Monday, July 21st 2008
2 Watt PC Here, Sufficient Power for Cloud-computing
A relatively unknown brand, Cherrypal introduced a PC module dubbed 'cloud computer'. It carries a price tag of US $250. Sure you do find pre-owned full-size PCs for that price, but just think of it: this PC consumes a mere 2W of power when idle (excludes the consumption of monitor and other peripherals).
On the features front, there's enough computing power to get you onto the internet, it is driven by a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT triple-core processor, 256 MB DDR2 memory and 4 GB of NAND flash memory to store the OS, a Debian-derived Linux OS, Mozilla Firefox as the core internet application (supports all add-ons and Linux media plugins). 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, VGA out, and stereo audio out. It beats the $929 VidaBox PC convincingly at its price-point. Sure, such devices are mere toys for average users like us sitting cozy with powerful gaming PCs, but such devices are a step in the right direction, towards Cloud Computing.
Cloud computing, a new buzzword in the computing industry, is the computing methodology where software is thin and light, and streamed onto a computer. A user accesses software either freely or on a subscription basis. All you need is a standards compiant web-browser, OS isn't a factor. This has gotten players such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe and others looking up to it as the next big thing. You don't need to buy those installation discs and throw gigabytes of hard-drive space at applications anymore.
Source:
TG Daily
On the features front, there's enough computing power to get you onto the internet, it is driven by a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT triple-core processor, 256 MB DDR2 memory and 4 GB of NAND flash memory to store the OS, a Debian-derived Linux OS, Mozilla Firefox as the core internet application (supports all add-ons and Linux media plugins). 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, VGA out, and stereo audio out. It beats the $929 VidaBox PC convincingly at its price-point. Sure, such devices are mere toys for average users like us sitting cozy with powerful gaming PCs, but such devices are a step in the right direction, towards Cloud Computing.
Cloud computing, a new buzzword in the computing industry, is the computing methodology where software is thin and light, and streamed onto a computer. A user accesses software either freely or on a subscription basis. All you need is a standards compiant web-browser, OS isn't a factor. This has gotten players such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe and others looking up to it as the next big thing. You don't need to buy those installation discs and throw gigabytes of hard-drive space at applications anymore.
34 Comments on 2 Watt PC Here, Sufficient Power for Cloud-computing
If it was a single core, the computer would lag when surfing the net and trying to play music, even though 1200mhz is enough to do both. Having it split across three cores means that 400mhz goes to internet (which is plenty), 400mhz goes to media player and 400mhz goes to word :p..
TK, lol you cant build a new mini ITX system for that price...but an older one easily. My mini-ITX system costed me $180 AUD. 1GHz VIA processor, 1GB PC2100 RAM, 500GB IDE HDD, Gigabit LAN card, home made case, 60W LCD Monitor AC adapter.
^ Uses 10-20W of power when its idling, 30-40 under full load.
....and a connection a lot faster than what you're currently using...
Other then that, these are cool.
dont forget my homies, you could always have a LAN server for these apps. have one of these beasties in every room with a media server elsewhere streaming it live to each station. look at that, media and office apps in every room.
Multi core CPU originate not because its faster but because Mr.Rayoflight is begining to be a bit too slow for single cpu and splitting stuff partially solves the problem(for now).
Triple core in this PC is purely a marketing thing as everybody is used to having 100 cores in his computer.400Mhz is not much and I really doubt it that a web browser would settle for a single core...
Id rather go back to single core way of working because having 3 cores on a frequency that is as fast as my broadband router is pretty much missing the idea of multi core technology.
Back to this nice PC. Id love to see it on my shelf as a dvd/xvid player and a 24/7 leecher machine. Most routers have trouble with HDD->Ethernet performance so it kinda sucks when you wanna copy a 10gig HD movie with 2mb/sec speeds :P
I dont think that 2W is gonna convince a granny to pay 3x the price for a slower computer just to save 10 bucks a year on her checking weather over internet.