3 ms·

Yes, but it's a single-purpose computer than can apparently fulfill its purpose with a cheaper and more efficient Atom.

ck2 16y ago
I would dare say a media center will have more and more usefulness as time goes by. New services and features to be added. Atom is just so underpowered that if you have some new kind of software to use for a new service that is not GPU accelerated yet, it basically won't be able to get the job done at all.
- mhd 16y ago
  The problem is that by the time you come up with this strange new service that requires gobs of CPU power, you might have to buy a new machine anyway, and you'll get something way cheaper and/or faster anyway. Premature optimization, unless you already have something specific in mind (e.g. if a new standard is on the horizon). (And getting something cheaper that you can upgrade in that instance is less likely in the price range of cheap multimedia solutions)
  - ck2 16y ago
    Except we are talking about a $30 savings for buying Atom over i3 in a media center. If it was over $100, I could see your logic. But not for $30.
    - mhd 16y ago
      If it comes down to building your own solution, then yes, splurge a bit. But I think the greater counter-argument against the solution proposed by the author is a pre-built media player device (boxee, WD etc.). Not big on CPU, but sufficient for the tasks outlined in the original post. Building computers in the low price segments is pretty dominated by "constant" factors, i.e. case, PSU, mainboard. You can easily double your RAM or increase CPU by a large factor with a relative low percentage increase in total price.
      - ZoFreX 16y ago
        I didn't make it clear but I was advocating a pre-built device - I went with the ASRock NetTop 330 because it was exactly the specification I wanted, and cheaper than building it myself.
    - vetinari 16y ago
      Not really. I got my complete Atom box for €120. Core i3 started at €350.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  More powerful is not better. More powerful is more expensive to buy and to run, noisier, hotter. He was bragging about how low his power draw was, and how cheap his box is. I suggested getting a cheaper box that draws less power yet still contains all the functionality he needs. Personally I don't need anything more than XBMC on my media center, and given the popularity of the device I had (ASRock NetTop 330) I doubt XBMC would add features that wouldn't run on it, historically they have always targeted relatively under-powered devices (original XBox, and now iPad et al). On the power front, CPUs have steadily been getting faster and faster all these years, but our general requirements have not risen with the same speed. I have an Atom N270 in my netbook, which is basically a single-core version of what's in the NetTop, and I am running Windows 7 and frequently play Team Fortress 2 (it looks like minecraft, but it's playable!) You can't really describe something as "underpowered" without a context of what it's for. If I was still doing video editing, I would probably consider your computer "underpowered", but if I was building a dedicated server to run iptables to replace my Netgear router then Atom would be overpowered.
ZoFreX 16y ago
Point of order: It's not single-purpose. I had mine dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows 7, and it was quite capable in each (Windows 7 felt slightly sluggish compared to my netbook, which is strange because the nettop is faster). The hardware is completely standard, just an ITX form factor Atom + 9400GT pairing, which is a fantastic combination for decoding video for very little power draw or noise.

ck2 16y ago

I would dare say a media center will have more and more usefulness as time goes by. New services and features to be added. Atom is just so underpowered that if you have some new kind of software to use for a new service that is not GPU accelerated yet, it basically won't be able to get the job done at all.

mhd 16y ago
The problem is that by the time you come up with this strange new service that requires gobs of CPU power, you might have to buy a new machine anyway, and you'll get something way cheaper and/or faster anyway. Premature optimization, unless you already have something specific in mind (e.g. if a new standard is on the horizon). (And getting something cheaper that you can upgrade in that instance is less likely in the price range of cheap multimedia solutions)
- ck2 16y ago
  Except we are talking about a $30 savings for buying Atom over i3 in a media center. If it was over $100, I could see your logic. But not for $30.
  - mhd 16y ago
    If it comes down to building your own solution, then yes, splurge a bit. But I think the greater counter-argument against the solution proposed by the author is a pre-built media player device (boxee, WD etc.). Not big on CPU, but sufficient for the tasks outlined in the original post. Building computers in the low price segments is pretty dominated by "constant" factors, i.e. case, PSU, mainboard. You can easily double your RAM or increase CPU by a large factor with a relative low percentage increase in total price.
    - ZoFreX 16y ago
      I didn't make it clear but I was advocating a pre-built device - I went with the ASRock NetTop 330 because it was exactly the specification I wanted, and cheaper than building it myself.
  - vetinari 16y ago
    Not really. I got my complete Atom box for €120. Core i3 started at €350.
ZoFreX 16y ago
More powerful is not better. More powerful is more expensive to buy and to run, noisier, hotter. He was bragging about how low his power draw was, and how cheap his box is. I suggested getting a cheaper box that draws less power yet still contains all the functionality he needs. Personally I don't need anything more than XBMC on my media center, and given the popularity of the device I had (ASRock NetTop 330) I doubt XBMC would add features that wouldn't run on it, historically they have always targeted relatively under-powered devices (original XBox, and now iPad et al). On the power front, CPUs have steadily been getting faster and faster all these years, but our general requirements have not risen with the same speed. I have an Atom N270 in my netbook, which is basically a single-core version of what's in the NetTop, and I am running Windows 7 and frequently play Team Fortress 2 (it looks like minecraft, but it's playable!) You can't really describe something as "underpowered" without a context of what it's for. If I was still doing video editing, I would probably consider your computer "underpowered", but if I was building a dedicated server to run iptables to replace my Netgear router then Atom would be overpowered.

ZoFreX 16y ago

Point of order: It's not single-purpose. I had mine dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows 7, and it was quite capable in each (Windows 7 felt slightly sluggish compared to my netbook, which is strange because the nettop is faster). The hardware is completely standard, just an ITX form factor Atom + 9400GT pairing, which is a fantastic combination for decoding video for very little power draw or noise.