Now, after there is information around a low-power AMD Athlon 64 2000 + already for a few days that you want to compete against Intel’s Atom processors, the appropriate Board seems found. The biggest disadvantage so far was that there was only micro-ATX mainboards with the 780G-Chipsatz, a first Mini-ITX board is presented.

Exactly such a Board will from now on with the Intel ITX mainboards compete can and thanks to generally newer technology most likely be the better option. Previous preliminary testing put the Athlon 2000 + more or less on a standard ATX Desktop Board or maximum a micro-version of it, which is significantly larger than the ITX format with 24 x 24 cm. With the MINIX 780 g SP128MB, J & W technology enters the land of the new AMD motherboards with the dimensions of 17 x 17 cm and can compete directly with the Intel systems. Intel’s boards in this area had so far not a competitor, the technique used is therefore currently not really the latest. The current chipset, 945GC is inferior nm significantly the 780 g with its manufacturing technology of 130 nm not only on paper in 55, the AMD chip on the credit side recorded almost all the new technical features; all of this even at a much lower power consumption.

The MINIX 780 g SP128MB offers course current DirectX-10-graphics support in the form of an integrated Radeon HD 3200 with 128 MB side-port memory. Side-port is a technique, recruited from the notebook pane, which provides memory integrated graphics card, so that the CPU (incl. Northbridge) and energy-saving modes idle system memory can switch which would otherwise be disallowed due to access on the part of the video card on the system memory. For the ability to upgrade in addition is a PCIe-ready x 16 slot of the second generation, which can be fitted with video cards. The socket AM2 + provides support for quad-core processors up to a TDP of 95 Watts, which includes all low-power Phenom processors but also the 95-watt version of Phenom 9750. Two DDR2-SO-DIMM memory slots, Gigabit LAN, 7.1 sound, four SATA ports and even eSATA and many more things that we know from a 780G-Platine in the ATX form factor, also be found at the small subjects a place. The most important ports can already be read on the basis of the I/O Panel.

Is AMD’s upcoming processor Athlon 64 2000 + 1.0 GHz clock and run at a voltage of about 0.9 to 1.0 Volts. It is based on the current G2 stepping and comes along with 512 KB L2 cache. As one of the first processors an Athlon went 64 2000 + for 30 pounds on eBay over the virtual counter already last weekend. As TDP, there seem to verify 8 Watts referred to, with which the processor on the paper behind the atom processor from Intel, which has a TDP of 4 Watts, slips. However, since the chipset imperative is for use, this small advantage of processor at a great disadvantage for Intel is inverted. The 22.2 watt TDP of the 945GC (PDF document) are well above the power consumption of the 780 g, even if there are very different statements about this. While some websites rock solid claim that consumption of the 780 g is always below a Watts, we give the belief that this may be at maximum 11 Watts, rather because minimums and maximums are we know rarely at the same level. Officially AMD can be, but unfortunately not in the cards look, specifies only the idle value (see screenshot). So not really given comparability between the TDP of the Intel chipset, and the real maximum power consumption of the AMD chipset should continue to be taken into account and allows only conditional conclusions. Another plus for the AMD Board might be the use of SO-DIMMs, so RAM bars, which are used in notebooks and are therefore more compact and energy-efficient than the DDR SDRAMs usual in the desktop segment.

All in all might be the motherboard, not only coupled with the new low-power processor, AMD’s answer to Intel’s push into the Nettop-and NetBook market. The price, availability, and other products in this direction will decide whether such a venture is successful. Intel ITX mainboard euros currently no 50 along with an atom processor with 1.6 GHz – an availability but also still not guaranteed. A bit of time in this market seems so still exists.