Seems strange to pay $100 for the mobo+cpu+gpu, then spend $100+ each per DIMM. What applications would care that much about RAM, other than memcached servers, which this probably isn't meant for.
UEFI is not BIOS though. People just use the term synonymously with it. The OS interacts with them differently, and UEFI support is required for the OS and in many cases the hardware in order to use UEFI. Which is why many systems have a fall back Legacy BIOS compatibility mode.
In order to prevent confusion, I choose not to use UEFI or EFI, because different motherboards use slightly different systems. Underneath it's still a BIOS, so I call it either a BIOS or a graphical BIOS depending on what is implemented visually.
whats with all this low power s**t? do people actually buy them? if you want mobile go for notebook or ultrabooks?
For a long time, I am looking hardware sites, hoping for some advancement that in my interest. But all see, some mini itx, m-atx, smartphones and sh.t. Smartphones now have ips screens, full hd and even 1440p resoulutions. But if I want to buy a monitor at that res, I have to pay 600$. What the hell?
And AMD skips am3+ users or other users that demand high power desktop cpus and and releasing all these, useless things. What am I supposed to do with these? Screw mobility, screw power efficiency, I want damn power. Its ok if you focus on apus, but just dont skip us. And now coin miners pulls gpu prices higher, I may do the thing I never thought I would do, and go intel-nvidia combo.
That's an awfully convoluted post of yours. This is for the developing market and has absolutely nothing to do with AMD's high power segment. They aren't even related development units - the development of this doesn't really affect the work on Kaveri/ future Excavator cores.
Also, AMD isn't really responsible for the high GPU prices. And if you want power, you SHOULD be going Intel. Their CPUs are effectively unmatched when you need raw power in 80% of situations. AMD is improving but they still can't match Intel's high end. They do have a good value play now though.
You aren't supposed to do anything with this. It's not meant for you. Believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around the 1% of technology enthusiasts like you, me, and plenty others on this site. You might say screw mobility, but that's where the money is headed.
Does this Kabini SoC has enough power to drive a custom NAS Server? I suppose I will need to add a PCIe SATA card to go above 2 drives? Would a regular AMD/Intel board with a low power CPU be a better alternative (to build a NAS)? Thanks in advance for any advice.
Good question, this is the kind of application I'm thinking of also. I'd also like to know whether inserting a device in the first PCIE slot affects the onboard graphics. (I had a board in the past that had onboard graphics, but as soon as you populated the x16 slot it got disabled (to be precise, the digital output, the vga output still worked at low res). It only had that one slot, so I couldn't populate it with a raid card, and use the onboard graphics - this was intended as a combo NAS/HTPC, so Full HD output was a requirement.
Does anyone know if that same issue exists now that the GPU is part of the CPU? (interested in the answer for this and any other CPUs with built in GPU for that matter incl. Intel).
I recently picked up a mITX Kabini (fanless SOC vareity) board dirt cheap with the intention of building my own AC router/IPS/etc. with Zentyal. I booted it with a x8 LSI SAS card attached just to make sure the slot worked. DVI and HDMI were fine with the card in. For the kinds of use cases being discussed, you can probably skip the socketed versions and go for an embedded option if they are cheaper. The one I bought is on sale repeatedly for around $32 AR.
I'd be a little worried about these having enough grunt for a NAS if you care about performance, but for ~$30 it's not like the experiment would cost you very much. I also think it's cool that these things aren't neutered badly on the CPU extension side (AES/AVX/etc.). There may be some very specific use cases where that would come in handy.
In terms of CPU power it;s probably fine. But it looks like Kabini boards will not support ECC memory, which makes using it for a storage server a dicey proposal.
It doesnt make sense with this board, because the price of a proper pci card with needed sata ports are much higher than finding a similar motherboard with 6+ builtin sata ports, and perhaps even more pci ports for expanding. If it is powerful enough, yes ofc, you can do perfectly nice NAS using Nas4free on an old Atom-based mobo
Both boards are listet in Germany for sub €29 incl. VAT, that would be sub $33 sans VAT currently. Erm, no URLs possble here? Geizhals de -> Mainboards -> AMD Sockel AM1
Pity the performance is so puny for a quad core. AM should have used a downclocked SR dual-core, with its dual channel memory, then slap 4 sata ports and reduce the number of USB2 ports, ditch one mini-PCIe slots and use 192 GPU cores instead. That might bring it to 30w but it will make a huge difference in performance compared to BayTrial. AT least if it had 4 sata ports, it could be a good home NAS candidate.
I know the pricing is uncertain yet but I suppose this could make the "Gizmo Explorer" obsolete or at least come down in value. I know the Gizmo comes with power cables and other accessories but a $60 CPU/Motherboard combo + extra stuff shouldn't be $200.
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26 Comments
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LarsBars - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Having a max of 32GB of ram is interesting, that adds to the possibilities for this platform.Looking forward to 16GB udimms.
SodaAnt - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Seems strange to pay $100 for the mobo+cpu+gpu, then spend $100+ each per DIMM. What applications would care that much about RAM, other than memcached servers, which this probably isn't meant for.talonz - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
ZFS systems.bleomycin - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
No ECC support would make this a not so great idea.Carleh - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
What do you mean with "BIOS"? "BIOS" as in BIOS before UEFI, or "BIOS" as synonym with "hardware setup utility"?Flunk - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Graphical Bios as in uEFI. uEFI is just a new kind of BIOS. BIOS = Basic Input Output System.Stuka87 - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
UEFI is not BIOS though. People just use the term synonymously with it. The OS interacts with them differently, and UEFI support is required for the OS and in many cases the hardware in order to use UEFI. Which is why many systems have a fall back Legacy BIOS compatibility mode.Alexvrb - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
We should rename UEFI... call it AIOS. "A" for Advanced. :PIan Cutress - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
In order to prevent confusion, I choose not to use UEFI or EFI, because different motherboards use slightly different systems. Underneath it's still a BIOS, so I call it either a BIOS or a graphical BIOS depending on what is implemented visually.Carleh - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Got it, thank you.Fenton - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
"Underneath it's still a BIOS"Errrrm, the entire point of UEFI is that it ISN'T still the old legacy BIOS code underneath.
Congratulations on possibly your biggest train-wreck yet though, and completely rambling and inaccurate disaster of an article.
R3MF - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
is solid caps rated for just "5000 hours" really a selling point?Metalliax - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
R3MF: This means 5000 hours at 105deg Celsius. Check here for more info: http://event.asus.com/mb/5000hrs_VRM/TeXWiller - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Hopefully some quiet thermal solutions will be available for the socket.zhd - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
whats with all this low power s**t? do people actually buy them? if you want mobile go for notebook or ultrabooks?For a long time, I am looking hardware sites, hoping for some advancement that in my interest. But all see, some mini itx, m-atx, smartphones and sh.t. Smartphones now have ips screens, full hd and even 1440p resoulutions. But if I want to buy a monitor at that res, I have to pay 600$. What the hell?
And AMD skips am3+ users or other users that demand high power desktop cpus and and releasing all these, useless things. What am I supposed to do with these? Screw mobility, screw power efficiency, I want damn power.
Its ok if you focus on apus, but just dont skip us. And now coin miners pulls gpu prices higher, I may do the thing I never thought I would do, and go intel-nvidia combo.
Drumsticks - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
That's an awfully convoluted post of yours. This is for the developing market and has absolutely nothing to do with AMD's high power segment. They aren't even related development units - the development of this doesn't really affect the work on Kaveri/ future Excavator cores.Also, AMD isn't really responsible for the high GPU prices. And if you want power, you SHOULD be going Intel. Their CPUs are effectively unmatched when you need raw power in 80% of situations. AMD is improving but they still can't match Intel's high end. They do have a good value play now though.
You aren't supposed to do anything with this. It's not meant for you. Believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around the 1% of technology enthusiasts like you, me, and plenty others on this site. You might say screw mobility, but that's where the money is headed.
Peroxyde - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Does this Kabini SoC has enough power to drive a custom NAS Server? I suppose I will need to add a PCIe SATA card to go above 2 drives? Would a regular AMD/Intel board with a low power CPU be a better alternative (to build a NAS)? Thanks in advance for any advice.crazysurfanz - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Good question, this is the kind of application I'm thinking of also. I'd also like to know whether inserting a device in the first PCIE slot affects the onboard graphics. (I had a board in the past that had onboard graphics, but as soon as you populated the x16 slot it got disabled (to be precise, the digital output, the vga output still worked at low res). It only had that one slot, so I couldn't populate it with a raid card, and use the onboard graphics - this was intended as a combo NAS/HTPC, so Full HD output was a requirement.Does anyone know if that same issue exists now that the GPU is part of the CPU? (interested in the answer for this and any other CPUs with built in GPU for that matter incl. Intel).
Bob Todd - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
I recently picked up a mITX Kabini (fanless SOC vareity) board dirt cheap with the intention of building my own AC router/IPS/etc. with Zentyal. I booted it with a x8 LSI SAS card attached just to make sure the slot worked. DVI and HDMI were fine with the card in. For the kinds of use cases being discussed, you can probably skip the socketed versions and go for an embedded option if they are cheaper. The one I bought is on sale repeatedly for around $32 AR.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
I'd be a little worried about these having enough grunt for a NAS if you care about performance, but for ~$30 it's not like the experiment would cost you very much. I also think it's cool that these things aren't neutered badly on the CPU extension side (AES/AVX/etc.). There may be some very specific use cases where that would come in handy.
edzieba - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
In terms of CPU power it;s probably fine. But it looks like Kabini boards will not support ECC memory, which makes using it for a storage server a dicey proposal.madgabz - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
It doesnt make sense with this board, because the price of a proper pci card with needed sata ports are much higher than finding a similar motherboard with 6+ builtin sata ports, and perhaps even more pci ports for expanding. If it is powerful enough, yes ofc, you can do perfectly nice NAS using Nas4free on an old Atom-based mobotoyotabedzrock - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Is there h264 encoding acceleration in this platform? The bay trail from Intel lists it as having quicksync.Edgar_Wibeau - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Both boards are listet in Germany for sub €29 incl. VAT, that would be sub $33 sans VAT currently. Erm, no URLs possble here? Geizhals de -> Mainboards -> AMD Sockel AM1fteoath64 - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Pity the performance is so puny for a quad core. AM should have used a downclocked SR dual-core, with its dual channel memory, then slap 4 sata ports and reduce the number of USB2 ports, ditch one mini-PCIe slots and use 192 GPU cores instead. That might bring it to 30w but it will make a huge difference in performance compared to BayTrial. AT least if it had 4 sata ports, it could be a good home NAS candidate.Master_of_puppets - Sunday, March 9, 2014 - link
you're right, it's gonna be very good candidate for home NAS!extremesheep49 - Sunday, March 9, 2014 - link
I know the pricing is uncertain yet but I suppose this could make the "Gizmo Explorer" obsolete or at least come down in value. I know the Gizmo comes with power cables and other accessories but a $60 CPU/Motherboard combo + extra stuff shouldn't be $200.http://www.extremetech.com/computing/146765-amd-la...