Custom designed Dual Core Atom Board - ECS
P45GC
In the past, we have reviewed a couple of netbooks
(ASUS Eee PC 901, MSI Wind U100, Gigabyte M912) and boards (ECS 945GCT-D) based
on the Intel Atom N270 single core processor. We have seen that it can do well
as a light weight web surfing machine. Although it is more than enough for most
non gamers, a single core design still might not be good enough for most.
To catch on with the Green PC fever, Intel
introduced yet another Atom processor. This time round, it is the N330 model.
The Intel Atom N330 is similar to the N270 as both are clocked at 1.6GHz. The
major difference is that the N330 comes with a 2nd core.
Similar to the ECS 945GCT-D board, the ECS P45GC
mainboard comes soldered with the processor on board. The board supports up to FSB 533MHz system bus and integrated DDR2
533 memory controller.
As it is uses the 945GC north bridge, it comes with
Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 ( GMA950 ) with a max Dynamic
Video Memory up to 8MB. Instead of 2 DIMM slots on the ECS 945GCT-D, the P45GC
only has a single DDR2-533 slot which can support up to 2 GB (DDR2 533/400). There is
1 PCI slot and no PCI Express x1 slot.
The board also comes with 2 X SATAII and 1 x IDE
channel (for 2 IDE devices). It is also equipped with a VIA® VT1708B 6-channel
High Definition audio CODEC and 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN using ATHEROS AR8012
10/100 Mbps PHY.
Below is a photo of ECS 945GCT-D (Intel Atom N270)
versus ECS P45GC (Intel Atom N330).
The ECS P45GC seems to be smaller in size as compared to the previous ECS
945GCT-D board.
