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AT3IONT-I Deluxe: Supplemental PSU for a GPU?

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  • AT3IONT-I Deluxe: Supplemental PSU for a GPU?

    When my server board bit the dust thanks to a shorting out cheapo USB hub, I couldn't really wait for a replacement to ship, so I grabbed an ASUS AT3IONT-I Deluxe motherboard to hold me over as a short term fix until I could get my main board RMA'd.

    This little guy is impressive. Built in Bluetooth, WiFi, ION / NVIDIA Graphics and VDPAU (which all work Out-Of-Box on OpenSuSE 11.3 - WOW!) make this thing flawless for media playback, and the Atom 330 Dual Core / Hyperthreaded CPU solution made it pretty much a drop-in temporary solution. Dropping down from an 8 core dual 1366 Xeon to a low power solution has never been so painless.



    As you might notice in the bottom of this picture, the ATX power connector is replaced with a bunch of solder points, so the PSU is a brick that sits outside the case. This is a curious design decision in my opinion, because the PCI Express x16 slot will almost certainly demand more than 90w of power for any modern mid-end graphics card.

    I'm wondering if there is a supplemental power solution that will fit in the case I'm working with (SilverStone SG05) and power something like a GTX460 / GTX470. The case provides space for an "SFX" Form factor power supply, which I can use (and short some special pinouts on the ATX connector) to get going, any thoughts or recommendations on this?

  • #2
    Originally posted by kazetsukai View Post
    When my server board bit the dust thanks to a shorting out cheapo USB hub, I couldn't really wait for a replacement to ship, so I grabbed an ASUS AT3IONT-I Deluxe motherboard to hold me over as a short term fix until I could get my main board RMA'd.

    This little guy is impressive. Built in Bluetooth, WiFi, ION / NVIDIA Graphics and VDPAU (which all work Out-Of-Box on OpenSuSE 11.3 - WOW!) make this thing flawless for media playback, and the Atom 330 Dual Core / Hyperthreaded CPU solution made it pretty much a drop-in temporary solution. Dropping down from an 8 core dual 1366 Xeon to a low power solution has never been so painless.



    As you might notice in the bottom of this picture, the ATX power connector is replaced with a bunch of solder points, so the PSU is a brick that sits outside the case. This is a curious design decision in my opinion, because the PCI Express x16 slot will almost certainly demand more than 90w of power for any modern mid-end graphics card.

    I'm wondering if there is a supplemental power solution that will fit in the case I'm working with (SilverStone SG05) and power something like a GTX460 / GTX470. The case provides space for an "SFX" Form factor power supply, which I can use (and short some special pinouts on the ATX connector) to get going, any thoughts or recommendations on this?
    Ya I found that curious that Asus would get rid of the power header on the "Deluxe" version. This is why I went with the "non-deluxe" version for my last media server build which still has the power connector because I use the PCI-e slot for an Adaptec 2805 for additional storage capabilities allowing for a total of 12 drives to be hooked up. Suffice it to say that little 90w PSU wasn't going to be sufficient for my needs. It would have been nice if they included a mini PCI-e slot as well for using a small SSD for the OS drive but a USB thumbdrive works just as well for media server purpose.

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    • #3
      It is completely stupid to combine a GTX 460 with a Atom CPU. To get speed you need MUCH more cpu power.

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      • #4
        So the non-deluxe has the ATX connector. I may have to consider "downgrading"- and use cram a SAS controller in this board instead.

        Originally posted by Kano View Post
        It is completely stupid to combine a GTX 460 with a Atom CPU. To get speed you need MUCH more cpu power.
        Sure, you're not going to get all of the 460's power out of the thing, but I'm pretty sure how much you do get depends on the application. I think its a good pairing; cheap rig with a very low default power draw, but when you fire up a graphically intensive application you have the resilience to deal with it.

        I'll run Unigine on this little guy with an external PSU and let you know how it goes.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by kazetsukai View Post
          So the non-deluxe has the ATX connector.

          Yup, that is the odd thing, you would think the "deluxe" would have at least both options.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by deanjo View Post
            Yup, that is the odd thing, you would think the "deluxe" would have at least both options.

            LOL! No WiFi, RCA audio, I can see the pinouts for the missing Bluetooth and Molex connectors. I wonder if I can just use the two solder points on the missing ATX connector to see if the board is shorting them when powered...

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            • #7
              RCA Audio isn't realy a concern since HDMI output works fine. Wifi wasn't a concern as a wired network is preferred when dealing with multiple HD streams. Blue tooth is easy enough to work around with a USB bluetooth module but it would have been nice.

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              • #8
                Anyone know anything about PCIe Power Configuration? It looks like the max draw for PCIe x16 1.x is 75W. I might -barely- make that. 2.0 is 150W, which is above the PSU spec of the board. If a board can only deliver 75W to the PCIe x16 interface, with the card 'be smart' and draw the rest from the PCIe Connectors?

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                • #9
                  I'm considering jumping over to an AT5IONT-I.


                  The ION2 board seems much better suited to pair with an external GPU than the AT3IONT-I's, even if the AT5IONT-I only have a "slit" PCIe x4 connector, versus the PCIe x16 on the AT3IONT-I. There are a couple of reasons for this.

                  The Atoms on the ION2 chipsets are much like the Nehalems. They have on-chip memory controllers, reducing strain on the NB chipset, and increasing overall system throughput. There is also no concept of shared memory on the ION2s, which in all certainty cause more cache misses than HyperThreading can possibly make up for.

                  This segregation will mean that if I wanted to use the onboard GPU, either alone or with an addon card (like a 460), I'll wont see the performance degradation I do on my current board, and will likely benefit from a cleaner bus for PCIe traffic either way (making it better suited for PCIe Video or PCIe SSDs)

                  Intel is dumb. On their NM10 block diagram they seem to be implying that their next gen Atoms only support DDR2.


                  See their D525 spec sheet for DDR3 support on these chips:


                  While I'm still impressed with the AT3IONT-I, I've been rocking Starcraft II on wine with it and the graphics leave much to be desired. An upgraded board with an addon graphics adapter seems the way to go rather than trying to hack something together.

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