While high end motherboards and processors tend to get the most attention from enthusiasts, sometimes less is better (*waits for Josh to stop laughing on the podcast). More often than not seen integrated in small form factor OEM boxes, there are a few motherboards out there that come as a bare board and integrated processor to be the basis of low power desktops, network devices, and home theater PCs. Both Intel and AMD have hats in the low power game, and Hartware.de has pitched four such low power boards against each other. The MSI C847MS-E33-847 and Biostar NM70I pack Intel Celeron 847 CPUs, The Zotac D2550-ITX WIFI hosts an Intel Atom D2550 processor plus a NVIDIA GT 610 IGP, and the ASUS E45MI-M Pro is powered by an AMD E-450 APU.
Hartware.de puts several low power boards into the thunderdome to see which one(s) reign supreme.
As it turns out, the results are nearly in line with what one might expect. The Atom D2550-powered system was the slowest, the APU and ASUS motherboard was the fastest, and the Celeron was somewhere in the middle. The AMD E-450 APU used the most power, and the system was one of the most expensive, however. Interestingly, the Atom system was not all that much more power efficient than the Celeron despite the lower performance and weaker hardware. The Celeron 847 chip had decent CPU performance, and mid-range power and some of the best thermals. All of the configurations were able to playback media, but the AMD system gave the most fluid results.
If you are in the market for low power system parts, the review is worth checking out.
Here are some additional Motherboard reviews from around the web:
- GIGABYTE Z77N-WiFi Mini-ITX @ TweakTown
- ASRock Z77 Pro4-M LGA 1155 @ HardOCP
- Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4 FM2 @ PC Perspective
- ASRock's Z77E-ITX Mini ITX @ The Tech Repot
- ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 @ OCaholic
I'm pleasantly surprised at all the Mini-ITX motherboards being made lately.
To add something, the Zotac
To add something, the Zotac Atom board also has an integrated Geforce 610, which could account for the higher idle power consumption and also for the decent 3D performance.
Good stuff with the ITX reviews. I’d still pick an undervolted Pentium IB or for a low power system.
Ah, I had that in my notes
Ah, I had that in my notes but seems I was a bit careless in editing. I'll update it to note the IGP. Thanks for pointing that out!
Maybe I’m reading the google
Maybe I’m reading the google translated pages wrong but I would have characterized the celeron as faster than the APU, at least from a CPU perspective and not a graphics one, am I reading things wrong?
That said, it is impressive what these low power CPUs are capable of. I have basically the same ASUS motherboard with an E350, which is not that far behind the E450, and am happy with it as a server (running win8). When I ran some benchmarks it was faster than my AMD 64 3000+ system that I had been running into the ground. That surprised me a lot and that system has now been recycled.
On the CPU side of things,
On the CPU side of things, yes the Celeron is a bit faster, then the APU blows them all away in blu ray and the other graphics stuff. The 7-zip benchmark seems to be indicative of how they rank up via CPU perforamnce, with the Celeron systems being the fastest, the E-450 in the middle, and Atom bringing up the rear. The Atom CPU was not as slow as I expected it to be, but it also used more power than I thought it would too…
But one actual CPU (QuadCore)
But one actual CPU (QuadCore) and platform isnt in the review.
Can a Celeron 847 + HD 7750
Can a Celeron 847 + HD 7750 be used for light gaming ?
I just installed newly
I just installed newly aquired msi c847 ms-33 motherboard to replace noisy zotac 330 itx motherboard. In addition to this system i also have a d2700 atom itx motherboard running in another room. From comparison point of view. Atom d2700 struggles with HD video on youtube or playing hd video file. Celeron 847 had no issues playing HD content 1080p on youtube or hd file.
I had to add Broadcomm Crystal HD decoder mini pcie card to the atom system in order to play HD video files. HOwever youtube still cannot play HD video.
Going back to celeron, this motherboard runs hot CPU TEMP 65deg. however it runs fine. with 16gb or ram installed.
I have tested the onboard sata 6gb/s controller with ocz agility 3 60gb ssd. I was impressed to see 522 mb/s read and 440 mbs /s write. HOwe