Posted on 02/08/2009 9:40:29 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Although Intel's wildly popular Atom processor was originally conceived for mobile Internet devices with an eye toward eventually trickling into smartphones, it quickly caught on with netbooks and has since carved out a sizable chunk of the mobile landscape. The concept of cheap, fast-enough computing soon migrated from portables to the desktop, where it spawned a new class of delightfully small nettop systems. With Atom now available with two physical cores and an economic downturn causing many to tighten their budgets, the nettop looks to have a promising future, especially in cheap, media-centric PCs.
Except for one problem: while the Atom has just enough horsepower to deal with common, everyday tasks, the platform it's available on is an outdated throwback. Intel pairs Atom with its 945G-series chipsets, which first saw life way back in 2005. The 945 series isn't horribly lacking in the peripherals department, and its performance is acceptable given the Atom's modest aspirations on that front. But the chipset's Graphics Media Accelerator 950 is several generations behind the curve. The GMA 950's game compatibility is flaky, and its performance dismal. Even worse, it's unable to accelerate high-definition video playback. That might not be the sort of thing you need in a netbook with a limited 1024x600 display resolution, but a desktop or home theater PC plugged into a real monitor or high-definition TV is an entirely different story.
The Atom's antiquated chipset is clearly limiting the processor's appeal for some devices, but help has arrived from Nvidia in the form of the Ion reference design.
(Excerpt) Read more at techreport.com ...
fyi
two motherboards lurking beneath its stark white exterior.
I’m in the market for a good netbook. Any suggestions?
I have to believe AMD might be working on a competitor to Intel's Atom...
I’ve been wondering about those Dell Mini-9 things. My XPS laptop’s kinda bulky, but fast as hell.
Mainly to sit on my lap when I am watching TV and accessing the internet. I have a laptop which I am working from in addition to two desktops but it is too heavy. The netbooks are around 2.2 pounds and would be perfect for what I need to know. I won’t be doing any heavy duty work with one. So far I have been most attracted to the Samsung NC-10 but don’t want to spend that much. I like its eight hour battery life especially. I have AMD processors in all of my current computers but on this laptop I’m lucky to get an hour and a half out of the battery. Most of the time it is just plugged in so it isn’t a big deal. But on the netbook I don’t want to mess with cords. So battery life is paramount.
Flipping the Ion box over provides access to a 2.5" hard drive bay.
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
The Ion board measures a scant 2.95” x 3.93” (75 mm x 100 mm), which is about the footprint of a deck of cards and not-so-coincidentally also the measurements of the Pico-ITX form factor.
As I remember you have a netbook...what are the specs?
Thanks.
I bought an Acer netbook at Walmart.com last week for $298. It came loaded with XP. It seems to operate well for surfing the net and email. That’s what I bought it for. The type on the screen is a little smaller than I’d like, but I have a big monitor on my desktop and it’s better to be able to go online when you want to, instead of doing the impatient dance because some hog won’t give you back your computer.
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# Computer Geeks $208.99 Yes (In Stock)
That is getting down there
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