Anandtech - "NVIDIA's Ion Platform: Performance Preview

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dougz
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Anandtech - "NVIDIA's Ion Platform: Performance Preview

Post by dougz » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:17 am

Anand's usual thorough work with lots of pictures & graphs on 6 pages.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3509
Final Words

It’d be silly to dislike Ion. Compared to the Atom/945G combo Ion is faster, you can play 3D games on it and you can actually watch Blu-ray movies on it. If the price is right, I’d rather have an Atom CPU paired with the GeForce 9400M than Intel’s 945G. It just makes sense.

Ion addresses one of Atom’s primary deficiencies - poor graphics performance. It can’t, however, make Atom something it’s not. It’s faster to use Photoshop on Ion than on any of the current Atom platforms, but I still don’t want to. It’s better to play games on the Ion than on a regular Atom system, but it’s not fun to.

NVIDIA does get points for making the overall usage experience better and faster on Ion thanks to more memory bandwidth and a much better GPU. But then there's the issue of the rest of the hardware in the system.

NVIDIA had an Acer Aspire One setup at the CES Ion demo last month; it took over two minutes to launch Spore on that machine. Ion wasn’t going to make that any faster. The HDD Acer chose for that machine was just awful. Ion or not, OEMs are still going to be putting slow components in netbooks, limiting their usefulness.

Ion is luckily versatile enough to be used in other types of systems, but without knowing what the OEMs have planned I can only speculate as to what is coming down the pipe.

The GeForce 9400M is a far better chipset than Intel’s 945G. It should be, it’s a good four years newer. But I do wonder if we’ve taken things a little too far here. I wonder if Ion actually has too much GPU and not enough CPU? Don’t get me wrong, I like Ion; I’d like to have it over a standard 945G platform. I’m just not sure what I’d do with it.

Sure it'd be faster than current Atom platforms. But the applications in which it's most noticeable, I'm not sure I'd actually use a netbook for. As a portable HTPC or other small form factor machine, perhaps. I'm very curious to see what OEMs do with this system. It sure would make for a great Apple TV.

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Post by QuietOC » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:44 am

There is also a review at TechReport.

Atom platform choices:

US15W ----------- <1W Idle / 2.3W TDP
945GSE/ICH7M --- 2W Idle / 9.3W TDP
Ion (MCP79) ------ 3W? Idle / 12W TDP
GN40/ICH10M---- ?W Idle / 14.5W TDP
Last edited by QuietOC on Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:24 am, edited 8 times in total.

amdavies
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Post by amdavies » Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:40 am

It's not pointless, it's just not really a netbook platform.
What it seems to be is a TV platform along the lines of, as has been noted, Apple TV.
If the Atom can take care of the encryption on Blu-Ray discs, which it should be able to, then you have the basis for a complete TV system that could include everything that most HTPC setups can currently do but without the black box(es) sitting under the desk.

dougz
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Laptop Magazine - "Nvidia Ion Reference PC"

Post by dougz » Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:46 am

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops ... ce-pc.aspx
Verdict

Since their inception, netbooks have been touted as secondary PCs that one uses to jump onto the Web to check e-mail and visit favorite sites, mainly due to their low-powered components. Now that we’ve gotten our hands on the Ion, we think that, should Nvidia’s platform be widely adopted, it could change the perception of low-cost PCs, as they will be graphically on a par with your typical ultraportable. You may not be able to play Crysis at a blistering frame rate, but you should be able enjoy a very nice gaming experience on titles that aren’t quite as graphically challenging—as well as take advantage of 3D applications like Google Earth and indulge in high-def video content without the processor getting bogged down. Assuming Ion doesn’t take too heavy a toll on battery life, and that it doesn’t add too much to the cost of these very price-sensitive machines, Nvidia’s platform could very well redefine netbooks.

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Post by QuietOC » Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:06 am

amdavies wrote:It's not pointless, it's just not really a netbook platform.
What it seems to be is a TV platform along the lines of, as has been noted, Apple TV.
If the Atom can take care of the encryption on Blu-Ray discs, which it should be able to, then you have the basis for a complete TV system that could include everything that most HTPC setups can currently do but without the black box(es) sitting under the desk.
Yes, Ion for Atom is pointless.

Atom processor itself doesn't make sense in Desktop/HTPC form factors. I'd much rather have a Sempron/Celeron if not an Athlon X2/Core 2 Duo. The only place Atom makes sense is cheap portable devices, and the key failing there for Atom continues to be high power consumption. Intel's former XScale platform was much lower power than any of the current Atom platforms. Intel should have released a 45nm chipset designed for low power along with Atom.

nVidia failed to make Ion low power. It is stuck with a bunch of useless power consumming features. The useful features are available with US15W at much lower power draw. A low power variant of the G45 (65nm) sounds like the best current option for Intel for Atom netbooks. Too bad we won't see a 780G variant (RS700) or even an old RS600 in an Atom netbook.
Last edited by QuietOC on Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:32 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Post by dougz » Tue Feb 03, 2009 10:23 am

QuietOC wrote:All of those features are available with US15W or GN40 at much lower power draw.
Shipping systems are scarce as hens teeth. Remember that there is a price premium for these chips, too.

OTOH, an ION version of the ASUS EEEBox, MSI Wind nettop, Apple TV or comparable small system would make a great media PC. Small, quiet, and (relatively) cheap. Nothing currently on the market that can provide this. (The current Apple TV box is underpowered...)

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Post by QuietOC » Tue Feb 03, 2009 11:31 am

dougz wrote:or comparable small system would make a great media PC. Small, quiet, and (relatively) cheap. Nothing currently on the market that can provide this.
How about a Sempron + 740G/SB700 system <$150?

Runs quite cool even overclocked to 2.8GHz.

I guess some OEM could put those together to fit in a small box, but I'm fine with MicroATX.

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Post by frank2003 » Tue Feb 03, 2009 11:56 am

From my recent experience with Intel's flag ship IGP, the G45, I can't help but to say that I'm not optimistic that the Atom based on the Intel chipset can provide a better solution than the Ion. The reason is that Intel will only support Vista and won't support XP for their IGP in terms of hardware acceleration for Blu-ray (this was the case when G45 came out; I'm not sure if things have changed). And since the OS of choice for Atom based netbooks is overwhelmingly XP or Linux (probably because the Atom is too slow to run Vista), this means we can't expect an Intel chipset based Atom to be able to play Blu-ray.

On the other hand, the Nvidia 9300/9400 is a proven platform that also supports XP. From the link, 28W of power consumption at the wall for playing blu-ray on an Ion PC is excellent considering most PC's idle at twice that amount.

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Post by dougz » Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:31 pm

QuietOC wrote: How about a Sempron + 740G/SB700 system <$150?

Runs quite cool even overclocked to 2.8GHz.

I guess some OEM could put those together to fit in a small box, but I'm fine with MicroATX.
Agree completely, but lots of folks would prefer a ready-made, less obtrusive system, even if it costs more.

Media Center Edition PCs never sold well. While they did have excessively high prices, I believe that there are many people who would have bought something smaller and quieter.

I think Anand was correct about an ION-based Apple TV revision. ION would also make an inexpensive media-friendly SFF budget desktop feasible. Streaming media is a consideration for most system purchases today.

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Post by blandoon » Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:41 pm

What Nvidia's chipset has, that nothing else has currently, is hardware-accelerated HD video decoding under Linux (VDPAU). In my opinion, this is what makes the Ion potentially so appealing as a lightweight HTPC platform, because it gives you the ability to use a much lower-power CPU than you would otherwise need.

Here's an example of why this is so appealing: I ran a few power consumption tests on my system (AMD x2 4400+, GeForce 8600 GT), playing the 1080p H264 trailer for "I Am Legend":

VDPAU: 63 watts
CPU-based (software) decoding: 94 watts

Now, without hardware acceleration, my system won't play this file without dropping frame, and neither will a single-core Atom, and neither will your $150 Sempron box. With the VDPAU driver, it not only will play it, it will leave the CPU throttled all the way down via Cool&Quiet.

Granted, you could theoretically do something similar with a single-core Intel chip on a GeForce 9300 board, or a lower-power motherboard/CPU combo with an 8400GS card added in. But the appeal of a very tiny, all-in-one-board solution is pretty strong, for me anyway. Besides, Nvidia seem to have thrown a lot of effort into getting this VDPAU driver out there, and it really only makes sense if they have a market in mind for their hardware (i.e. Linux-based set-top boxes, or similar).

Now if ATI/AMD get their hinders in gear and produce a driver that does the same thing for the 780G chipset, I will really be happy.

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Post by dougz » Tue Feb 03, 2009 3:16 pm

blandoon wrote: But the appeal of a very tiny, all-in-one-board solution is pretty strong, for me anyway. Besides, Nvidia seem to have thrown a lot of effort into getting this VDPAU driver out there, and it really only makes sense if they have a market in mind for their hardware (i.e. Linux-based set-top boxes, or similar).
True. Intel Paulsboro/US15 is not a good bet for Linux users either. See "Intel's Poulsbo Driver A Bloody Mess?" http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... &px=NzAyOQ

Low cost Media Center PCs/STBs will, by definition, be Apple or Linux-powered. Microsoft license fees are too high, in relation to the hardware build costs.

Look at the Linux-powered Netfilx Roku box -- $100. The ION reference design is similar in size, although it uses more expensive components. A $300-$400 Apple or Linux-powered ION box would suit a lot of folks (me included).

More on the rapid progress of VDPAU - "A NVIDIA VDPAU Back-End For Intel's VA-API" http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... aapi&num=1

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Post by jessekopelman » Wed Feb 04, 2009 1:46 am

dougz wrote: True. Intel Paulsboro/US15 is not a good bet for Linux users either. See "Intel's Poulsbo Driver A Bloody Mess?" http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... &px=NzAyOQ
US15 is still limited to only embedded applications. The forthcoming GN40 (based on G45) is Intel's competitor for Ion. How good is Linux support for G45 these days. I'd guess not great, as I don't think all the problems have even been ironed out under Vista. Intel is definitely not one for ensuring drivers are ready at product release . . .

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Post by croddie » Wed Feb 04, 2009 9:58 am

QuietOC wrote:Atom processor itself doesn't make sense in Desktop/HTPC form factors.
It has a full HTPC feature-set in a small form factor, at a low price, with low power consumption.
I'd much rather have a Sempron/Celeron if not an Athlon X2/Core 2 Duo.
These have higher power consumption, and the smallest form factors are generally mini-itx. I am pretty sure there is no sub-mini-itx solution that can run vista/windows 7 and play typical blu-ray-quality content. Ion can do this and also can be bought off the shelf and presumably there will be completely passive versions.
A low power variant of the G45 (65nm) sounds like the best current option for Intel for Atom netbooks. Too bad we won't see a 780G variant (RS700) or even an old RS600 in an Atom netbook.
780G+Ion would be fine but won't exist; RS600 doesn't do DXVA; G45 has poorer drivers compared to Nvidia/ATI's offerings and requires commercial software to make use of DXVA. DXVA of course essential for high def on Atom.

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Post by QuietOC » Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:11 am

croddie wrote:
QuietOC wrote:I'd much rather have a Sempron/Celeron if not an Athlon X2/Core 2 Duo.
These have higher power consumption, and the smallest form factors are generally mini-itx.
My undervolted 1.6GHz Sempron is virtually identical in power consumption to my 2GHz N270, and the underclocked Sempron is easily twice the performance of the overclocked Atom. (e.g., Dual DDR2 800 compared to 667FSB). Sure, the Atom uses a lot less power at idle, but those 2.5W or whatever are irrelevant on a desktop PC.

And, yes, the Atom itself is smaller than the Sempron, but the 55nm 740G/SB700 are tiny compared to the 945GSE/ICH7M. nVidia has several cheap single package chipsets that can be used with the Sempron (Geforce 8200).

Many would say the single core Sempron (even running at 2.8GHz) is not even a viable desktop processor today (probably why I was able to buy it brand new in a retail box for $20 shipped). It is a lot slower than a $70 Pentium Dual Core E5200.

My overclocked Sempron is slightly faster than the LE-1640 below:
Image
Image

Why would anyone buy an Atom-based desktop?
Last edited by QuietOC on Wed Feb 04, 2009 8:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Plekto » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:49 pm

Image

33.8W for the full system at max load is remarkable. True, the CPU and MB on other systems might use less power, but add in even a budget video card at even 15W at it's suddenly well over that mark.

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Post by QuietOC » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:02 pm

My undervolted 1.6GHz Sempron + 740G + 4GB DDR2 800 is 19W Idle / 22W full CPU load (down to 18W idle at 800MHz). The desktop Atoms + Ion are a complete fail.

The Atom netbooks are actually much better than the numbers posted. It is hardly fair to include the power for the display and WiFi for them. With the Wifi and HD removed, the LCD off, and Atom underclocked to 495MHz my 1000HA idles at 5W. It only increases to 6W at the normal idle clockspeed. The WiFi card uses about 2W idle. The 10" LCD uses from 1W to 4W idle depending on backlight setting. The HD uses about 1W idle.

Techreport
Of course, the GeForce 9400 itself is not a small chip. You could fit several Atom cores within the confines of its die area. However, it's not as power-hungry as one might expect. Nvidia says the 9400's idle power consumption is just three watts—only one more than the 945GM/ICH7 chipset combo found in most Atom-based systems.
I find nVidia's 3W idle claim rather unbelieveable given the graph above. Maybe it is 1W more than Intel's desktop 945GC/ICH7 chipset (i.e. the 25.5W TDP part)?

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Post by croddie » Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:41 am

QuietOC wrote:My undervolted 1.6GHz Sempron is virtually identical in power consumption to my 2GHz N270, and the underclocked Sempron is easily twice the performance of the overclocked Atom. (e.g., Dual DDR2 800 compared to 667FSB). Sure, the Atom uses a lot less power at idle, but those 2.5W or whatever are irrelevant on a desktop PC.

Why would anyone buy an Atom-based desktop?
-Performance is irrelevant for HTPC beyond having a responsive user interface and ability to play hi def content.
-I doubt your sempron can play blu ray.
-You cannot buy an undervolted sempron off the shelf; you have to build and undervolt it yourself.
-I doubt your system is as small as the Nvidia Ion reference system.
-Assuming there is a fanless version, then with an SSD it will be completely passive and no silencing knowledge/DIY will be required.
-Small improvements in power are important for passive systems.

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Post by QuietOC » Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:52 am

croddie wrote:-You cannot buy an undervolted sempron off the shelf; you have to build and undervolt it yourself.
-I doubt your system is as small as the Nvidia Ion reference system.
-Assuming there is a fanless version, then with an SSD it will be completely passive and no silencing knowledge/DIY will be required.
The nVidia Ion reference system is not a product anyone can buy. Small Ion systems cannot be fanless because the Ion is a big, hot chip (nearly 3x the TDP of the already too hot 945GSE!)

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Post by Plekto » Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:15 pm

33.8W with a less than optimal power supply, most likely(I almost guarantee you can shave a couple of watts with a PicoPSU) for a full multimedia PC is a big deal.

Built-in video on the other systems can't handle Hi-def, no way, no how, so that means you *must* add a PCIe video card that's larger than the entire rest of the machine on most of those things(and isn't mounted parallel to the board, either). That means sticking the tiny bits into a much larger mini-PC case. That the other options can't get around this limitation is what sets this apart.

Check out the videos online of it running - it looks like some tiny calibration sensor underneath a typical large screen HDTV. It's not geared towards a desktop, obviously. But 33.8W does mean that passive might be an option. True 0DB server/media device with a SSD installed.

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Post by blandoon » Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:34 pm

I think the Intel Atom board (the D945GCLF2, I think) has a fan partially because it was designed to be cheap. There are other Atom boards that are indeed fanless. Anyway, Intel themselves have said that the Atom's main design goal was low cost, with power consumption being secondary. If you believe the numbers above (34 watts total), there should be no problem making such a system fanless. My fanless VIA C7 system uses about the same amount of juice.

And I keep seeing the question, "why would anyone buy an Ion desktop?" Well, I agree with you. I don't think the desktop is the target market for the Ion at all (in fact, AMD are counting on it with their Neo processor, which is positioned above the Atom). Nobody who wants a tiny machine like the Eee is going to be doing anything that requires more graphics horsepower than the 945GC has anyway. The Ion is simply a more serious HTPC or media platform than Intel's Atom CPU/chipset combination - particularly in light of the huge driver improvements that have been made on Linux, which is the obvious OS of choice for that application.

(edited for typos.)

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Post by Plekto » Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:51 pm

No, the problem is that the 945GC is completely incapable of running even 720P content without dropping frames. It just doesn't work for multimedia at all. And the single core processors are also inadequate. Even the single core Ion barely scrapes by, but the dual core Ion just plain works as intended. Almost dare I say, Mac-like.

Image

3D Mark of 81 for 945G... there's the problem. And the Ion fixes it.

Image
This site says 30.4W. 8x the video speed for 2x the power seems a fair trade off.

This is going to be cheap as well. And sell like the IPod did by the looks of it. I know WE here all love to DIY and build our rigs, but for the average home user, this is a $399 box(MSRP, likely closer to $300 street) that they buy and plug in.

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Post by QuietOC » Thu Feb 05, 2009 3:20 pm

Plekto wrote:This is going to be cheap as well. And sell like the IPod did by the looks of it. I know WE here all love to DIY and build our rigs, but for the average home user, this is a $399 box(MSRP, likely closer to $300 street) that they buy and plug in.
Doesn't WD already have a little $100 box that plays 1080p fine?

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Post by Plekto » Thu Feb 05, 2009 4:28 pm

I suppose so, but this is also a fully functional PC as well as for that price it'll almost certainly have a drive i it.

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Post by QuietOC » Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:06 pm

Plekto wrote:33.8W with a less than optimal power supply, most likely(I almost guarantee you can shave a couple of watts with a PicoPSU) for a full multimedia PC is a big deal.
Hey, Tomshardware mentions SPCR and uses SPCR data. So the Ion reference system is using a PicoPSU?

Also they got much lower power numbers (A/C):
Ion + Atom 230 -- 11W idle / 16W load
D945GCLF -- 14W Idle / 23W load

They don't mention how they found their "peak" load. I'm guessing they didn't run Furmark or ATITool... :)

Ion is looking much better. I'd still skip the Atom for cheap Core 2. Can we get this with a Celeron 4x0 or Pentium Dual Core? Will Intel sell a Celeron M 722 for $50 or so?

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Post by QuietOC » Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:24 am

Clearing up some confusion about the Atom N280 and GN40 and Pine Trail-M. Intel's Atom roadmap slide at HKEPC.

GN40 is not Pine Trail, and it has a 14W TDP. Intel already has a 7W version of this chipset (PM45). No word about the idle power which is probably more important for netbooks. The GN40 better at least have lower idle power than Ion.

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Post by |Romeo| » Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:27 am

I would ignore the Tomshardware "review" -the author either has very little experience, or hasn't used his brain, or both. My biggest concern would be labelling the connection to the daughterboard as "this port is surely a PCI Express" when it just blatantly isn't.

PCperspective have a reasonable analysis of the board, although I am very disappointed that not one review I have seen has taken a good look at the rather interesting connectors on that board that are not listed anywhere on Nvidias website (If anyone who has the board is reading this, I'm talking about J1C1 (most interesting, looks like an alternative power input), J1B1 (probably a power switch, but it'd be nice to know), J2A2 (CMOS battery?), J8A2 (???), J8A1 and J7A1 (I know the VGA connects here, but both are 20 way and VGA is a 15 pin connector, so there's more than meets the eye here).

And if I'm right about that, it would be possible to measure power consumption of the Pico ITX board from a known PSU

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Ars: "NVIDIA Ion certified for Vista Home Premium"

Post by dougz » Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:27 pm

...On Wednesday, February 11, the company tucked another feather behind its cap with the announcement that Ion is now certified for Windows Vista. When Ion launches, it'll have WHQL-certified driver support, as well as targeted price points as low as $299.

NVIDIA is spinning this as a major win for consumers, claiming "small form factor notebook and desktop PCs will have rich media capabilities and full graphics support for the first time." This is an obvious dig at Intel's integrated IGP—NVIDIA's major selling point with Ion is that the platform has certain features baked into its integrated video solution that even Intel's recently launched GN40 can't match.

The PR does offer a few new crumbs of information. Ion-powered (Ion-driven?) systems should be on store shelves by the summer of 2009, and NVIDIA may make a play for both netbooks and nettops rather than going netbook only.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 ... remium.ars
This does give an idea of the capabilities of the Ion platform, but I'm waiting for the Linux support.

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Post by Aris » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:47 pm

QuietOC wrote:Why would anyone buy an Atom-based desktop?
They wouldnt, they arnt going to be marketed as desktop PC's. They will be marketed as HTPC/DVR's that can run windows, burn HD content, surf the net all in a super small silent package.

Its basically an Apple TV on crack for the PC side of the house.

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Post by jessekopelman » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:25 pm

Aris wrote:Its basically an Apple TV on crack for the PC side of the house.
Likely it is actually the guts of the next Apple TV, as well.

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Post by Plekto » Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:51 pm

Actually, the dual-core model is supposed to be the next model of the Mac Mini. So technically it IS designed to be a tiny desktop.

Of course, I'd personally love to see it in a keyboard type case like the old 16 bit computers were. Sounds like a mod project to me... Get an old IBM type keyboard or similar(NGK/Northgate/etc), fab a bit and presto..

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