Jetway NC96 NC96-510-LF

Linux Compatibility:

We have had the Jetway NC96-510-LF motherboard in our testing labs for a short time and have found it to work out rather well with Linux. Our testing has mostly been under Ubuntu 9.10 and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS development snapshots, but both of these desktop distributions with recent Linux kernel versions have worked out well with the Intel D510 Atom and NM10 Express Chipset. This though is not incredibly surprising considering the plethora of devices out there using Atom hardware and with a great number of them running Linux, especially as Intel continues to back Moblin / MeeGo. We will be publishing Linux benchmarks from this Jetway NC96 motherboard shortly as we complete a new round up of tests with different Atom devices. The Atom D510 though does not provide much of a performance boost over the previous generation Intel Atom processors, but it is suffice for general desktop / web-browsing and other common netbook/nettop activities. The Jetway NC96 is also going to be used in our benchmarking test farm for an upcoming Phoromatic Tracker implementation similar to our Linux kernel performance tracker, where it will continue to pump out new benchmark results on a daily basis.

Conclusion:

The Jetway NC96-510-LF motherboard can be found at NewEgg.com for approximately $120 USD. This places the mini ITX motherboard at a significant premium over the current motherboard + CPU combos using the older Diamondville Atoms, yet there is not a huge performance boost with Pineview. This is also more expensive than some of the other D510 motherboards. One of the cheapest Intel Atom D510 motherboard we have been able to find is the Gigabyte GA-D510UD that retails for just over $90 USD and boasts a similar set of features to this Jetway product while the Intel BOXD510MO goes for just over $80 USD but provides only two Serial ATA 2.0 ports. Aside from a higher price, the Jetway NC96-510-LF motherboard is an adequate solution if looking for an Intel Atom D510 combo with great storage connectivity options. The only other complaint we have about the NC96 is its lone VGA D-Sub connector rather than providing DVI or HDMI instead.