5. Install the Ram
Install the Ram
Install the pair of SOD IM MS by placing
them into the slots while carefully making sure the notches in the DIMMs line
up with the notches in the slots. Apply pressure with your thumbs on the
corners until the arms snap into place.
6. Expansion needed
Expansion needed
Since the keyboard is internal, it hooks
directly into a USB 2.0 header. Unfortunately, the system's internal media card
reader also requires a USB 2.0 header, but the Zotac board we selected has only
one internal USB 2.0 header and a USB 3.0 header. To get around this, we used
an NZXT1U01 USB expansion module. The 1U01 needs power, so take the Molex Y-cable
splitter and plug it into the Molex output on the motherboard. Now take the
Molex-to-SATA power connects or that came with the motherboard and plugs it
into one end of the Y-cable splitter. Plug the other end into the 1U01's power
pass-through and then plug into the optical drive's Molex cable.
Windows7'sinstallerworksfinewiththeNZXT
1U01 expansion module, but if the OS you're installing doesn't like it, you'll
need to use a USB keyboard during the OS install in order for the installer to
recognize your keyboard. Note that the expansion module shown in the photo is
slightly older than the current 1U01, but the install is the same, and we
tested with both units just fine.
7. Hook up the keyboard
The USB cable isn't labeled, but the wires
indicate what functions they do. The red wine is power and the black is ground.
Look at the USB pin-out chart we've provided (image H) and match the keyboard
connector that has the red wire with one of the +5V pins and then plug it in
(image I). If you’re still skittish, you can grab one of those USB header
adapters that ship with MSI and Asus boards. Plug the power switch and power
LED into the board's front-panel connectors (image J).
8. Back to the future
You're ready to turn on the Commodore 64X.
If you're wondering where the power button is, it's the red LED dome on the
right-hand side.
An elegant weapon for a more civilized
age
AMD’s E-350 “Brazos’’
The original Commodore 64 packed a 1MHz MOS
6510 processor, which probably has one hundredth of the power of the CPU in
your printer. Next to that, the AMD’s E-350 ’Brazos’’ would appear as magic
from the gods. In our world, though, the E350 is pretty far off the power band
as you can see from our tests. The E-350’s main weakness is its x86
performance.
The Fusion APU is faster than a dual-core
Atom 330, but beefier parts such as Intel’s Core i5-2430 M —even with the i5’s
low clocks—will leave it in the dust. Where the E-350 in the C64x does well is
in 3D performance—its integrated graphics solution has enough power to run
older games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at lower resolutions.
The real beauty of the E-350 is its low
temps. At 18 watts for CPU and GPU combined, it really stays cool. In our
experience, it’s far cooler than Intel’s own low-voltage 35-watt dual-core
Sandy Bridge chips. The E-350 isn't about blistering performance, but neither
is the C64x. lt's about the cool factor of having a retro exterior with modern
computer brains.
|
Benchmarks
|
|
Model
|
Commodore 64x
|
Giada i50
|
Giada Ion-100
|
Zbox Plus Nano XS
|
|
CPU
|
1.6GHz AMD E350
|
1.2GHz Intel Core i5 430UM
|
1.3GHz Intel Atom 330 w/ Nvidia Ion
|
1.6GHz AMD E-450
|
|
Photoshop CS3 (sec)
|
445
|
272
|
552
|
423
|
|
MainConcept (sec)
|
8,280
|
4,736
|
8,858
|
4,560
|
|
3DMark 2003
|
5,685
|
1,189
|
3,371
|
6,954
|
|
Quake III (fps)
|
204
|
87
|
118
|
161
|
|
Quake 4 (fps)
|
38
|
9
|
29
|
40
|
Best scores are bolded
