[mythtv-users] NVIDIA Ion platform - all your dreams come true?

[Bill Williamson]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 7:53 AM, Preston Crow
<pc-mythtv08a at crowcastle.net>wrote:

> On Thu, 2008-12-18 at 20:15 +0100, Stephen Boddy wrote:
> > http://www.dailytech.com/NVIDIA+Unveils+Ion+Platform/article13723.htm
> >
> > Intel Atom plus VDPAU capable nvidia chipset on a tiny board. They
> > mention nettops as well as netbooks, so provided it has network (wired),
> > this would be the ultimate minimalist low power network booting
> > frontend.
>
> Nice concept, but why don't they make any low-power full-featured
> motherboards?  I want a low-power CPU, but I also want several expansion
> slots, dual ethernet, etc.  For a combined FE/BE/firewall/etc
> convergence system, I need a minimum of two PCI slots, dual ethernet (or
> an extra slot), and on-board video (or a PCIe slot).
>
> In other words, why is it so hard to find motherboards designed for
> desktop use with low-power ("mobile") processors?
>
> At this point, I'm probably going to wait for the dual-core Nehalem
> chips (quad core is overkill).
>
>
It's not, at least in the AMD world.  You can use a low voltage Athlon X2 on
almost any AM2 motherboard.

For intel:
http://au.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=54
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2292

The deal with these boards is that they're "all in one" and micro, which
used to also mean "low performance."  What you want has always existed.

To be honest, most (if not all) modern processors support dynamic clocking,
which is WELL supported in linux.  When my box is doing nothing (like right
now) it scaled back to 1ghz (or maybe even less).  It draws much less power.
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