Good Things In Small Packages: Seven Nettop Platforms, Tested

[splinters]

Anytime someone brings up gaming in the comments, I can tell they don't get it.

Just because there is a GPU doesn't mean that a nettop is designed for fps in crysis, wow, or any other game.

These are basically desktop replacements for the current office worker. If they need to run MS office + web browser, this should be more than adequate on the cost, space/size, productivity, and energy usage charts.

I wouldn't want my employees playing games on work computers and I want low-power so I'm not burning up 500W's per employee when I can be burning up 25W on average. Multiply that power advantage over 1000 workers and you can see the fit for nettops vs traditional desktops.

-S

 

[tralalak]

The VIA Nano X2 L4025 1.2GHz processor (only for Zotac ZBOX nano VD01) have max. TDP 18W. This is not the best Nano X2 processor at the same clock 1.2GHz because VIA have also VIA Nano X2 E-Series L4300E 1.2+GHz (1.46GHz capable) with max TDP 13W.

VIA VE-900 Mini-ITX Desktop Board power consumption idle (VIA Nano X2 L4050 1.4GHz)
idle: 16W !!! (• Akasa CryptoMini ITX 60W)
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rr9iV056s4

Why only Arcsoft's TotalMedia Theatre 5 and VLC?
With Windows Media Player under Win 7 or Media Player Clasisc Home Cinema (MPC-HC) under Win XP an Win 7 and also Adobe Flash 11 youtube watch in HD 720p/1080p works VIA VX900 MSP (VIA Chrome9 HD IGP with ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine) with enable hardware-accelerated video decoding => lower power consumtion under Video Playback H.264

P.S. brand new single-chip all-in-one chipset VIA VX11 MSP with DirectX11 IGP VIA Chrome 645/640 coming soon...

 

[Guest]

Wow... I would have expected the Nano to use the newer VIA chipset with the Chrome 9 HD. The Chrome 9 HC is just too dated. Were talking about 6 years out of date, what were they thinking?

 

[tralalak]

IJustWantToPost13>> Ok, I explain because in article is not correctly.

• VIA VX11 (Media System Processor „MSP 4“) – DirectX 11 IGP VIA Chrome 645/640 (GPU Core: S3 Graphics Chrome 600-series) new process technology (lithography).
• VIA VX900 MSP (Media System Processor „MSP 3“) - DirectX 9 IGP VIA Chrome9 HD, 80nm lithography.
• VIA VN1000 NortBridge + VT8261 SouthBridge (DirectX 10.1 IGP VIA Chrome 520 in NortBridge) (GPU core: S3 Graphics Chrome 500-series)
• VIA VX855 MSP (Media System Processor „MSP 2“) - DirectX 9 IGP VIA Chrome9 HCM
• VIA VX800 MSP (Media System Processor) - DirectX 9 IGP VIA Chrome9 HC3
• VIA CN896 NothBridge + VT8251 or VT8237S SouthBridge (DirectX 9 IGP VIA Chrome9 HC in NorthBridge)
• VIA CN800 NothBridge + VT8237R Plus SouthBridge (VIA UniChrome Pro IGP in NortBridge)
• VIA CX700M SMP (System Media Processor) (VIA UniChrome Pro II IGP in NortBridge)
• VIA CN700 NothBridge + VT8237A SouthBridge (VIA UniChrome Pro IGP in NortBridge)
Chipset VN1000 was first NortBridge with DirectX 10.1 IGP VIA Chrome 520 @ S3 Graphics Chrome 500-series with 32 Stream Processors and 4 ROP on the 65nm Fujitsu lithography.
VIA VX11 is the 4th-generation, highly integrated media system processor (MSP4) which provides state-of-theart x86 PC capabilities with low power CE features in a FCBGA package. MSP4 is designed with small form factor media-intensive applications in mind

Source: http://www.computextaipei.com.tw/en_US/product/info.html?id=64478165B85868110177F91F611D1F11
Source: http://savage3d.tistory.com/338

 

[heffeque]

I think this review is bias. Its missing the AMD small form factor benchmark. Any game.

I think that they should correct the review in some way. There are so many things missing.

First of all: price. They don't cost the same.

Second of all: video quality. They don't show how good/bad they do on video image quality.

Third of all: Games. They don't benchmark any game at all. No need for Metro 2033 benchmarks, we know that won't do, but what's with no WoW, no TF2, no Portal 2, no Civ5 (on small maps and low settings)... There's tons of games that run on these systems.

Forth: DirectCompute and OpenCL. Obviously it's not going to give impressive results, but it would be interesting to see if they'd help improving speed on their weak CPU performance.

Fifth (and last that I can think of): Browser performance. Not only pure numbers, also the "feel" of the browser on different situations.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I think this review is bias. Its missing the AMD small form factor benchmark. Any game.[/citation]
The E350 and E450, on every benchmark, in "AMD" green.
And there are go gaming benchmarks because these are clearly not intended for gaming
...
Is it me or have about half the people who read this article totally missed the point?

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]Yuka[/nom]Not a very good review, since you missed the most important points of a Nettop:- TV compatibility and how they handle them (ease of use and cabling)- Accessories- Price vs commodity (the most important of them all)- Noise (most important of them all)You can get a laptop and plug it into your TV room when needed instead of a nettop, but if you're going to review them, do it properly. The CPU capabilities of them are not a big issue and you focused too much time on it when you could review something else (like noise or packaging).Cheers![/citation]
All the units are pretty much silent, stick an 30Gb SSD inside and run an XBMC Live install and you also have no comparative for TV playback. Apart from the VIA which struggled with 1080p the review said they all played back flawlessly. You may spot differences in machine when no using as an XBMC box but if you are then just buy the cheapest one and you will see no difference from the most expensive.

 

[-Fran-]

[citation][nom]benkraft[/nom]You'd be right if this were a review of the ZBoxes themselves, but it's not.Our intention was to gauge the various platforms' performance.As far as noise is concerned, I can give you some numbers in dB(A) measured two feet (60 cm) from the front of the units.idle / h.264 / VC-1 (Blu-ray) / load (Prime95)ID82: 32,3 / 32,3 / 32,3 /37,4ID36: 33,3 / 34,1 / 33,3 / 34,0VD01: 32,6 / 34,8 / 34,8 / 34,8 The AMD platforms were about the same as the ID 82 (E-450) and a little quieter overall than the VD01 (E-350).[/citation]

Those are very good numbers for them all. Thanks for that. But as you could see for yourself, the appeal of the little things you reviewed is not the performance per sè, but the packaging. Nice pictures and all, but putting them in a living room for comparison to a regular case and stuff, would've been awesome.

And I'll add to one comment before me: where's the video quality comparison? Decoding HAS to be good and most of all, fluid (which you already said it was, thanks).

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]All the units are pretty much silent, stick an 30Gb SSD inside and run an XBMC Live install and you also have no comparative for TV playback. Apart from the VIA which struggled with 1080p the review said they all played back flawlessly. You may spot differences in machine when no using as an XBMC box but if you are then just buy the cheapest one and you will see no difference from the most expensive.[/citation]

Thing is, unless you're using some other form of storage (NAS or external drive), you're stuck with a 500GB+ of HDD IMO. I know your idea is good and all, but since it's not included in the package, it's kind of a moot point as well. I don't plan on doing streaming all the time and i do have some family videos I play that I encoded in h264 and 1080p, so I do need the space to play them, since the WiFi doesn't do for streaming from my computer

Cheers!

 

[tacobravo]

Why does these stupid ads keep popping up after each new page!?!?!

 

[Hyperman]

They have done something wrong when they tested the vd01. I bought one on sale for 260$, and run windows with xbmc on it. When i play a 20gb h264 file on it the processor only hits 30% Its no lag or stuttering. I'm very plased with it as a htpc. Don't know how they made the processor struggle so much.
It must have been in software mode, becouse hardware acellerated the movies plays fine. It boots fast enough, 50 sec. until it's ready to play movies.

 

[esrever]

The brazo platform is quite amazing, Im surprised that it pretty much matched the N2700 even tho AMD is on 40nm and intel is on 32nm. Also the power consumption for basically the same level of performance is very on point.

 

[tralalak]

Hyperman>> I agree.

VIA VX900 MSP (VIA Chrome9 HD IGP) can't only hardware-accelerated video decoding Samsung Oceanic demo Very-High Profile level 5.1 for H.264-based content 40mbps => with SW brute force CPUs Nano X2 = softly stuttered.


• Trailer Indian Jones 1080p 21mbs (High Profile level 4.1 for H.264-based content)
source: http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv53/Artthurko/HighProfilelevel41forH264-basedcontent.png

• DXVA Checker
source: http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv53/Artthurko/DXVAChecker_2.png

 

[Russosaur]

There is more to life than endless benchmarking and Crysis.

D:

 

[K2N hater]

Considering the Via chip performed rather decently for its age we can easily assume the latest Via chips would make some good competition. Even then we can spot the Via X2 tested is actually a good performer for single-threaded applications which makes it a great platform for the typical office usage along with its tiny form factor that once screwed to the back of the monitor saves a lot of work space.

Concerning AMD the new Trinity platform is more efficient than Brazos yet more powerful, especially due to its much superior memory controller and improved graphics. AMD holds the key to take a bigger slice of the market except for the high-end niche.

 

[ashinms]

Oh, Cyrix. I missed you so much since you changed your name. Where have you been?

 

[ashinms]

"Single-threaded applications like Lame, iTunes, and WinZip that rely on good IPC throughput and high clock rates allow the AMD APUs to flex their per-clock performance advantage." One sentence I never thought I would hear in a modern setting.

 

[_Shadow_]

For the price its actually not that bad of a deal.

 

[rebel1280]

I am in the process of evaluating systems for call center upgrade, these would fit nice behind the monitors, would like to see anti-virus bench marks If it was mentioned, excuse the question cause i missed it but, what speed are the drives (4200, 5400, 7200) would adding SSD give same performance upgrade as on desktop PCs or due to CPU limitations not as much.

 

[malavena]

The main deterrent for buying these things to use as an HTPC is the stereo plug. When you have to spend as much as the computer's price for a set of speakers with HDMI decoder (where a decent 5.1 system w/o decoder costs under $100, but you need separate plugs for front, read and center/woofer), it just doesn't add up.

 

[dark_lord69]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]In all honesty, when it can run Crysis...I'll be impressed. Until then...alrighty.[/citation]
Sure it can...
It's called GaiKai (or OnLive works too)
LOL

 

[Guest]

Hi all

do any of these units support "auto restart on power loss" ?

thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

Thank you for this article! You have made intelligible the sprawling jungle that is the zotac universe. Seriously, this article is amazing.

 

[Guest]

Very interesting article. I run a Shuttle Atom D525 based XBMC system. It is passively cooled which means silent. The Zotac systems sound and look great. The size is very appealing but small systems with fans usually mean high pitched noise and this would be a negative. Almost every small media player with a fan is unbearably annoying because of that. Wish they could get rid of the fans... Nevertheless, I really found this article useful.