ASUS Eee Box Preview & Intel's Atom Benchmarked
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 3, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
What do you do with this thing?
With most hardware we review it’s very clear what you’d use it for. The GeForce 9800 GTX is a card you’d buy if you want to game and a Core 2 Quad Q9300 is your ticket to faster video encode times, but what would you do with a really cheap desktop PC?
Inevitably the Eee Box will be rejected by many who have no need for it, but if you've ever wanted a PC in your home where it didn't make sense to put a $1000 machine the Eee Box is a potential candidate. The Eee Box, much like the Eee PC, falls into a class of computing devices that are designed to be cheap and “fast enough”. ASUS managed to fulfill both of these requirements with the Eee Box and honestly, it’s tough to get much better at $270.
The Eee Box is a great way to repurpose an old monitor, with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse it can be a very clean kitchen PC, 3rd or 4th computer in the house. At the same time, it's quick and functional enough to be a good introductory computer for a relative or child. You don't really make any software sacrifices since it can run the same stuff as a modern day desktop, you just give up some expansion and performance but for a first computer those aren't major concerns.
We suspect that if you have to ask where you'd use the Eee Box then it's definitely not for you. But those who end up buying it will have had a need for it before ASUS ever thought about making it. We're honestly curious: for those of you who are interested in one of these things, leave a comment and let us know how you'd use it.
HTPCeee?
(I know I’m getting a little tacky with the page headers)
The Eee Box uses the desktop implementation of the Intel Atom processor which signifies two things: 1) it uses a desktop chipset, in this case the 945G, and 2) the Atom’s FSB is fused to run in GTL mode and not the lower power CMOS mode.
By using the 945G chipset instead of Poulsbo (the mobile Atom chipset), we lose support for one key feature: hardware H.264/MPEG-2/VC1 decode acceleration. Modern desktop chipsets from AMD and NVIDIA both support full decode of all three of these formats, but nothing from Intel. The Intel G45 chipset is supposed to change things but it is neither available nor cheap enough to be used in something like the Eee Box (the same goes for the AMD/NVIDIA offerings).
Without hardware decode assist for any of the HD video codecs the Eee Box’s Atom processor is left to do all decoding on its own, and unfortunately it’s not fast enough to decode any high bitrate HD video. In our testing we found that the 1.6GHz Atom was fast enough to decode a 4.5Mbps 720p H.264 stream at around 90% CPU utilization; anything more complex and we started seeing dropped frames. 1080p HD movies are completely out of the question. The CPU is fast enough to play 720p XviD/DivX however.
Processing power issues aside, the Eee Box simply lacks the appropriate outputs to make this a viable HTPC. There’s a single DVI output on the back of the Box and a single analog audio output as well; without support for HDMI or digital audio the Eee Box can hardly be considered for any HTPC applications.
What we would really like to see is full hardware decode acceleration in addition to HDMI 1.3 out in a future version of the Eee Box, with that the Eee Box could easily function as a HTPC terminal streaming high definition content over the network. In its current incarnation however, you’ll have to skip the Eee Box if you’re looking for a new HTPC.
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sprockkets - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
I guess too, that I would use this computer for a 3rd system, where I just needed to use a computer if my others were in use doing cpu intensive stuff.I have a D20GLY2 for that purpose, except since it has the sis chipset, video support in linux stinks. Having an intel chipset would be great. If it were at the 965/G31 level, it would run compiz great.
Perhaps what I like about it, is that it is a small out of the way computer, good for basic tasks, for most people who need little, and would not suffer from say, the problem when one half of those computer/monitor combo went out, both are rendered useless.
Kishkumen - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Looks like it should be able to handle standard mpeg-2 based 1080i HDTV. I'll probably get one or two to use as MythTV frontends.Visual - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
please re-check the pricing table that you published...you make it clear in the text after the table that the windows model should cost $299, not $269 as the table says now.
feelingshorter - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
1. My parents own a small business. Due to theft, they need a working computer that i can hook up a camera up to that can capture video or images every x number of seconds. Second, they play music at their small business, so i can put MP3s on the machine (no need for high quality sound as it's just classical music). A draw back is that you need a monitor but I have a 19 inch LCD that I can pass along once i upgrade to a 24inch. Also the computer can then be locked in a "web browsing mode" or "media center mode" to allow for people to select the music and surf the web with. At the end of the day, it can be brought to the back of the business and hooked up to the camera system for surveillance (independent systems can cost a lot too but are less versatile than a PC).(At their small business, they are currently using a 5 disc CD changer, which doesn't give enough variety in music, with customers complaining about hearing the same thing over and over. Also, if you continue to play the CDs over and over again, it will overheat! Silver pressed CDs are supposed to be quite reliable but if your playing it for hours at a time, it WILL start to shudder.)
2. At less than 20watts, it will work perfectly as a machine that can be left on 24/7 (or can that not be assumed?). Anyone remember how hot some of AMD's cpu are, 2200+? A desktop that uses less power than the monitor your hooking it up to? I'll buy one just to save money on air conditioning. If not that, it will serve as a good computer in a pool room in your house. Just for our friends to surf the web while you play pool and have a beer. None of my friends really play games. We waste time on youtube and watching comedy, which this PC is powerful enough to do.
All that being said, at $270, which is really cheap already for a PC, some of us would probably rather put that money into a powerful gaming pc ($1300). Having a PC like that, in the pool room in your house for when you have guests over, is worth buying just for the small form factor and low watt usage.
3. You can also hook up a USB hard drive to it, connect the PC to a network and now you have NAS storage for all the PCs in your house.
4. This one is more for businesses. Schools and test taking centers, tutoring centers, and large corporations with stores that uses windows xp as their checkout will love this. I remember when i used to work at Hollister, their seemingly generic and custom touch screen computers they use to check customers out is actually running windows XP beneath it (you would only know if it crashed, which i saw it do and reboot) with custom software. I don't remember the cost per computer but it was ridiculously expensive for what you get (well, the store costs 11 million to open so i guess business can afford it) . This Eee PC will do the job just fine for less watts and $.
I'm also sure there are other uses but its 2 AM.
AMDJunkie - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Because the picture on the front page is always delicious irreverent and most of all, amazing.