News - ZOTAC fleshes out value-orientated ION ITX mainboards

[HEXUS]

Can't get enough of ZOTAC's mini-ITX, NVIDIA ION-based mainboards? Here's another pair.

Read more.

[scaryjim]

... it's no surprise to see the Synergy Editions lose out on certain aspects of functionality - there's no PCIe x16 slot ...

Looking at pictures of the other Zotac ION boards, none of them have a PCIe slot at all, so in fact getting a PCIe x1 slot here is a boost to the featureset in that respect...

[GaryRW]

Review please

I see 2 possible uses at least - HTPC or low power but versatile NAS/file server box. On both counts, power draw will be very interesting...

Anybody seen any reviews or assessments of the dual core atoms for HD work?

[arthurleung]

But I suppose for a good NAS server you need a 8x slot in there
If you're not out for a serious NAS then you wouldn't even need the 1x slot, just use the onboard SATA.

Dual Core Atom will be useless for 1080p, if you happen to have any non-DXVA compliant 1080p files. 720p stuff are mostly DXVA compliant so you shouldn't see a problem though.

[GaryRW]

But I suppose for a good NAS server you need a 8x slot in there
If you're not out for a serious NAS then you wouldn't even need the 1x slot, just use the onboard SATA.

Dual Core Atom will be useless for 1080p, if you happen to have any non-DXVA compliant 1080p files. 720p stuff are mostly DXVA compliant so you shouldn't see a problem though.

Safe to say I'm a cheap sod, and won't be going for a proper NAS card. Onboard sata will do fine for me.

[MrP]

didnt someone make a GPU with a 1x pci-e connector?

[scaryjim]

Frankly if you're not going for HTPC usage, you'd be better off with one of these, coupled with one of these - 2 + 4 SATA ports on a mini-itx board

(for the lazy amongst us, the links are for a Jetway 945G-based dual-core Atom motherboard and a Jetway SATA daughterboard (4-port supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5))

[scaryjim]

didnt someone make a GPU with a 1x pci-e connector?

Yes

[zugged]

The Zotac Ion F motherboard with Atom 330 is shown here using 34% CPU time and 41 degrees playing back 1080p video:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Z..._Nettop/5.html

Another review tried more sources and found CPU usage was high enough when playing bluray that they recommended not running any other applications at the same time:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Zota...rboard/?page=4

[d3fiant]

I had the Asus Ion mobo running XBMC on Ubuntu and barely went over 10% CPU usage while playing back a number of 1080P movies thanks to VDPAU offloading to the GPU. Problem with that mobo was it only recognised 1GB of the 2GB I put in it (known issue on quite a few of them) so if this is around the £100 mark I am very interested

The dual core atom ran fine, heat was a minimum, was very impressed with it bar my particular mobos issues (just RMA'd it back to scan), the paring of the dual core atom with the Ion 9400 GPU is perfect for small HTPC systems

[cjs150]

Without a PCI slot for dual digital TV tuner it does not work as an HTPC.

But could be nice as a cheaper server for home - probably going to have a NAS running for file storeage, but the ZOTAC board could handle email server and the domain for the home network

[TheAnimus]

PCIe x1?

You can get tuners on that? Or USB?

[cjs150]

PCIe x1?

You can get tuners on that? Or USB?

USB tuners are only dual if you plug 2 aerials into them. I had forgetten, you are right, there are some PCIx1 tuners around so that would work.