Updated: AOpen MiniPC – Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
by Jarred Walton on March 3, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Benchmark Information
There really aren't a lot of meaningful performance benchmarks to run on such systems. Winstones Business and Content Creation are a good place to start, providing an overview of typical home office capability. Futuremark's PCMark covers a similar area, and even 3DMark03/05 were able to complete, though not with impressive scores. (Let's not even worry about 3DMark06.) AutoGK provides a look at encoding benchmarks, which could be important for those looking for a diminutive HTPC. Noise, heat, and power requirements will be checked as well.
We didn't bother with network performance, since GbE connections on all the tested PCs are generally more than fast enough for home and office use. File transfer rates topped out at around 25-30 MB/s on the MiniPC, which is roughly the sustained transfer rate of the 2.5" hard drive (and burst speeds were higher but less important). If you're using GbE, you will find the integrated NIC to be more than fast enough; if you're only using 100Mb Ethernet or the optional WiFi adapter, network throughput will be substantially slower.
Finally, before we get to the actual numbers, let me just say this: while the Pentium M platform powering the MiniPC is, in most instances, slower than the competitors, I did do a fair amount of web surfing, office tasks, etc. using the system. I also wrote a decent portion of this article on the system. Anyone who has performed such tasks should already realize that a 1.73 GHz Pentium M is more than sufficient for office use, and anything faster often goes unnoticed. For the intended market, the performance is definitely acceptable.
Now, let's move on to the benchmark numbers. The AOpen MiniPC is highlighted in green, and the Sempron 3100+ system is highlighted in red, as it is the only system that is using a discrete graphics card. That will have a major impact on the 3D tests, but elsewhere, it won't matter much.
There really aren't a lot of meaningful performance benchmarks to run on such systems. Winstones Business and Content Creation are a good place to start, providing an overview of typical home office capability. Futuremark's PCMark covers a similar area, and even 3DMark03/05 were able to complete, though not with impressive scores. (Let's not even worry about 3DMark06.) AutoGK provides a look at encoding benchmarks, which could be important for those looking for a diminutive HTPC. Noise, heat, and power requirements will be checked as well.
We didn't bother with network performance, since GbE connections on all the tested PCs are generally more than fast enough for home and office use. File transfer rates topped out at around 25-30 MB/s on the MiniPC, which is roughly the sustained transfer rate of the 2.5" hard drive (and burst speeds were higher but less important). If you're using GbE, you will find the integrated NIC to be more than fast enough; if you're only using 100Mb Ethernet or the optional WiFi adapter, network throughput will be substantially slower.
Finally, before we get to the actual numbers, let me just say this: while the Pentium M platform powering the MiniPC is, in most instances, slower than the competitors, I did do a fair amount of web surfing, office tasks, etc. using the system. I also wrote a decent portion of this article on the system. Anyone who has performed such tasks should already realize that a 1.73 GHz Pentium M is more than sufficient for office use, and anything faster often goes unnoticed. For the intended market, the performance is definitely acceptable.
Now, let's move on to the benchmark numbers. The AOpen MiniPC is highlighted in green, and the Sempron 3100+ system is highlighted in red, as it is the only system that is using a discrete graphics card. That will have a major impact on the 3D tests, but elsewhere, it won't matter much.
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JarredWalton - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
Okay, read that as "AOpen or one of their partners." The point is that AOpen can't possibly charge $330 for this unit (with DVDR) and expect people to prefer it over the new Mac Minis. $200 gets you a Pentium M, $100 for the HDD... and you're still missing the OS. Then again, $100 price premium over a Mac if you really want to run Windows isn't the end of the world. Would I recommend it over a Mac Mini? No. If you want to buy it, though, it's still a pretty cool system to play around with. I would definitely take it over the older G4 Mac Minis, because it's clearly faster in important areas (like HD stream decoding). If the MP945 launches at $850 or less for a complete Core Duo system, we have a worthwhile contender.JarredWalton - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
Well, this is the initial version, and it does have a DVD+/-RW drive. The optical drive runs about $85 at retail, I think. I definitely agree that AOpen should be able to get the cost of the tested model down to the $650 range (including OS), which would put it up against he Core Solo Mac Mini that just came out.Furen - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
The OS price is the killer...The T2300 (1.66GHz) costs around $240 bucks (yet the core solo costs like $210), plus the $330 for the motherboard and $100 for the OS and you're already at $670. Add HD, the ram and you're way over budget. I suppose going for a Celeron M is the solution to this problem considering that Celeron performance is pretty comparable with the Pentium M's.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
That's why this needs to be sold as a pre-built system, including OS. Large businesses can negotiate very good deals with MS and Intel, and realistically there's no way the case/chassis/mobo/PSU costs $330. At wholesale component prices, they should be able to match the price of the Mac Mini. Sell more at a smaller profit margin is the idea, though again I'm not sure how many people would buy one of these. Guess we'll see what happens.