I recently purchased a SU7300 CULV based laptop (Asus UL30A) and love it. It can pump out HD videos, handle full screen Hulu and YouTubeHD, and it is nice and cool and quiet. Much thanks going to its low voltage and its cooling being based off of Intels jet engine style cooling technology.

Are their any desktops or pre-built systems that are going to take on these technologies? They seem to be perfect for the set-top boxes that are becoming so popular now. They are very quiet and control heat extremely well.

If not, are their any motherboards coming out soon that will use the SU7300 or SU9400 CULV chips? I have heard rumors that the ION2 may use them, but there is nothing concrete yet.

Thanks.

would be nice to find a moBo with these culv processors. Could be more powerful than atoms with a little more power consumption.

Perhaps a desktop isn't needed. With a CULV netbook you can plug in another monitor, keyboard and USB drives. You can't use PCI soundcards, but you can use USB DACs. I've been thinking the same thing myself, Alex.

The dual-core desktop Atom has a TDP of 8W. The SU7300 has a TDP of 10W. I reckon you would barely see any difference in power consumption between the two. Unfortunately, 1ku pricing for the SU7300 is $262 while the Atom 330 goes for $43, I think, so I'm guessing the odds for a motherboard/CPU combo are fairly low. It's quite possible we'll see them in pre-built SFF desktops, though.

I have been tentatively watching the dual core Atom/ION boards. Once Adobe officially supports GPU acceleration they will be able to handle Hulu full screen. But that may be a while. Until then, I am eyeing the CULV based setup. From experience, I can definitely say the CULV SU7300 and higher chips can handle full screen flash. And they also run Windows Media Center user interface very smoothly ... which can be a feat for an atom processor.

In my opinion, this CULV chip could be game changer for small, silent HTPC's. I am surprised there is not more talk about it around here.

CULV would be an ideal replacement for the desktop atom builds many companies are making now. In a netbook atom is great because its stupidly low power and its "good enough" (not many people need to watch HD video on a 10 inch screen im betting, although the next iteration of atom would be better). In desktops though where saving 5-10w isnt really that much of an issue and the extra CPU power would be beneficial since it would be able to do everything a normal PC can without the stuttering.

You can just undervolt a standard issue core2duo or pentium dualcore and get the almost the same chip.
My cheapo e5200 will run at .85v 1600mhz.
2.5ghz it'll do at 1.00, still very very low.

I'm with the OP on this, would love to see CULV desktop systems and say goodbye to Atom, at least for the PC; variants for smart phones, etc might be fine, but keep it off my desktop, pls!


What kind of power consumption do you get? Have you measured system Ac power draw?

The issue is that the desktop chipset often draws more power than such an undervolted CPU -- the CULV processors are used w/ a mobile chipset optimized for low power.

I just received my ASUS UL30A-X5 with 13.3" LCD (LED backlight), Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3GHz CULV, GS45 (GMA4500MHD), 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and 4400mAh (63WHr) battery. With conservative power settings, I was able to squeeze 8.5 hours of battery life doing around 30~45 minutes of fullscreen Hulu and the rest of the time spent browsing the internet (mostly forums). Doing some quick math, that points to a power consumption of ~7.4W. Pretty darn good considering that includes powering the screen (albeit at 25% brightness). For media watching, I'd peg the battery at 5 hours or so which amounts to a power consumption of 12W. I was getting some frame drops while watching Hulu, but that may be due to to the aggressive power saving options I was using. I'll have to test Hulu playback when the AC adapter is plugged in.

One really nice thing I've noticed is the laptop didn't get hot at all. It became slightly warm during use but not hot.

Acer has the Aspire Timeline AS1410 with Celeron Dual-Core SU2300 1.2GHz CULV available for pre-order for $399.99. If they can create an Aspire Revo box with the same innards as the AS1410 for around the same price as the R3610 ($329), I'll be sure to get one (or three ).

I have not had any frame drop issues with mine. That was streaming through my Xbox360 using Playon.

I changed the power profile to a customized version of the high performance setting. With Google Chrome, I'm getting silky smooth Hulu. Even the sample HD video (Legend of the Seeker Episode 1) played very smoothly, no drop frames whatsoever. Very impressive.

Good to hear you got it setup. I wish these manufactures would hurry up and come out with a CULV desktop HTPC. I have a wad of cash waiting for the first one that does.

CULV CPU speeds seem pathetically low. 1.2-1.4GHz is circa 2002. For the same price or less, you can get a more powerful spec'd system that can do more than browse the web and playback your media files. (You'll probably need a corei7 to run the next version of MS Office. Okay, maybe a corei5.) Then again, that's what most people use computers for these days. Of course, if power consumption is your be all and end all, then it'll serve well. But if you want to use your computer for more than a glorified DMP, it doesn't seem worth it IMO.

CULV looks set to make Atom in netbooks/nettops etc redundant. However, cost will keep Atoms as mainstays for a while as the whole market is driven by (low as possible) cost. A half decent 10" Atom based netbook can be bought for $500AUD or less here while a 13" CULV notebook will set you back at least $800+. Some of the more fancy featured ones go up as much as $2000+. Simply not worth it for that kind of money.

CULV also makes it possible to build computers in very, very small form factors where regular desktop parts would otherwise overheat.


I got my ASUS UL30A-X5 for US$680. I've seen 13" Acer and Toshiba CULV laptops for less. Most expensive CULV notebook I've seen is an ASUS UL50VS ($1,300) but that's because it has dedicated graphics and SSD drive.

Small, thin and light form factors look good but that brings up a question of durability. Having seen a Sony effort reminiscent of a manila folder, I wonder whether we really need computers with paper thin designs other than for the fact they are fashionable to a certain set of buyers.

I think you’ve completely missed the point; they’re low power.
Also, a 1.4GHz Intel dual core of today is almost as fast as the original Athlon 64 X2 2GHz but is rated for 10W rather than 89W.

Looking forward to AMD targeting this market with Bobcat as that should hopefully help to lower the prices for these as the margins must be very large for Intel.

I bought an 11.6 Acer Aspire 1410 from the US with a Celeron 1.2Ghz su2300 dual core to replace my ITX atom 330/ION 9400m as a htpc and to be honest I couldnt be happier with it.

Perfomance is in another league compared to the atom as it plays youtube HD video smoothly and has no issues with other flash content. Audio over the HDMI link seems to be of good quality and the thing uses only 14w with the screen off (with is about 10w lower than the atom running with a laptop drive). 400 euros delivered too.

Noise output is not the best though, Im looking into some of the fan control apps available which reportedly sort that out.

Well, finally:
ViewSonic outs energy efficient, earth-friendly VOT125 nettop -- won't help that there oil spill

Now we just need noise characteristics.