$35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

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Ancient
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$35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by Ancient »

A $35 Atomic Pi is available at Amazon using an Intel Atom Z8350 X86 system on chip. It has 1080P HDMI output, 3 USB 2 1 USB 3, 4 GB storage and 16 GB of flash. The flash comes pre-loaded with an unknown Linux variant. Is this something ReactOS alpha can power? It does not currently include a power supply but in 2 days a developer edition with power supply is supposed to be available at a higher than $35 price. It requires 5 volts at 4 amps according to the spec sheet. This has passive cooling and looks like a brick mostly due to the passive cooler. It comes with bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet connectivity. I'm guessing ReactOS could be flashed onto it. Shipping is via Prime from the U.S. so it's typically 2 day delivery. I do not wish to advertise a specific product here, but thought this is interesting as it is within the 4GB limit of 32 bit operating systems and is darned close to the cost of a Raspberry Pi.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by erkinalp »

20W is too much for a single-board computer.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by mrmajik45 »

"Typically 4-15 watts"
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by Reactions »

Just pay $160 for an i7 3770 and 8 gigs of ram.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by mrmajik45 »

How about this: Not using a shintel cpu. Which just got a microcode update that makes it even slower.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by EmuandCo »

Well, my NUC eats what you mention above and it's a 7th gen i7. But that is NOT for ReactOS though ^^ I host my Plex server there.
Anyways, if the Atomic PI works for ROS, it might be a nice tinker board...
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

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Ancient
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by Ancient »

mrmajik45 wrote: Thu May 16, 2019 2:59 pm How about this: Not using a shintel cpu. Which just got a microcode update that makes it even slower.
There is a lot wrong with it, AMD Zen would be preferred. Though the Atom series APU's are excluded from the most recent laundry list of bad design choices which plague Intel. That said, the cost went to $37, which is still fairly cheap. It is competitive with a Raspberry Pi in terms of cost and is x86 / Atom. As a base board to play with, it may offer a cheap platform for ReactOS.

Zen 2 and Zen 3 will certainly be a lot better than whatever Intel pumps out, but aren't here yet. Still over a week from this post before we know official specs and release dates for Zen 2. The Zen+ APU's are out IIRC but are $100 or more. A Zen 2 or 3 APU will be nicer, but will cost a lot more.

If this were an open board and more reliably in stock it could be a target to develop ReactOS on. As it is, this is more of a tinker toy to play with for anyone interested. My only thought is 32 GB or so on a USB 3 flash drive if bootable could salvage this as a platform for ReactOS, but it is doubtful ReactOS can boot directly from a flash drive, maybe a hypervisor VM with ReactOS inside would work. With ReactOS free and $40 or less for a development board it could have an appeal to some. I'm waiting for Zen 2 8 core. Supposedly Zen 3 may have 4 hyperthreads per core with diminishing returns per thread. The core count would increase from 16 to 32 with traditional hyperthreading and from 16 to 64 with quad hyperthreads, but those extra 32 threads would only add 20-25% to a typical load.

Still ReactOS is growing slowly in a world of 12, 16, 24 and 32 effective core CPU's. This has got to be daunting. Use of a hypervisor may make it easier for ReactOS to run not only on products like this but on other newer hardware. Maybe to co-exist as a virtual add on with Linux under a hypervisor until it's ready to handle real 2020+ hardware.

The spec sheet on this cheap CPU is here - https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... 2-ghz.html supposedly it's designed for a 2 watt TDP. 4 core, 2 GB RAM, and virtualization. All at a slow speed in a Cherry Trail Atom system on chip. Price for the chip is quoted at $21. So under $40 for a system sans power supply is possible and a good price, better when it was $35.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by justincase »

Here's an interesting factoid you might like to know: the board Digital Loggers is now selling as the "Atomic Pi" is was originally developed by Mayfield Robotics for use in their "Kuri" household robot. For more info see reddit.com/r/Atomic_Pi/comments/bnvtq8/atomic_pi_leftover_from_mayfield_robotics.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by Ancient »

justincase wrote: Thu May 16, 2019 10:15 pm Here's an interesting factoid you might like to know: the board Digital Loggers is now selling as the "Atomic Pi" is was originally developed by Mayfield Robotics for use in their "Kuri" household robot. For more info see reddit.com/r/Atomic_Pi/comments/bnvtq8/atomic_pi_leftover_from_mayfield_robotics.
I ordered one, we shall see how it works. Came to $54 with tax, power supply and power supply adapter.
Ancient
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by Ancient »

My Atomic Pi arrived today. WIndows 10 wouldn't install onto it, as there is only 16 GB of flash drive built in. Windows 10 does run off the USB 3 port, but it is slow. Only 2 GB of RAM. The power draw is between 4 and 8 watts when idle, and up to 15 watts when running all 4 cores at 100%. I can't get ReactOS installed on it. I may install a virtual machine on Windows 10 and try to see if ReactOS will run inside that from a flash drive. My Raspberry Pi 3 typically draws under 1 watt with a maximum of 2.5. My meter doesn't work well under a watt. HDMI works only to 1080P, no 4K, no higher resolution. No VGA out. It is very slow, but may serve as an automation device. However with Linux a Raspberry Pi 3 uses less power and most of the time home automation controllers are idle. Overall, this may not be suitable for ReactOS as it is quad core, and virtualization under Linux and ReactOS aren't going to fit easily in 16 GB and do much. This isn't a suitable product to host alpha ReactOS. Not enough drive space, HDMI video and audio only (maybe Bluetooth audio, no antennas included though). Download speed test using Linux is faster than Windows, but is only 286Mbs on a 1Gb Internet connection, my very old I7 clocks about 870-880 Mbs regularly on the same Ethernet port. So better than fast Ethernet, but not quite gigabit. 1080P for Youtube, Amazon and Netflix, unless something else is running, example compiling in background. The price was OK, and this may be a good compiler / system builder for my 3D printers. The integrated hard drive does not appear to be replaceable. At least short of good soldering skills. No case is included. It looks messy. Apologies for bringing this to the forum here, it looked like a good idea at first, but isn't useful after evaluation. If the hard drive could be replaced, maybe, then a VM could easily run ReactOS and development could begin using a $50ish total part. Currently I'm looking for a suitable 3D printable case to hide the ugly.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by binarymaster »

Ancient wrote: Thu May 23, 2019 9:38 pm I can't get ReactOS installed on it. This isn't a suitable product to host alpha ReactOS. Not enough drive space, HDMI video and audio only (maybe Bluetooth audio, no antennas included though).
Can you tell what exact issue you encountered when installing ReactOS?

From your post I can't figure out what could go wrong. :roll: 2 GB RAM is enough to boot ReactOS with Live in RAM mode, including PXE boot.
Ancient
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by Ancient »

After BIOS boot, blank screen with ReactOS native. Install was via Win32DiskImager.

This only has an HDMI output via integrated Intel graphics. There is no drive activity LED or even power on LED built into the board.

Once it goes black it is hard to diagnose.
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by cb88 »

Actually the best CPU for ReactOS cost benefit wise would be one with the fastest single core speed.. and the lowest price. So basically an OCed Sempron 200GE to 4.1Ghz on an MSI motherboard (not all boards can OC this chip). Most of intel's CPUs that can OC are expensive...
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Re: $35 Atomic Pi (x86 Intel Atom Z8350 4GB RAM 16GB flash)

Post by binarymaster »

Ancient wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 2:45 am After BIOS boot, blank screen with ReactOS native. Install was via Win32DiskImager.
Try with this method: https://reactos.org/wiki/User:Illen/RAM_Boot
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