that ordered in a timely fashion should have had deliveries by now. Delivery of june 6 is actually the 3rd shipment, meaning they ordered it late. F.i. We're scheduled for another delivery on june 6 and then june 20.

And BLKD945GCLF actually gets you plenty of hits, and more important: IN STOCK. Why you would want to buy 1000+ in a retail package actually is quite a riddle to me as the 10-packs contain the same items, and have the same warranty.

[Inspector 2211]

...they don't mince words:

“quite slow”
“lame”
“unbelievably slow”
“Celeron 220 … only clocked at 1.2 GHz … but in some tests it was more than twice as fast as the Atom N230”
“too slow”
“incredibly slow, slower than we’ve seen in years”
“it’s slower than older Celerons, including 220 that we tested”
“These first scores leave a bitter taste in the mouth, don’t they?”

Which is basically what I've said above.

My advice stands: Get a D201GLY2 (Little Valley 2) board while you still can.