The Intel’s own low power consumption of desktop chipsets like the Intel atom, with the same fabrication of the new Intel core 2 Duo with 45nm and a socket type of the old but refurbished 437FCBGA8 that is not replaceable and also built in the board which is a D945GCLF2 a MINI-ITX form factor. With the VIA and Intel or even AMD, are now facing to the lower power consumption desktops, and ASUS introducing the cheaper laptop’s and the Desktop variant, that uses a small form factor and also a low price about $100-$400 mark.
With the Dual-core Atom 330, is now new feat, the Dual core low power consumption is another step form the Intel branding, the single core just the core frequency of about 1.6GHz and with a low FSB of 533MHz, and enough to be used in the usual desktop use and web surfing. For the most the games is not a good option for this type of chipset, with a low frequency than others and a small to no expandability and no PCIex 1x or even PCIex graphics slots, but for the money you expect in the price is a small yet capable desktop alternative to those Intel core 2 with about 140W peak usage under load, while this is 45W load.
For the design of the board is the small form factor, a passive cooling for the CPU but the Northbridge has a fans installed on it, the reason for this that in theory, rather than having three fans, they has only one that has a high rpm and blows air around the board and the surrounding heat-sinks. But for the power connectors is the four pin CPU port and also a 20-pin power connector, so you need an older PSU box with a rating of about as low as 450W.
For the performance of the Intel Atom and boar combo, is a CPU and memory, sector is a low point score just passing the Celeron CPU’s with the same frequency. For the games however, the Quake wars, and Halo no. is in the low frequency of about 15fps to 25fps, when upgrade the board with an old PCI slot graphics, in which I luckily have, a GeForce FX series. But for the Crysis is no brainer, never use this board for any gaming applications, but with the word and surfing apps will work just fine with this.
For the evaluation of the Intel D945GCLF2 is a great board for most of the basic task, but falling down in the high intense and resource hog applications, with a single Channel DDR2 memory, can limit you to a one GB memory stick. But for the most task this can be a cheap option to those custom PC’s with large power recommendations, the Intel Atom is a low cost PC and cheaper to run. They may go at a frequency of about 1.5GHz to 1.8GHz.
