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Re:Intel N100 Radxa X4 First Thoughts by adrian_b on Sunday July 28, 2024 @12:16AM (#41091183)
The main advantage of the Alder Lake N CPUs, like N100, N97 etc. is that they are very cheap, cheaper than the Arm CPUs of comparable speed, so they have made the latter not competitive in most cases, because they are both slower and more expensive and only their somewhat lower idle power consumption can make them preferable in certain cases (a properly configured Alder Lake N computer should have an idle power under 5 W, but going much lower than that is unlikely).

A few months ago Intel has launched a refresh of Alder Lake N, with the code name Amston Lake, which are branded as belonging to the Atom x7000 series and Radxa said that there will be future variants of Radxa X4 that will use Amston Lake.

An alternative to Radxa X4 for the cases when its minimum size and its minimum price are not essential is Odroid H4 ($100 without memory) or Odroid H4+ ($140 without memory). That has the Nano-ITX size (5" by 5") and a big heatsink that can work even passively, fanless.

The Alder Lake N/Amston Lake CPUs have the advantage of peripherals with higher speed than any competing Arm CPUs.

Radxa X4 has 3 independent 10 Gb/s USB ports plus 2.5 Gb/s Internet. The best competing Arm-based computers, with RK3588 or with MediaTek Genio 1200 have at most 3 independent 5 Gb/s USB ports. All the Arm-based boards that appear to have many USB ports incorporate an USB hub, so those ports are not independent and their aggregate throughput is limited to 5 Gb/s.

Re:Intel N100 Radxa X4 First Thoughts by nextos on Sunday July 28, 2024 @12:50PM (#41094330)
Also, x86 is much better supported than ARM by OS and software.

A N100 inside a fanless case is a great setup. I hope some of these low-power Intel CPUs start popping up in laptops, where competition for Apple M is truly welcome.

Re:Intel N100 Radxa X4 First Thoughts by bornfreddy on Monday July 29, 2024 @07:25AM (#41099561)
IIUC, this one (Radxa X4) can't be run fanless... Is there one that can be?
Re:Intel N100 Radxa X4 First Thoughts by nextos on Monday July 29, 2024 @01:44PM (#41102230)
The MINIX Z100 is a popular N100 fanless desktop.
Re:Intel N100 Radxa X4 First Thoughts by kvemkon on Sunday July 28, 2024 @10:01PM (#41097427)
> The main advantage of the Alder Lake N CPUs, like N100, N97 etc. is that they are very cheap, cheaper than the Arm CPUs of comparable speed...

BTW, this is the first time I've noticed Intel could compete with ARM on performance + energy efficiency + price. Has someone already investigated how this happened? Do ARM royalties went so high up or Intel does price dumping?

Re:Intel N100 Radxa X4 First Thoughts by trs-80 on Monday July 29, 2024 @01:11PM (#41101960)
> Has someone already investigated how this happened?

Intel finally got some competition and had to get off their ass for a change!

There, no investigation required! :)