Is it just me, or are many Mini-ITX boards a bit heavy on the legacy connectors? 2xCOM, two PS/2-Connectors, VGA on this one. And on the other hand, no DP nor DVI, no support for 5.1-Audio or digital Audio, only one USB3.
Is there any market research behind this, that there is a significant number of people trying to replace legacy systems with SFF options, while keeping their old periphery?
As pointed out in the article, these are aimed at the embedded market. To that market, which often has to interface with legacy equipment that is kept in operation for decades at a time, legacy connectors are a must have.
Examples are cash register in your local supermarket running Dos based programs churning away and the standard ATM machine are also DOS based custom devices doing specific functions.
you can get S/PDIF breakout boxes too, allowing you to take an HDMI source and feed, say, a display panel with DVI/HDMI and the digital audio stream to an A/V amplifier.
I definitely need S/PDIF, I'm not going to rush to replace my Yamaha AX1 amp as it cost ~~ $1600.
Agreed. Theres no market research on this. I think people will opt for something like PicoITX form factor and more efficient adapter (like on notebook) rather than this.
Actually the reason for serial port to still be so present on embedded hardware is due to extreme reliability of serial communication and has for the COM they are also there for need to interface directly with connected hardware.
I use two RS232 connections on my E350 board for my receiver and TV. This way everything is controlled from the PC from power to inputs to volume. I hasn't had an issue using USB>Serial adapters when necessary, but sometimes its nice to have a basic legacy connection.
see earlier articles on anandtech and arstechnica about why the silvermont atoms are so different from their predecessors, and why these new processors really matter.
You could dremel open the back end of the slot to stick an x16 card in. Or you could dremel a notch in the titan to turn it into a 1x card. The former is probably easier to do without screwing up though.
It looks like there is no notch to dremel out. This would allow a 16x physical card to fit, though I doubt that it would actually provide the necessary 75W of power to it.
With 4 EUs at <800MHz, performance should be at around 50 GFLOP/s, so gaming would be a non-option. The Radeon 5450 is rated at 104 GFLOP/s, so it is an actual improvement. And as Ian has seen some drawbacks in Performance even with Dual-Channel DDR3 1333 for gaming, single channel memory might criple the iGPU even more. Technically, there is also a 6450 with around 200 GFLOPs availabe at PCIe 2.1 x1, which should get you almost to the level of Intels HD 4600.
Then again, the 6450 might already be more than the CPU can support. A 30W TDP dual core may be good enough for gaming, but a less than 10W quad-core probably won't be very helpful, specifically not in games that are badly threaded.
The pic shows a regular x1 slot, as well as what looks like a mini-PCI-E slot. Maybe both? That would be great for some embedded applications, since it would allow adding a WiFi card in addition to an open x1 slot for data acquisition or motor controller hardware.
The article mentions two COM ports yet I camnot see them anywhere among the connectors at the back of the board. Are they present as pin headers only ?
I've only been able to find the below. Unfortunately, they're targeted towards industrial applications and also use the embedded Bay Trail I chips. That means they're going to be too expensive for individuals only buying a few.
I hope to see some of these Bay Trail-D motherboards in thin mini-ITX form -- so with on-board power and mSATA. Same for Kabini. We build mini-ITX systems and with these, we can go even smaller. Very exciting!
There's one marked as USB2 next to the battery. I think that might be the only one though; the 4 9 pin headers near the power cable have the opposite orientation.
No. ITX is 17x17 cm. nano-ITX is 12x12 cm. Most of the SBCs are around 12x13 cm. So they are a good bit smaller than a tablet in width and height, but designed for much thicker cases so they can have Ethernet ports, full size USB ports, COM ports, etc. Tablets are thin for ease of carrying and hand holding, but are sorely lacking in i/o capabilities. They really aren't that like a tablet. More like a miniature PC.
In addition to what JayBus wrote, the actual main board in a tablet is normally much smaller than the tablet as a whole. You can look at tear-downs on iFixIt; but an inch wide strip running the length of one side is a reasonable abstraction/average. Even the 100x100mm boxes intended to sit between an LCD and VESA monitor stand have room for a PCB than most tablets.
Can someone explain to me the differences between all the different celeron and baytrail chips? I'm seeing things like the Z3370 (z prefix), Jxxx, Exxx, and Nxxx for celerons.
I would be keen to get one of these to replace an ageing Atom N330-based simple file server. Has anyone seen them on sale yet? I would reap power savings and have big performance gains using one.
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ShieTar - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Is it just me, or are many Mini-ITX boards a bit heavy on the legacy connectors?2xCOM, two PS/2-Connectors, VGA on this one.
And on the other hand, no DP nor DVI, no support for 5.1-Audio or digital Audio, only one USB3.
Is there any market research behind this, that there is a significant number of people trying to replace legacy systems with SFF options, while keeping their old periphery?
Reflex - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
As pointed out in the article, these are aimed at the embedded market. To that market, which often has to interface with legacy equipment that is kept in operation for decades at a time, legacy connectors are a must have.Flunk - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Don't forget microcontrollers, COM ports are a lot easier and cheaper than having to deal with USB.fteoath64 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
Examples are cash register in your local supermarket running Dos based programs churning away and the standard ATM machine are also DOS based custom devices doing specific functions.SirMaster - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Well it has HDMI so that's your up to 8 channel digital audio. IMO S/PDIF is legacy since the advent of BluRay and its lossless audio.Guspaz - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
S/PDIF can still come in really handy, though, since it makes it easier to run audio and video to separate devices without some box in between.speculatrix - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
you can get S/PDIF breakout boxes too, allowing you to take an HDMI source and feed, say, a display panel with DVI/HDMI and the digital audio stream to an A/V amplifier.I definitely need S/PDIF, I'm not going to rush to replace my Yamaha AX1 amp as it cost ~~ $1600.
t.s - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Agreed. Theres no market research on this. I think people will opt for something like PicoITX form factor and more efficient adapter (like on notebook) rather than this.iniudan - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Actually the reason for serial port to still be so present on embedded hardware is due to extreme reliability of serial communication and has for the COM they are also there for need to interface directly with connected hardware.Samus - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
I use two RS232 connections on my E350 board for my receiver and TV. This way everything is controlled from the PC from power to inputs to volume. I hasn't had an issue using USB>Serial adapters when necessary, but sometimes its nice to have a basic legacy connection.duploxxx - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
so many negative comments on the product "atom"being to slow that they now change the name to pentium?Daniel Egger - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Actually seems quite fitting to me since those are cores are based on earlier Pentium CPUs, no?xdrol - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
No. They are based on Pentium ISA, what is just effectively saying it is an x86 CPU.. the micro-architecture is very different from Pentiums.LogOver - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
The architecture is very different from previous Atom family also. Being OOO-capable Bay-Trail is closer to Pentiums than last generation Atoms.Senti - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
What Intel likes to call "Pentium architecture" is in-order superscalar, so no relation to OOO Bay-Trail.speculatrix - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
see earlier articles on anandtech and arstechnica about why the silvermont atoms are so different from their predecessors, and why these new processors really matter.wrkingclass_hero - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Is there a PCI Express slot on there? I want to slap a Titian on it ;DGigaplex - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
It looks like it has a PCI Express 2x slot. A Titan would not fit.Gigaplex - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Correction, 1xDanNeely - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
You could dremel open the back end of the slot to stick an x16 card in. Or you could dremel a notch in the titan to turn it into a 1x card. The former is probably easier to do without screwing up though.Kevin G - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
It looks like there is no notch to dremel out. This would allow a 16x physical card to fit, though I doubt that it would actually provide the necessary 75W of power to it.Kevin G - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
And like that I'm taking back what I said. There is a notch on the PCIE 1x slot.Shivansps - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
That pci-e x1 is 3.0 or 2.0?nathanddrews - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Looks like the best x1 GPU out there is the Radeon 5450. Honestly, I'm not sure if that would be better or worse than the Intel IGP...ShieTar - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
With 4 EUs at <800MHz, performance should be at around 50 GFLOP/s, so gaming would be a non-option. The Radeon 5450 is rated at 104 GFLOP/s, so it is an actual improvement. And as Ian has seen some drawbacks in Performance even with Dual-Channel DDR3 1333 for gaming, single channel memory might criple the iGPU even more. Technically, there is also a 6450 with around 200 GFLOPs availabe at PCIe 2.1 x1, which should get you almost to the level of Intels HD 4600.Then again, the 6450 might already be more than the CPU can support. A 30W TDP dual core may be good enough for gaming, but a less than 10W quad-core probably won't be very helpful, specifically not in games that are badly threaded.
Jaybus - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
The pic shows a regular x1 slot, as well as what looks like a mini-PCI-E slot. Maybe both? That would be great for some embedded applications, since it would allow adding a WiFi card in addition to an open x1 slot for data acquisition or motor controller hardware.Arnulf - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
The article mentions two COM ports yet I camnot see them anywhere among the connectors at the back of the board. Are they present as pin headers only ?extide - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
I would expect, yes.jasont21 - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Anyone know of any upcoming Intel Bay Trail mini boards (ie. 3.5" SBC, Nano-ITX, Pico-ITX, some custom format, etc.) with dual gigabit ethernet?moojoo32 - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Ya, I'd like to see some Bay Trail boards smaller than mini-ITX. They'd be great for some projects I have in mind.jasont21 - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
I've only been able to find the below. Unfortunately, they're targeted towards industrial applications and also use the embedded Bay Trail I chips. That means they're going to be too expensive for individuals only buying a few.AAEON GENE-BT05
http://www.aaeon.com/en/n/intelligent-systems-and-...
3.5" SBC - 5.75" x 4"
Portwell NANO-6060
http://www.portwell.com/products/detail.asp?CUSTCH...
Nano-ITX - 4.72” x 4.72”
Axiomtek CAPA841
http://www.axiomtek.com/products/ViewProduct.asp?v...
3.5" SBC - 5.75" x 4"
DFI BT551
http://www.dfi-embedded.co.il/products/ProductDeta...
3.5" SBC - 5.75" x 4"
StardogChampion - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
I hope to see some of these Bay Trail-D motherboards in thin mini-ITX form -- so with on-board power and mSATA. Same for Kabini. We build mini-ITX systems and with these, we can go even smaller. Very exciting!StardogChampion - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Any idea how many USB2 headers? I see mSATA -- nice.DanNeely - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
There's one marked as USB2 next to the battery. I think that might be the only one though; the 4 9 pin headers near the power cable have the opposite orientation.StardogChampion - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
Oh, guess that's mini-PCIe not mSATAShieTar - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
If you go any smaller you'd seem to end up building yourself a tablet without a screen, wouldn't you?Jaybus - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
No. ITX is 17x17 cm. nano-ITX is 12x12 cm. Most of the SBCs are around 12x13 cm. So they are a good bit smaller than a tablet in width and height, but designed for much thicker cases so they can have Ethernet ports, full size USB ports, COM ports, etc. Tablets are thin for ease of carrying and hand holding, but are sorely lacking in i/o capabilities. They really aren't that like a tablet. More like a miniature PC.DanNeely - Thursday, October 24, 2013 - link
In addition to what JayBus wrote, the actual main board in a tablet is normally much smaller than the tablet as a whole. You can look at tear-downs on iFixIt; but an inch wide strip running the length of one side is a reasonable abstraction/average. Even the 100x100mm boxes intended to sit between an LCD and VESA monitor stand have room for a PCB than most tablets.bobbozzo - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Hi, if mini-ITX isn't too big, ASRock has one or two dual-NIC Avoton boards coming soon:http://www.asrock.com/server/overview.asp?cat=CPU&...
Bob
ls1dreams - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Can someone explain to me the differences between all the different celeron and baytrail chips? I'm seeing things like the Z3370 (z prefix), Jxxx, Exxx, and Nxxx for celerons.speculatrix - Monday, December 9, 2013 - link
I would be keen to get one of these to replace an ageing Atom N330-based simple file server. Has anyone seen them on sale yet? I would reap power savings and have big performance gains using one.