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I had already thought of that.. a nice culv cpu, while drawning 2W more, is much more capable than the Atom, even running at less MHz. I know what I'm talking about: I have both an Atom 330 machine and a SU4100 subnotebook.
However, as stated by Hannes, the additional 2W may be a problem when disipating the heat.. the zbox and the mag are really small; the Asrock 330ht is bigger but inside everything is packed; the jetway and other OEMs are also really small. Maybe case should grow a bit, at least in height, and pack some bigger cooler with standard fans (6cm?) which should also lower noise.
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anandtech make an excellent point there: *if* the guys in the funny spacesuits at intel would finally get their heads out of their asses and give us some good software support regarding drivers and GPU accelerated decoding (VA-API) the clarksdale platform would be far more suitable for XBMC use.
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I don't really see the point of this for the XBMC HTPC crowd.
For x264 and Blu Ray level playback, and Atom and ION can already do the job. Sure a faster CPU will make the interface a little faster, but a SSD provides a bigger boost and will be a cheaper option.
The only reason I want more power than an Atom in my HTPC if if I am doing things outside XBMC- I want to watch 1080p Flash, or HD videos that VDPAU doesn't support.
But in those cases I want enough CPU power to do the job by itself, which in my own tests is somewhere around a 2.2 GHZ Core 2 Duo.
The SU2300 with a whole 1GHZ less than that can't play HD on its own (at least without paying for Core AVC), so it really doesn't provide a functional speed boost over an Atom.
I guess it would also bee good for people who download on their HTPCs (help with unraring).....
With that said, I realize that there are people in this world who use these nettops as primary PCs, and I bet they will enjoy the extra speed.
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2010-08-29, 00:38
(This post was last modified: 2010-08-29, 00:42 by Robotica.)
All platforms (ION, culv, arrandale/i3, AMD, blahblah) are capable of playing 1080p so you get what you pay for. The more you pay the more power you buy. I think the first platform combo (motherboard, cpu, gpu) that can play 1080P and go totally silent (or even better: fanless) is winner.
