5 ms·

Without PCIe it's not clear to me what advantages x86 offers in this form factor. I guess an Intel GPU is a plus.

by partialrecall 7y ago

RachelF 7y ago
The Atom CPU should be faster than an Arm.
- deelowe 7y ago
  We sure about that? If we take a common use-case, emulators are very well optimized on ARM these days (more so than PC in some situations).
  - pizza234 7y ago
    It depends if one talks about Atoms in general or specific models. The Celeron J4105 (which powers the ODROID H2), is technically an Atom, and it's massively faster than an RPi 4 (2-5x), but I don't know about the Z8300. Based on Passmark (which is an arbitrary choice), Rock Pi X and RPi 4 may have comparable performance; if that was established, and I wanted a cheap SBC, I'd definitely go with the former.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - pizza234 7y ago
      Correction: as pointed out, the J4105 does not belong to the Atom, but the Celeron family (although the architecture, Goldmont Plus, may be used in the future for Atom), so the comparison is not correct.
- akmittal 7y ago
  Raspberry pi 4 should be as fast as Atom x5-Z8300
  - shifto 7y ago
    Yeah but using an Intel Compute stick with the Atom and a Pi 4 both with Ubuntu the Atom is definitely faster in my experience.
    - pizza234 7y ago
      Real-world comparison here: https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1907128-HV-1907127HV99 https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1907128-HV-1907127HV99 it's hard to make an absolute conclusion; it seems that the Pi 4 is faster than the Z8300 in more cases, but not all. I wouldn't categorize these results as "definitely faster" though.
      - shifto 7y ago
        I think disk IO makes a lot of difference and I guess (didn't look it up) the Atom might get better IO results out of the eMMC SSD than the Pi4 does.
dbuder 7y ago
x86 ISA means you don't have to rely on community support. It really needs 8gb of onboard memory though, sbc+memory upgrade+sd card+power supply = more expensive than a dual cpu server from 9 years ago
- partialrecall 7y ago
  This would be more power efficient though.
  - dbuder 7y ago
    And portable , but if it doesn't have enough resources to face the web securely, what is the point. Running your operating system from SD is just terrible, even USB is more reliable. x86 means getting a bluetooth keyboard to work doesn't involve a long walkthrough that doesn't always work.
saagarjha 7y ago
It’s cheap and it’s x86.
- partialrecall 7y ago
  I get that; it's cheap and low power, two things I like (and can also get from arm devices.) But what's the appeal in x86 without expansion ports? It seems to me I can run whatever software I have on either, so the differentiating factor should be hardware support, but without a PCI slot I don't really get it. Having an intel GPU is nice enough I guess. I might get one just for that.
  - mrighele 7y ago
    > But what's the appeal in x86 without expansion ports? You may have easier time trying to run some alternative OS such as one of the BSDs, Haiku, ReactOS, or even Windows.
  - pizza234 7y ago
    Everybody has different use cases. For example, I use my Intel-based SBC as headless server. The only thing I need is two SATA ports available (which the SBC I own has), and the condition that's it's a small and cheap machine. For a use case like mine, it's perfect. I don't need to think about using a certain distribution and ultimately depending on a producer. I used to have ARM boards, so I know :-) It's important not to underestimate the dependency on the distributions. Intel x86 last virtually forever¹, ARM boards have a very short life². It's fine to use ARM if somebody wants a mid-term throwaway toy, but if one plans to have a stable [server] machine, it's a problem³. ¹=in the sense - as much as realistically possible ²=in comparison; the ARM boards tend to get discontinued quicker. ³=finally, consider that not every ARM board is [as supported as] an RPi.
    - squarefoot 7y ago
      "in comparison; the ARM boards tend to get discontinued quicker" This is true though I believe it's mainly due to them being newer developments in a field (mass produced embedded boards) where everyone and their cat makes something new every month. It's a moving target that will never settle (luckily) but given enough time it will slow its pace to sustainable levels both for manufacturers and users/developers. Give it some time, the kid is young. As an example, I'm still waiting for a cheap enough board around which I would build what I consider a vital brick in every home network: something with enough SATA ports to make a RAID enabled server, then would cut costs in all other corners. Say 4 to 5 SATA ports, no video, no audio, no WiFi, no multiple NICs (I'd use a separate board for firewalling), no more than a serial port for monitoring and few GPIOs for blinking some leds or drive fans, monitor UPSs etc. It would be the best possible platform to make cheap non trivial file servers. My current configuration is 2+2 disks arranged as RAID1 (I don't trust anything else) kept in sleep mode when not in use for more than 2 hours plus a fifth disk used very often as temporary storage before things are being stored on the RAID. I use a cheap Atom Mini ITX board I purchased used on ebay plus a rack enclosure that weighs like a ton. Nas4Free is the OS, which is perfect for the task although RAM usage with XFS reaches the maximum available on that board (4GB), but for home use it's still ok. It works perfectly, but I would happily swap it for a lighter ARM system in a smaller box. Unfortunately it looks like there's no solution to be used to build a similar file server, except costly boards with a lot other peripherhals or much faster CPUs I wouldn't have any use for. So why nobody makes a board like that? I would guess they analyzed the market and concluded there'not enough demand. A board like that would mean an excellent home/SOHO file server at a third of the price, but apparently the small number of people who build their own file server doesn't justify any risks in that field.
untog 7y ago
The GPU is a big deal provided it comes with QuickSync hardware accelerated video encoding. Very useful for DVR-like stuff.

Without PCIe it's not clear to me what advantages x86 offers in this form factor. I guess an Intel GPU is a plus.

RachelF 7y ago

The Atom CPU should be faster than an Arm.

deelowe 7y ago
We sure about that? If we take a common use-case, emulators are very well optimized on ARM these days (more so than PC in some situations).
- pizza234 7y ago
  It depends if one talks about Atoms in general or specific models. The Celeron J4105 (which powers the ODROID H2), is technically an Atom, and it's massively faster than an RPi 4 (2-5x), but I don't know about the Z8300. Based on Passmark (which is an arbitrary choice), Rock Pi X and RPi 4 may have comparable performance; if that was established, and I wanted a cheap SBC, I'd definitely go with the former.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pizza234 7y ago
    Correction: as pointed out, the J4105 does not belong to the Atom, but the Celeron family (although the architecture, Goldmont Plus, may be used in the future for Atom), so the comparison is not correct.
akmittal 7y ago
Raspberry pi 4 should be as fast as Atom x5-Z8300
- shifto 7y ago
  Yeah but using an Intel Compute stick with the Atom and a Pi 4 both with Ubuntu the Atom is definitely faster in my experience.
  - pizza234 7y ago
    Real-world comparison here: https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1907128-HV-1907127HV99 https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1907128-HV-1907127HV99 it's hard to make an absolute conclusion; it seems that the Pi 4 is faster than the Z8300 in more cases, but not all. I wouldn't categorize these results as "definitely faster" though.
    - shifto 7y ago
      I think disk IO makes a lot of difference and I guess (didn't look it up) the Atom might get better IO results out of the eMMC SSD than the Pi4 does.

dbuder 7y ago

x86 ISA means you don't have to rely on community support. It really needs 8gb of onboard memory though, sbc+memory upgrade+sd card+power supply = more expensive than a dual cpu server from 9 years ago

partialrecall 7y ago
This would be more power efficient though.
- dbuder 7y ago
  And portable , but if it doesn't have enough resources to face the web securely, what is the point. Running your operating system from SD is just terrible, even USB is more reliable. x86 means getting a bluetooth keyboard to work doesn't involve a long walkthrough that doesn't always work.

saagarjha 7y ago

It’s cheap and it’s x86.

partialrecall 7y ago
I get that; it's cheap and low power, two things I like (and can also get from arm devices.) But what's the appeal in x86 without expansion ports? It seems to me I can run whatever software I have on either, so the differentiating factor should be hardware support, but without a PCI slot I don't really get it. Having an intel GPU is nice enough I guess. I might get one just for that.
- mrighele 7y ago
  > But what's the appeal in x86 without expansion ports? You may have easier time trying to run some alternative OS such as one of the BSDs, Haiku, ReactOS, or even Windows.
- pizza234 7y ago
  Everybody has different use cases. For example, I use my Intel-based SBC as headless server. The only thing I need is two SATA ports available (which the SBC I own has), and the condition that's it's a small and cheap machine. For a use case like mine, it's perfect. I don't need to think about using a certain distribution and ultimately depending on a producer. I used to have ARM boards, so I know :-) It's important not to underestimate the dependency on the distributions. Intel x86 last virtually forever¹, ARM boards have a very short life². It's fine to use ARM if somebody wants a mid-term throwaway toy, but if one plans to have a stable [server] machine, it's a problem³. ¹=in the sense - as much as realistically possible ²=in comparison; the ARM boards tend to get discontinued quicker. ³=finally, consider that not every ARM board is [as supported as] an RPi.
  - squarefoot 7y ago
    "in comparison; the ARM boards tend to get discontinued quicker" This is true though I believe it's mainly due to them being newer developments in a field (mass produced embedded boards) where everyone and their cat makes something new every month. It's a moving target that will never settle (luckily) but given enough time it will slow its pace to sustainable levels both for manufacturers and users/developers. Give it some time, the kid is young. As an example, I'm still waiting for a cheap enough board around which I would build what I consider a vital brick in every home network: something with enough SATA ports to make a RAID enabled server, then would cut costs in all other corners. Say 4 to 5 SATA ports, no video, no audio, no WiFi, no multiple NICs (I'd use a separate board for firewalling), no more than a serial port for monitoring and few GPIOs for blinking some leds or drive fans, monitor UPSs etc. It would be the best possible platform to make cheap non trivial file servers. My current configuration is 2+2 disks arranged as RAID1 (I don't trust anything else) kept in sleep mode when not in use for more than 2 hours plus a fifth disk used very often as temporary storage before things are being stored on the RAID. I use a cheap Atom Mini ITX board I purchased used on ebay plus a rack enclosure that weighs like a ton. Nas4Free is the OS, which is perfect for the task although RAM usage with XFS reaches the maximum available on that board (4GB), but for home use it's still ok. It works perfectly, but I would happily swap it for a lighter ARM system in a smaller box. Unfortunately it looks like there's no solution to be used to build a similar file server, except costly boards with a lot other peripherhals or much faster CPUs I wouldn't have any use for. So why nobody makes a board like that? I would guess they analyzed the market and concluded there'not enough demand. A board like that would mean an excellent home/SOHO file server at a third of the price, but apparently the small number of people who build their own file server doesn't justify any risks in that field.

untog 7y ago

The GPU is a big deal provided it comes with QuickSync hardware accelerated video encoding. Very useful for DVR-like stuff.