Gh0sTly Dayton Metro PC Owner
Joined: Jul 24, 2007
Posts: 1199
Post Subject: Jetway ATOM-GM1-330-LF motherboard
Posted on: Apr 6, 2009
Jetway is striving to make the Intel ATOM a household name, and with this idea, they have brought the ATOM-GM1-330-LF Motherboard to the market to try and push this idea.
The ATOM-GM1-330-LF is a Micro-ATX form factor board with 2 PCI slots, and 1 PCI-e 1x slot. This allows the system builder some free PCI slots for a wireless card, SATA controller card, or even a low end graphics card, as well as anything you could fit into a PCI-e 1x slot as well. On the board, you get plenty of headers for USB(upto 4 USB ports), a parallel port header, HD audio header for front side Audio in/out, and 3 fan headers, one is already used for the northbridge cooler. You get 2 DDR2 533Mhz slots for a max amount of ram at 4gb. For storage, you get 2 SATA2(3Gb/s) connectors as well as 1 IDE and 1 floppy connectors.
On the rear I/O panel, you get mouse and keyboard PS/2 ports, 1 Serial port, a VGA out, 4 USB 2.0 ports, a 10/100 Ethernet port, and 6 channel HD audio outputs. I don't think anyone will have any issues with a lack of connections for this board, considering its many uses.
This board runs the Intel ATOM 330 CPU(S-Spec SLG9Y), and its tiny, but powerful. It operates at 1.6Ghz, and is a true Dual Core CPU with HyperThreading on each core. It has a 8w Thermal Design Power, meaning it uses very little power, and runs cool enough to not need a CPU fan. This means 4 thread processes at once. It also supports EM64T, so this can run any 64-bit OS that runs the x64 codebase.
I do want to point something out with this CPU, and I have yet to hear from Jetway on this, but my sample board has a Engineering Sample CPU, and this can be great for the overclocker. Intel locks the multiplier on all of their CPU's except the Engineering Sample(ES) CPU's. They tend to be highly sought after because of this.
Time for everyone's favorite part of the review, the tests. Our test machine consisted of:
Seagate 500GB(ST3500418AS) SATA2 Hard Drive
4gb (2x 2gb)OCZ DDR2-800Mhz(clocked down to 533Mhz)
ATOM-GM1-330-LF
Ultra 550W PSU
Windows Vista Home Pro(x64)
The programs we used to do our testing was:
Windows Experience Index test
Performance Test 6.1(x64)
Quake 3(for GPU test)
The first test we will show is the Windows Vista Experience Index test results:
As you can see, the Intel GMA950 Graphics core is what really holds this machine back. I know that the Nvidia ION chipset is out now, and all I can do is hope that Jetway gets to use it for their next generation Intel ATOM boards. It would push the ATOM out of the lower range of PCs into the midrange gamer/HD video market.
Next we ran Performance Test to get some CPU scores as well as some 2D and basic 3D scores.
As you can see, this board performs relatively well for these 3 fields. I ran a session of Google SketchUp on this board, and it ran surprisingly well, as much of a graphics hog as it can be.
We ran one other test on the CPU, and its a Multiple process CPU test.
As you can see, the ATOM handle's multiple processes very well, and it really shows with programs that are designed to take advantage of it.
Next we ran Quake 3 with all the graphics settings on max, at a resolution of 1152x864(Only widescreen resolution that would stay fullscreen). It ran at a healthy 35-75FPS during multiple multiplayer matches. The times it dropped to 35FPS was in heavy fog area's ingame. The majority of the time it was 50-75FPS.
One thing to note about the ATOM when running a game and a passive CPU cooler: The CPU ran at 50-52C durring the game, but after the game was closed, the CPU temperature dropped down to 32C.
If someone was to build a In Car PC, Home Theater PC, or even a basic desktop with a few expandability features, I would go for the ATOM-GM1-330-LF. Its fast, its cheap, and its build very well. It has lots of possibilities for the modder as well, and could be a killer thin-PC.
I would like to take this time to thank Jetway for letting us review this wonderful product, and I look forward to reviewing more from them soon.
The NEXT generation of Mini-ITX boards, I think, Should be Intel ATOM dual core(N330 or better) equiped, and have the Nvidia ION chipset, so the boards can have a GOOD video card(nvidia-9400M, same thing in the MacBook) and actually be able to perform better.
oh god I cant wait. That will be awesome as long as they can keep them low powered. I love the fact that they only need a passive heatsink, and they dont even need a good one at that.
