[wicky]

So I've finally got my zacate platform in, snagged an MSI E350IA-E45. I put together a new pc to test its usability against my existing system, which was based around an e3300 celeron dual core and an HD 5570. The system is hooked to a Denon AVR 591 via HDMI, and displayed to my 46" Samsung LED LCD (UN46C6300SF).

New box:
AMD dual core E350 (1.6ghz)
HD 6130 graphics (80 shaders, 500mhz core, 1066 mhz ram, 256mb buffer)
MSI E350IA-E45
2x2 GB G.skill eco DDR3 1066 (1.35v cas 9)
Corsair F40 40gb SSD (sandforce based)
Mini-box M350 case
Mini-box 90w PicoPSU
Windows 7 64-bit
XBMC 10.1

So far I am really impressed with my results and thought I might share them in hopes of helping those interested in the platform for their own builds, and to perhaps get some things tested that you may be curious about before spending the money.

So first the CPU usage and power consumption figures. These are just from the system describe above, nothing more. Power draw was measured at the plug with a P3 Kill-A-Watt.

Sleep mode - 1w draw
Windows idle - 0-1% cpu usage/17w draw
XBMC idle - 20-26% CPU usage/25-26w draw
480p MKV h.264 - 8-11% CPU usage/18w draw
720p MKV h.264 - 10-15% CPU usage/18-19w draw
1080p MKV h.264 - 13-15% CPU usage/19-20w draw

these were using typical quality rips that would represent the average collection. But if anyone has any samples that can be freely distributed I'd be happy to use them as a base. Probably download the Big Buck Bunny short and test that. But so far I have to say I am pretty pleased with these results. XBMC has no problems offloading the decoding to the HD 6130, and the results are smooth as can be. No dropped frames even with a bit of skipping around.

I was a little surprised to see 20%+ cpu usage at idle in XBMC, but this is about what I saw with the e3300 and lower than the D510 atom (NM10 not Ion). But despite the idle load, the system is very responsive and I can still skip through 700 some-odd movies on my server without any real slow down and the thumbnails load up right on cue. I would say it will not be as smooth as a more powerful dual core like the e3300 I was using before, or the Athlon II X2s people might be using right now, but I would say its a noticeable step up over Atom.

Power consumption is great, 1w sleep paired with a quick resuming SSD means I can wake up the HTPC in about the same amount of time as it takes for my receiver and TV to turn on. It's a shame the XBMC interface itself isn't gpu-accelerated otherwise I bet you could shave another 5w off that idle figure. But the power draw is quite impressive under any scenario.

I honestly thought I'd be selling this little board after toying with it but I think it's going to be my new system once I rip out that useless 40mm fan. I'll hook the old box back up later to get some comparison numbers, but for now I think these are solid results.

Hope this helps someone

==
Old media pc:
Intel Celeron e3200 @ 2.9ghz
ZOTAC G43ITX-A-E
ATI Radeon HD 5570
2gb DDR2 800
40gb Intel X25-V SSD
Lian Li Q07 case

Sleep mode - 58w draw (hibernate - 5w)
Windows idle - 0-1% cpu usage/60w draw
XBMC idle - 15-20% CPU usage/70w draw
480p MKV h.264 - 5-8% CPU usage/66w draw
720p MKV h.264 - 4-9% CPU usage/66-67w draw
1080p MKV h.264 - 6-12% CPU usage/69w draw

So mean average power draw of my old box was about 65w, average for the new zacate system is a mere 22w. Thats nearly a third of the power, without any significant sacrifice in performance or capability. And to put that in perspective, my old system was fairly efficient, a typical system built around a 65/73/80w cpu (athlon ii x2, phenom ii x2/core i3) would be looking at ~80-100w average. Atom and ION are great and well within this range, but for Zacate to offer lower power and higher performance really makes this the ideal HTPC platform for most builders out there!