So it's still 4K30Hz, just like 1.4 and 1.4a. Seems like an odd way to phrase it. HDMI 2.0 or DP should really be mandatory for any new device in this modern 4K age. Honestly it looks like they are just taking whatever leftover parts they have sitting around and pulled a Frankenstein.
What's the target for this? POS? Home theater? Old man's garage?
I'm guessing it's for embedded or digital signage use. Just look at that raft of legacy ports: 2x PS/2, Serial, VGA. This is for maximum compatibility with old hardware that no one can bring themselves to replace, so it must be targeted at businesses.
"When it comes to general users: Roughly 9%-10% of all people are on a 1680x1050 or 1600x900 screen, while 55%-60% of users are on a resolution below 1600x900. The most popular resolution is 1366x768 with an approximate 30% of the global population using it.
For gamers, approximately 14% use a screen with a resolution of either 1680x1050 or 1600x900. Roughly 45% of gamers are on a resolution below 1600x900, with 1366x768 having a 24% representation. 1366x768 is not the most popular resolution amongst gamers though, since 1080p screens are used by 34% of all gamers."
As usual, the amount of SATA ports is disappointing. I'd love one of these for my HTPC, but anything less than four SATA ports is out of the question (and 6 would definitely be preferable). It's the same with the AM1 platform as well. Am I in a very, very small minority, or are motherboard vendors missing out here?
I know I could get a PCIe controller card, but I'd really like to avoid that.
I hope we're not in the minority. I seriously considered building a new HTPC a few months back, and was very disappointed by what low-cost boards I had to choose from, not to mention the dismal state of low-cost HTPC cases. Is it so much to ask for a simple, low-power system that has more SATA ports than I know what to do with? Seems like everyone is moving towards the insanely limited-use BRIX/NUC form factor. I won't mind once 500+ GB SSDs are at the same price point as 1TB HDDs, but for now it's just obnoxious.
The chipset only supports 2 SATA ports so any more would require a extra controller. Which is why you're not going to see many of these cut-rate low-end boards with more than 2 SATA ports.
Even considering this, I think it's just bad product design. The SoC has 4 PCIe lanes, so adding a 2x/4x SATA3 controller would be pretty trivial (given that the board has 1 PCIe x1 slot and no other controllers, and would add, what, $2 to the BOM? All the while adding features easily justifying a $10 or more price premium.
performance wouldnt be great but it's do-able. 3rd party sata controllers are much slower than the Native Intel Ones. At least they were a year or two ago.
I'm curious to see what MSI prices these at. Intel doesn't officially list prices for Braswell yet, but CPU-world.com lists the Pentium N3700 at 161$ which seems awfully high. That's up in i5 retail territory, and as much as a Haswell Pentium (or even i3) + motherboard.
I hope MSI is getting a huge discount on the chips and can price the motherboards at under 150$, because they'd make great budget systems. Quad-core Bay Trail was already "good enough", so higher-clocked Braswell ought to be great for small/cheap/quiet office & home computers.
The legacy ports make a lot of sense if MSI does price these low enough to build a complete system for ~300; many people still have legacy peripherals such as PS/2 devices and monitors without DVI. And the serial port will be useful for businesses- wasn't that long ago that things like scales / UPC scanners / dongles used legacy serial.
It's possible that OEMs will get substantial volume discounts that will lower the per CPU cost, but I'm every bit as concerned as you are about the listed prices. One of the attractions of Bay Trail-based platforms is the very practical sub-$200 dollar total system price for a lot of the computers currently shipping with them and their "good enough" performance. Braswell is even more interesting for the Gen8 graphics and (I'm hoping) for the potential for 7-8 inch tablets to more commonly ship with 2-4GB of RAM instead of the 1-2GB that seems the norm with Bay Trail. The listed prices from Intel worry me because I've been waiting for this generation to hit the market before buying a new system and I don't at all like the idea of a low end CPU accounting for $160 of the system's price.
Also, unless it is prebuilt with Windows 8.1 with Bing, you're stuck with no operating system that is still exorbitantly expensive in OEM form unless you're a linux fan. The best ultra mini PCs right now are the HP Stream (@ 179 with 32 GB M.2 SSD, 2 GB RAM with one SODIMM slot open, a Celeron 2957 (dual core @ 1.4, turbo 2.0) with HD graphics and 2 USB 2.0 and 4 USB 3.0 ports, built in Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi and Gigabit ethernet. Stepping up to the Pavilion (@329) gets you an i3 but also a spinning HD (a downgrade in my book. The self built micro desktop market is not economical at this point because if you want Windows it is still exorbitantly expensive.
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nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
"support for 4K via HDMI 1.4b"So it's still 4K30Hz, just like 1.4 and 1.4a. Seems like an odd way to phrase it. HDMI 2.0 or DP should really be mandatory for any new device in this modern 4K age. Honestly it looks like they are just taking whatever leftover parts they have sitting around and pulled a Frankenstein.
What's the target for this? POS? Home theater? Old man's garage?
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I'm guessing it's for embedded or digital signage use. Just look at that raft of legacy ports: 2x PS/2, Serial, VGA. This is for maximum compatibility with old hardware that no one can bring themselves to replace, so it must be targeted at businesses.nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
That's the only thing that makes sense. I'd love to see one of these with no legacy ports - just DP, USB 3.1, and dual-NIC.Samus - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
These aren't targeted at the HTPC market. The GPU likely couldn't handle 4K60Hz very well.Achaios - Friday, April 10, 2015 - link
What "modern 4k age" are you talking about?"When it comes to general users: Roughly 9%-10% of all people are on a 1680x1050 or 1600x900 screen, while 55%-60% of users are on a resolution below 1600x900. The most popular resolution is 1366x768 with an approximate 30% of the global population using it.
For gamers, approximately 14% use a screen with a resolution of either 1680x1050 or 1600x900. Roughly 45% of gamers are on a resolution below 1600x900, with 1366x768 having a 24% representation. 1366x768 is not the most popular resolution amongst gamers though, since 1080p screens are used by 34% of all gamers."
Achaios - Friday, April 10, 2015 - link
As of mid-2014, Steam's survey shows that 3840x2160 is the primary resolution for 0.01% of its ~75 million users.Valantar - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
As usual, the amount of SATA ports is disappointing. I'd love one of these for my HTPC, but anything less than four SATA ports is out of the question (and 6 would definitely be preferable). It's the same with the AM1 platform as well. Am I in a very, very small minority, or are motherboard vendors missing out here?I know I could get a PCIe controller card, but I'd really like to avoid that.
ChefJeff789 - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I hope we're not in the minority. I seriously considered building a new HTPC a few months back, and was very disappointed by what low-cost boards I had to choose from, not to mention the dismal state of low-cost HTPC cases. Is it so much to ask for a simple, low-power system that has more SATA ports than I know what to do with? Seems like everyone is moving towards the insanely limited-use BRIX/NUC form factor. I won't mind once 500+ GB SSDs are at the same price point as 1TB HDDs, but for now it's just obnoxious.Flunk - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
The chipset only supports 2 SATA ports so any more would require a extra controller. Which is why you're not going to see many of these cut-rate low-end boards with more than 2 SATA ports.Flunk - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
By chipset I mean SoC.Valantar - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Even considering this, I think it's just bad product design. The SoC has 4 PCIe lanes, so adding a 2x/4x SATA3 controller would be pretty trivial (given that the board has 1 PCIe x1 slot and no other controllers, and would add, what, $2 to the BOM? All the while adding features easily justifying a $10 or more price premium.Morawka - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
performance wouldnt be great but it's do-able. 3rd party sata controllers are much slower than the Native Intel Ones. At least they were a year or two ago.Mumrik - Sunday, April 12, 2015 - link
SuperMicro and Asrock seem to be aware of the desire for more SATA on these type of products. At least they took care of it with Bay Trail-D.Namisecond - Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - link
The SuperMicro and Asrock offerings you're talking about are also server motherboards with a server SoC and price tagKateH - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
I'm curious to see what MSI prices these at. Intel doesn't officially list prices for Braswell yet, but CPU-world.com lists the Pentium N3700 at 161$ which seems awfully high. That's up in i5 retail territory, and as much as a Haswell Pentium (or even i3) + motherboard.I hope MSI is getting a huge discount on the chips and can price the motherboards at under 150$, because they'd make great budget systems. Quad-core Bay Trail was already "good enough", so higher-clocked Braswell ought to be great for small/cheap/quiet office & home computers.
The legacy ports make a lot of sense if MSI does price these low enough to build a complete system for ~300; many people still have legacy peripherals such as PS/2 devices and monitors without DVI. And the serial port will be useful for businesses- wasn't that long ago that things like scales / UPC scanners / dongles used legacy serial.
BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - link
It's possible that OEMs will get substantial volume discounts that will lower the per CPU cost, but I'm every bit as concerned as you are about the listed prices. One of the attractions of Bay Trail-based platforms is the very practical sub-$200 dollar total system price for a lot of the computers currently shipping with them and their "good enough" performance. Braswell is even more interesting for the Gen8 graphics and (I'm hoping) for the potential for 7-8 inch tablets to more commonly ship with 2-4GB of RAM instead of the 1-2GB that seems the norm with Bay Trail. The listed prices from Intel worry me because I've been waiting for this generation to hit the market before buying a new system and I don't at all like the idea of a low end CPU accounting for $160 of the system's price.trivor - Wednesday, April 15, 2015 - link
Also, unless it is prebuilt with Windows 8.1 with Bing, you're stuck with no operating system that is still exorbitantly expensive in OEM form unless you're a linux fan. The best ultra mini PCs right now are the HP Stream (@ 179 with 32 GB M.2 SSD, 2 GB RAM with one SODIMM slot open, a Celeron 2957 (dual core @ 1.4, turbo 2.0) with HD graphics and 2 USB 2.0 and 4 USB 3.0 ports, built in Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi and Gigabit ethernet. Stepping up to the Pavilion (@329) gets you an i3 but also a spinning HD (a downgrade in my book. The self built micro desktop market is not economical at this point because if you want Windows it is still exorbitantly expensive.