Why arnt more people using Atom (denverton)

[Jhp612]

Hey all,

 

Coming  back to unraid after a 4 year hiatus.  Back then the Aton c2750 was what I used and many others do to is low power requirements and surprising performance. Now that the c3xxx denverton SoC are out I’m wondering why people aren’t using them left and right. Is there a particular reason for this?for my new build I’m planning it looks to be a solid choice but maybe I should be looking something different? Advice welcomed.

 

 

a few reqs-

8-12 disks with a sssd cache

probably running a dozen dower containers including plex

VM useage

mini itx form factor 

Edited July 11, 2018 by Jhp612

[praeses]

The main reason is reliability.  The Atom-baed platforms have been hit with issues, and folks have lost faith.  To compound this Intel has not been great in handling these matters.  Additionally, the cost per performance has never been as great in practice as folks have hoped for or expected.  Certain tasks they struggle with.  Earlier on their benefits were through having many threads and reasonable I/O however considering they're based on older platforms they are often now surpassed by cheap ubiquitous  desktop/workstation boards & processors.  SMT being available on a broad range of processors, advancements in chipsets and ram reducing platform power consumption considerably, and other improvements  make Denverton and company a hard sell.  Additionally being bound to a motherboard's controller can have it's issues as well, especially considering the value in the cheap compatible perc IT flashed controllers.  They've always looked neat and seem like they should be decent but whenever I've worked with them, or thought about buying one personally, the math has never added up.

[Jhp612]

Thank you  praeses! I appreciate the insight! Perhaps I’ll look closer at Xeon d at this point....

[jbartlett]

I have a Win10 box running on an Atom fanless system which was being used only for USB over IP devices. It suited that task quite well even with web cams but for anything else, it took forever. Windows Update was a nightly process. I tried getting different unix installs on it but I've never been successful with any of them (primarily Debian).

 

I built an unRAID box for a friend using the same MB and it's suited that task quite well as a NAS with some Sync docker & plugins.

[HellDiverUK]

Mainly because they're big money compared to say an i3 on a server-style board.  A Supermicro with an i3 on it will be cheaper and faster.