4 ms·

How come there aren't any Intel Atom based single board computers at a similar price point? These are basically phone or tablet class hardware, and if you go to

How come there aren't any Intel Atom based single board computers at a similar price point? These are basically phone or tablet class hardware, and if you go to any of the chinese stores, like Ali express or Banggood, there's plenty of cheap Atom tablets with Windows and Android dual boot. Wouldn't an x86 board be much easier to use with Linux and all sorts of drivers?

tavert 11y ago
There is http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/22/intel-compute-stick-2016-review/ http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/22/intel-compute-stick-2016-...
- sorenjan 11y ago
  $159 isn't exactly a similar price point, and it's not designed to be used as a headless server, like a simple NAS. And how would you use any GPIO for sensors? There are tablets on Banggood that costs about half of what the Compute stick costs, and that's with a battery and a touch display.
  - tavert 11y ago
    The Edison's a closer comparison in terms of target market. If you have source, porting to ARM isn't hard enough to make Intel boards serious competitors in this space. If you don't have source, you're more likely to need to use "Windows IoT" or whatever awful thing they're trying, rather than Linux.
ChrisDutrow 11y ago
I was wondering the same thing. Maybe Intel doesn't want it's Atom brand "cheapened" or something? Or maybe those tablets are selling at a loss?
imaginenore 11y ago
Just get a mini-itx board on eBay or a board-cpu combo: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Biostar-Mother-Board-A68I-E350-DELUXE-Mini-ITX-CPU-Combo-Brand-New-Board-/262279282535 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Biostar-Mother-Board-A68I-E350-DELUX... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-745-USFF-Ultra-Small-Form-System-Board-Motherboard-PK096-CN-0PK096-/272153998996 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-745-USFF-Ultra-Small-F... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-DH61AG-Desktop-Board-DDR3-Thin-Mini-ITX-LGA1155-Refurbished-Board-Only-/182046976246 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-DH61AG-Desktop-Board-DDR3-Thin... And the CPUs are cheap too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-Processor-G630-2-7-Ghz-3-MB-Cache-LGA-1155-/111947799803 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-Processor-G6... http://www.ebay.com/itm/QTY-1x-INTEL-Celeron-CPU-G550-2-6GHZ-2MB-LGA1155-SR061-/131747970837 http://www.ebay.com/itm/QTY-1x-INTEL-Celeron-CPU-G550-2-6GHZ... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-G2030-3GHz-3M-Cache-Dual-Core-CPU-Processor-LGA1155-/201545162114 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-G2030-3GHz-3M-Cache-Du...
- kogepathic 11y ago
  Or just buy an old laptop. I recently bought a Dell E6230 (3rd Gen Core i3) from eBay for $90. Fully functional laptop including RAM, hard drive, keyboard and LCD. People often forget that the used laptop market exists. I use a Dell E6220 now as my main laptop because it accepts 16GB DDR3 and lasts 6+ hours on a 6 cell battery. Sure, I would love to have a laptop with an HD or 4K screen, but for $100-200 I can buy the next previous generation each year and use the old one as a server for projects. They consume ~7W idle with the LCD on. I'm sure that would drop to 3-4W with the screen off. I used to have a MacBook (2011), but the thought of paying $1500-2000 for a new laptop where I can't even upgrade the memory, WiFi, or storage (easily) strikes me as insane.
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    I buy or get stacks of old laptops: sure the boards are bigger but full featured and for experiments I do not really mind the size...
    - ChrisDutrow 11y ago
      Why old laptops instead of old desktops? Because of the power consumption?
      - kogepathic 11y ago
        Yes. I am not aware of any recent desktop computers that can idle at 3W and provide close to the same peak performance as a used laptop does. Obviously Intel has been making good progress on this, I have heard that Sky Lake chips can idle at <10W, but those are still quite expensive. Also by buying a used laptop you get something which is already designed for low power use (e.g. 35W CPUs are pretty much the maximum) and has a built in UPS. Even if the battery is worn out, you're still likely to get 30-60 minutes of run time.
        ChrisDutrow 11y ago
        Thanks for posting this! The idling at 3w is a huge deal I think. What do you use these for? Is there a way to add an extra NIC card? What models do you find work best for this? Edit: This might be a really dumb question, but might it be possible to put a laptop CPU into a server motherboard? Not sure if the laptop i7's/i5's are LGA 2011 and if the motherboard architecture would be compatible? If this were the case you could use the server board dual NIC and out of band management.
nl 11y ago
There's the Intel Edison[1]. It's roughly double the price of the Pi though. [1] https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272 https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272
- Narishma 11y ago
  It also has no audio/video output, no ethernet and no SD card.

tavert 11y ago

There is http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/22/intel-compute-stick-2016-review/ http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/22/intel-compute-stick-2016-...

sorenjan 11y ago
$159 isn't exactly a similar price point, and it's not designed to be used as a headless server, like a simple NAS. And how would you use any GPIO for sensors? There are tablets on Banggood that costs about half of what the Compute stick costs, and that's with a battery and a touch display.
- tavert 11y ago
  The Edison's a closer comparison in terms of target market. If you have source, porting to ARM isn't hard enough to make Intel boards serious competitors in this space. If you don't have source, you're more likely to need to use "Windows IoT" or whatever awful thing they're trying, rather than Linux.

ChrisDutrow 11y ago

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe Intel doesn't want it's Atom brand "cheapened" or something? Or maybe those tablets are selling at a loss?

imaginenore 11y ago

Just get a mini-itx board on eBay or a board-cpu combo: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Biostar-Mother-Board-A68I-E350-DELUXE-Mini-ITX-CPU-Combo-Brand-New-Board-/262279282535 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Biostar-Mother-Board-A68I-E350-DELUX... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-745-USFF-Ultra-Small-Form-System-Board-Motherboard-PK096-CN-0PK096-/272153998996 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-745-USFF-Ultra-Small-F... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-DH61AG-Desktop-Board-DDR3-Thin-Mini-ITX-LGA1155-Refurbished-Board-Only-/182046976246 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-DH61AG-Desktop-Board-DDR3-Thin... And the CPUs are cheap too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-Processor-G630-2-7-Ghz-3-MB-Cache-LGA-1155-/111947799803 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-Processor-G6... http://www.ebay.com/itm/QTY-1x-INTEL-Celeron-CPU-G550-2-6GHZ-2MB-LGA1155-SR061-/131747970837 http://www.ebay.com/itm/QTY-1x-INTEL-Celeron-CPU-G550-2-6GHZ... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-G2030-3GHz-3M-Cache-Dual-Core-CPU-Processor-LGA1155-/201545162114 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-G2030-3GHz-3M-Cache-Du...

kogepathic 11y ago
Or just buy an old laptop. I recently bought a Dell E6230 (3rd Gen Core i3) from eBay for $90. Fully functional laptop including RAM, hard drive, keyboard and LCD. People often forget that the used laptop market exists. I use a Dell E6220 now as my main laptop because it accepts 16GB DDR3 and lasts 6+ hours on a 6 cell battery. Sure, I would love to have a laptop with an HD or 4K screen, but for $100-200 I can buy the next previous generation each year and use the old one as a server for projects. They consume ~7W idle with the LCD on. I'm sure that would drop to 3-4W with the screen off. I used to have a MacBook (2011), but the thought of paying $1500-2000 for a new laptop where I can't even upgrade the memory, WiFi, or storage (easily) strikes me as insane.
- tluyben2 11y ago
  I buy or get stacks of old laptops: sure the boards are bigger but full featured and for experiments I do not really mind the size...
  - ChrisDutrow 11y ago
    Why old laptops instead of old desktops? Because of the power consumption?
    - kogepathic 11y ago
      Yes. I am not aware of any recent desktop computers that can idle at 3W and provide close to the same peak performance as a used laptop does. Obviously Intel has been making good progress on this, I have heard that Sky Lake chips can idle at <10W, but those are still quite expensive. Also by buying a used laptop you get something which is already designed for low power use (e.g. 35W CPUs are pretty much the maximum) and has a built in UPS. Even if the battery is worn out, you're still likely to get 30-60 minutes of run time.
      - ChrisDutrow 11y ago
        Thanks for posting this! The idling at 3w is a huge deal I think. What do you use these for? Is there a way to add an extra NIC card? What models do you find work best for this? Edit: This might be a really dumb question, but might it be possible to put a laptop CPU into a server motherboard? Not sure if the laptop i7's/i5's are LGA 2011 and if the motherboard architecture would be compatible? If this were the case you could use the server board dual NIC and out of band management.

nl 11y ago

There's the Intel Edison[1]. It's roughly double the price of the Pi though. [1] https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272 https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272

Narishma 11y ago
It also has no audio/video output, no ethernet and no SD card.