It's twice the watts, half the cores, but the Intel option runs rings around the best reasonable priced ARM we can buy.
I wish AMD would play in this space! They are so up market, it feels like.
I wish AMD would play in this space! They are so up market, it feels like.
I do think AMD is still missing out though on a market segment. They have embedded chips like a V3C14 (a quad core v3000, zen3) which should be physically smaller offerings, should be a cheaper alternative to these mini-pcs. But in practice, there's few boards or systems available and what offerings there are seem to be boutique gear, at high price points.
Smaller & cheaper & lower power computers that can be tucked into various ubiquitous & pervasive computing scenarios remain really interesting to me. It's stellar that desktop class machines have gotten as small & affordable as they are, but I still hope to see this segment of sub-tier systems grow.
Something like a HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini, can be had on eBay for around $80-100 (USD), with probably 8GB RAM and an SSD. So even less than a new thing with an N100 (although in some cases it’s close!)
It uses DDR4 (one of the first generations that did, so means if you want you can go up to 2x32GB SODIMMs). There’s a whole series of these things, servethehome has a “project tiny mini micro” covering many of them.
If the goal is to go with something familiar, which is why this thread was even considering the N100, then going with a system from a known supplier might be even better.
The power might not be such an issue -- while the 6500t is a 35w part, it idles quite low, it would really depend on the system it is in; I wonder how different the power draw at idle would be.
Bottom line is that the n100 is a way better choice than pretty much any overpriced and under-supported ARM SBC these days.