Page 12 - Power Consumption and Conclusion
The above measurements were taken externally at the outlet, so the above data reflects total power consumption of the entire system; counting for power supply efficiency loss as well. Using 39W idling and 46W under full load, our AMD eOntario T56N based system on Jetway's NF81-T56N-LF mini-ITX motherboard configured with one stick of RAM and one 500GB 3.5" Seagate 7200.12 hard drive is overall pretty power efficient. Comparing it to the Jetway NC98-525-LF, we find the power consumption on load between the two is the same. On the other hand, there is a difference in idling. Despite the slight differences, the power usage is still very reasonable.
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All in all, the new Brazos line of AMD processors on the Jetway NF81-T56N-LF is quite competitive for its intended market. The eOntario processor offers decent CPU performance, a pretty good IGP, and decent power consumption. This is definitely a great competitor against the incumbent Intel Atom line. Although the eOntario processor used is not the top of the line in the Brazos family, it holds its ground well against the Atom D525. To my astonishment, the AMD Radeon HD 6310 was beaten by NVIDIA's ION 2 in all of the non-CPU 3DMark06 benchmarks. This happened probably due to the lack of dedicated memory for the IGP. While the Jetway NC98-525-LF had 1GB of dedicated video memory on the ION 2, the Jetway NF81-T56N-LF uses shared memory, which became a hindrance in terms of performance. It would be nice to see some dedicated graphics memory in future revisions -- but realistically, this is not Jetway's fault. All in all, power usage is fair for the performance given. As far as Jetway is concerned, it is good to see that more manufacturers are turning towards using 100% solid state capacitors; this leads to more durability in the long run. What I would like to see is some work being done on the 'generic' feel of the motherboard, as more and more retail customers are turning to these boards. In short, something prettier than the good old green printed circuit board would be much appreciated. Overall, the Jetway NF81-T56N-LF is a great motherboard for both specialized industrial applications and consumer needs. It provides a great base for any HTPC, and would also work as a light gaming system as well. We would like to reiterate that the main market is still for commercial applications, such as point of sale machines, but it is still possible to build it for other uses as well. For $200 at press time, it may not be the most budget friendly as most would like, but it certainly has a lot to offer. Five SATA 6Gb/s ports and eight USB 2.0 ports are among the many highlights. This indeed makes for an adaptable mini-ITX board that can be used for many purposes. It seems that AMD has finally engineered a decent competitor to the Intel Atom D525. With a few tweaks here and there, they should be more than ready to take on the competition in the budget market, and we can see motherboard makers such as Jetway are ready to jump on board. No pun intended.
Jetway provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
Since April 30, 2007, Number Ratings have been dropped for all CPUs, motherboards, RAM, SSD/HDDs, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings are reflected without the inherent limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.
Do we finally have a decent competitor to the Atom on hand? Well, with the Jetway NF81-T56N-LF sporting an eOntario processor, we finally do.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Features, and Specifications
2. Bundle, Chipset, BIOS
3. A Closer Look, Board Layout, Test System
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
6. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
7. Benchmark: PCMark Vantage
8. Benchmark: 3DMark06 Professional
9. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0
10. Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R11.5
11. Onboard Sound (RMAA 6.2.3) Analyzation
12. Power Consumption and Conclusion
