AOpen EY855: Can the Pentium-M Make SFF PCs Cool a

virtuman

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According to this review (http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050325/aopen_ey855-06.html#conclusion) ..."Finally we've had the chance to review a SFF PC that is really quiet, even when the CPU is overclocked. This makes the AOpen EY855-II especially well-suited as a multimedia PC for home theater applications, since you can watch DVDs or listen to MP3 files in peace, without a noisy fan droning away in the background. "

I was under the impression that the PentiumM doesn't feature SSE3. Is this the case and if so how would that effect the performance of the machine?
 

endyen

Splendid
I was under the impression that the PentiumM doesn't feature SSE3. Is this the case and if so how would that effect the performance of the machine?
Yes it is true, but it just doesn't matter.
Mind you, the chips are rediculously expensive for the performance. Any of the A64s would give better perf, and would be about as quiet.
 

mrmonsoon

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One point in the pentium M's favor is it only uses produces about 25 watts of heat-leass than 1/4th of a pentium 4 ( even a AMD athlon 64 produces about 85 watts of heat) of the same processing power. This means you can have less fans turning slower and this can reduce noise a great deal.
 

virtuman

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My point is that the review said this machine was, "especially well-suited as a multimedia PC for home theater applications". Do home theater applications make use of SSE3? If so, since the Pentium-M doesn't support SSE3, why is it especially well suited?

Just to add more non sequitor, if you add a video card to game (ostensibly for gaming but again no SSE3) it will be just another loud PC. So is this supposed to be a home theater box or does everything have to be converted and compared to a gaming machine? If I take one of the dual procs out of my server and put in a big video card wouldn't it also just be another lousd gaming PC? If my grandmother had wheels would she be a wagon? What does any of that have to do with a home theater PC?

As a side note, that was a pretty lame shot at AMD with the "cool and quiet" reference in case no one noticed.
 

endyen

Splendid
If you are trying to say that the articles on Tom's seem to be going down hill, you are preaching to the converted.
Tom's is still a reasonable source for info, but it's only one source. Dont believe everthing you read.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Uh, d00d, don't let these guys scam you: There have been Pentium M Micro ATX boards on the market for months now, and a Micro ATX desktop fits in a home-theater rack BETTER than a cube, because it's shorter and wider (matching the width of other components, such as a receiver, better). Also, you'll eventually be glad you have more than 1 PCI slot if you go with anything other than a cube. SFF is a loosing proposition for consumers, which is why Tom's promotes it: They're looking out for the seller, not the buyer.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 

slvr_phoenix

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My point is that the review said this machine was, "especially well-suited as a multimedia PC for home theater applications". Do home theater applications make use of SSE3? If so, since the Pentium-M doesn't support SSE3, why is it especially well suited?
Are you intentionally being a dick or do you really just not know? On the off chance that it's actually the latter, SSE3 is still pretty darn new. Almost no one is using it. The only desktop CPUs to have it are Scotties. And the software industry is even further behind picking up SSE3 than the hardware industry is.

So no, home theater applications don't make use of SSE3. <i>Games</i> don't even make use of SSE3. And I doubt that there are many home theater applications that even use SSE2. That's the point. You could probably run any home theater application on a Pentium 3 1GHz, so a Pentium M is way more than enough.

Just to add more non sequitor, if you add a video card to game (ostensibly for gaming but again no SSE3) it will be just another loud PC.
This would only be true if you're completely incapable of doing any research and/or feel compelled for some deranged reason to try and use the absolute latest and greatest video in your ultra-quiet box. Otherwise you'd chose a <i>quiet</i> video card, like any sensible person would do when building a silent PC.

So is this supposed to be a home theater box or does everything have to be converted and compared to a gaming machine?
Nothing ever <i>has</i> to be anything. There are always options, regardless of the actual probability involved. But in this particular case it really can go which ever way you want.

If I take one of the dual procs out of my server and put in a big video card wouldn't it also just be another lousd gaming PC?
Not if it's a 1.8GHz 400MHz FSB Xeon setup. **ROFL** But otherwise, a PC is whatever you make of it.

If my grandmother had wheels would she be a wagon?
If she was as stiff as a board and you could load her up with cargo and pull her, then yeah. Painting her red might help too. :eek:

What does any of that have to do with a home theater PC?
I would have thought that was fairly obvious, that a home theater PC doesn't just have to be used for home theater uses. It is what you make of it.

As a side note, that was a pretty lame shot at AMD with the "cool and quiet" reference in case no one noticed.
Not only have I not noticed, but I haven't even bothered to read the article. :O THG's articles have really gone down hill. They used to be aimed at enthusiasts. Now they're mostly just regurgitated marketing. :(

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