On the subject of "energy efficiency", I think you have made an important point. Ironically, low-energy CPUs such as Geode do not fetch premium pricing .. yet !
I posted on IV about my search since months for a low-energy PC based on Geode - miniPCs as they are called ..... and discovered that the complete machines fetch almost silly prices. Typically you have to pay 400-700 Euros for one here in Germany. For that money, one could easily get an AMD 5000+ X2 machine with all the trimmings !!!!
Even on Ebay, the machines fetch 300-400 Euros, and that's without a DVD/CD or OS !
More interesting was the number of User-Visits these items are getting.
One item had over 1100 User-Views, ca. 40 bids and sold for 324 Euros - without CD/DVD or OS !
Normally the # of user-views for Desktops etc. is around 50-200 on average IMO !
My WBMaker friend and I checked out suppliers and couldn't find a single supplier that offered Geode solutions ( Mobos, Cases, PSUs etc. ) at decent prices.
He said that a few years ago , he could get Geode SFF fairly priced, now he noticed that the suppliers no longer try to sell the Mobos singly, but offer complete systems with appropriately high pricing!
Short-term , I'm just going to use a normal cheap-case/PSU and probably a PC-Chips K7-Mobo with embedded VGA and Ethernet ( ca. 20 Euros ) and put an 800MHz Geode in it to see what power-consumption readings I get.
A 40GB harddisk uses about 5W.
My point :
It seems that many people are looking for something similar, but don't want to pay the silly prices that HP and the likes want for their EE machines/Thin-Clients etc.
For most offices, I'd imagine that an 800MHZ Geode is more than enough for browsing the internet, writing a letter or running an Office application such as Book-Keeping or order-entry.
I'd like to see AMD come out with an almost complete mobo+cpu that one could attach an external PSU to, and would fit into an ATX or DTX case. Maybe the new DTX format ( as someone mentioned earlier here ) will be the start ?
Suppliers etc. are charging a small fortune even for just the empty case ( 60+ Euros ) , just because it's SFF or slimline.
I also have an ALLNET Disk-server with 1 GBit LAN, USB + Firewire. It works nicely, probably has some embedded Linux running Samba.
A web-server service is also included.
The only thing missing is a Database service !
If they'd have done that, I wouldn't be looking around for an energy-efficient Linux box.
on Geode Products
I've been looking for a low-energy Geode product everywhere !
Nobody seems to offer these at decent prices apart from the odd Ebay offering.
They charge s small fortune for Mini ATX solutions .. 400 Euros and above for example.
What I did notice is that the number of hits that these products get on Ebay is extremely high in compariosn to the standard stuff - Desktops, notebooks etc.
.. which means that one hell of a lot of people are looking for these !
My Spec : 9W-14W total power-consumption including 500MHz, 256MB and 40GB - external PSU
Why the hell doesn't AMD buy a small manufacturing company to build such a system and then market it.
I'd willingly pay say up to 200 Euros.
Would also be a big market for thin-clients for example.
My plan is to use it as a small Linux Home server for database, internet-proxy, apache etc.
Cost of production IMHO (just a guess) :
Mobo - Embedded VGAwith 64MB, 2 USB, 10/100 Ethernet, Sound - 20 Euros
Geode 500/800 (no cooler required) - 15 Euros
256MB ( older generation memory ) - 15 Euros
External PSU - 5 Euros
40GB disk - ca. 20 Euros
DVD-ROM - 15 Euros
Casing in Mini-Book format - 15 Euros
Assembly : 10 Euros
Total costing .. ca. 115 Euros
End-User price 199, Euros
I reckon they could sell 200,000 per month easily !!
200,000 x 84 Euros profit x 12 x 1.31$= ca. 260 mio.$ p.a. additional "profit"
www1.investorvillage.com
.. and ...
Re: on Geode Products
Geode Example : 399 Euros !
minitechnet.de
HP Compaq Thinclient : 540-599 Euros
T5720 AMD 1200 Geode nx1500 512MB 256MB XPE DDR (ML) (EG839AAUUZ) PC System
www0.de.shopping.com
Mini ITX - NO GEODES, only VIA and C2D
spo-comm.de
Star-466 Thin Client Solutions (Geode GX2-466) : Barebone system starts at 229$ with 256MB but no hard drive
cappuccinopc.com
Mini PC3 - Geode LX-800 at 500 MHz - 12W ca. : 690 Euros
Includes 512MB , 80GB, WLAN, No DVD/CD possible !
testticker.de
IDF: AMD zeigt Mini-PC mit Geode NX und Dual-Core-Rechner : Developer-Board costs 600$
( AMDs Entwicklungs-Board Geode NX DB1500 kostet pro Stück rund 600,- US-Dollar. )
( haven't seen any products based on this yet )
Entwickler-Board im Mini-ITX-Format soll Produktdesign beschleunigen
golem.de
Obviously, this market segment is making fantastic profits - that is, if they really sell them at these prices.
My guess is they are all priced high to give corporate buying-in depts. e.g. 40% discounts to move the product !
Compaq for example used exactly this strategy to get into the corporate market.
A friend of mine used to be a Compaq dealer - he got over 50% discount on the (over-priced) boxes, knowing that the corporates always expected at least 30% discount ! |
