RE: Mac Mini power performance

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I Think the problem with the Atom based mobos you can buy at the
moment,
is that although the Atom chip itself is nice & conservative, - IIRC
one
model goes right down to 2W, & the common 260/270 are around 4W/8W I
believe, - but they are typically paired with a crappy old 945/ICH7
chipset combination, which as you know are fairly aged desktop chips,
not in the least optimised for low power use, and typically run to about
40W alone give or take a bit... Thus most Atom board around just now
can't possibly do any better than about 50W idle...

When they get built around a design with a purpose-designed low-power
chipset, then it should be possible to get Atom-based PC platforms that
consume a comparable amount to the new minis...

Paul G.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf
> Of JonShaw
> Sent: 16 March 2009 21:40
> To: UKHA Group
> Subject: [ukha_d] Mac Mini power performance
>
> One of the most impressive things about the new Mac Mini is its idle
> power
> consumption -13W - which for me would make it a perfect HA platform in
> terms
> of power electrical and compute for normal everyday workloads and
> camera
> work when the house is unoccupied.  However without a COM port its
> useless
> for Cortex and I'd like a couple of PCI slots for voice-modem and
> camera
> card.    I was hoping the Atom boards would have at least addressed
low
> power but claimed low power Mini ITX systems seem energy hogs compared
> with
> the Mac Mini.  While Fit PC is very low power (and has COM port!)   it
> is
> more than half the price of a Mini but a compute weakling by
> comparison.
>
>
>
> Are any of the manufacturers of PC or mini ITX boards planning to
build
> something that competes of the power-performance of the Mac Mini?  I
am
> beginning to wonder if a active-standby  Cortex system might work out
> cheaper (high & low power machines with high power machine on only
when
> house unoccupied)!
>
>
>
> 2p
>
> Jon
>
>


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