Reviews - Scan 3XS NVIDIA ION system: Atom in a £700 system?

[HEXUS]

Can a £700 ION-based system ever make sense? We find out.

Read more.

[kasbah]

As hinted at in the article, a low power LGA 775 chip with a Zotac-9300 Mini-Itx Wifi gives the same features at minimal price increase.

[Infinite]

Errrr, what else can I buy with £700?

[MadduckUK]

what would a 320GB/2GB/DVDRW/no-os specced one set you back? just for comparisons sake?

[Tarinder]

what would a 320GB/2GB/DVDRW/no-os specced one set you back? just for comparisons sake?

Around £500, I believe. Scan is putting together a bunch of configurations right now, and I'll link to them once live.

[jim]

£700 for an HTPC with Atom? No thanks.

I'm intending to build an HTPC soon, but for more like £300-400 - and I still wouldn't want an Atom over a Core 2.

[amdavies]

Nowhere have I seen people marketing Atom machines on the cost saving over other x86 alternatives. An Atom/Ion machine is probably using about half the power of a Core 2 Duo solution and yet nowhere do I see this being pushed.

If you have a specific purpose for an Atom/Ion machine then they can be quite appealing but it is a very tight range and it probably doesn't contain many people with £700 in their pocket looking for an HTPC.

If anyone wants some suggestions, consider a basic Atom/Ion frontend with a more powerful Core 2 Duo backend both running MythTV.

[onestep]

or...
You can get a similar spec'd "Verso Ion" system from OCUK (link below) for 444.99 inc VAT.
Specs:
Motherboard: Zotac Ion Intel Atom N330 Mini-ITX DDR2 Motherboard
Optical Drive: LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Power Supply: 120W PSU
Case: In-Win BM639 Mini-ITX Case - Black
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel
Processor: Intel Atom N330 1.60GHz Dual Core Low Power CPU

No TV tuner or wifi is included though... Still £445 vs £700
I'm seriously considering either this or the 775 9300m mobo with an e5200 for a new HTPC.

overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-188-OK

[onestep]

what would a 320GB/2GB/DVDRW/no-os specced one set you back? just for comparisons sake?

Have a shop around m8, I've been spec'n a new HTPC for 2 weeks now & I can tell you that scan are r8ping you @£700.

There's far more choice now in the mini-itx arena now but AMD still don't seem to have any offerings in this segment...

Anyone seen any mini-itx AMD mobo's or know of any coming out soon?

[Philipp]

£444.99 without an OS

£526.98 with.....

Further more its a rather large media centre, our system should be online shortly removing options like PowerDVD 9 Ultra and the USB TV tuner saves close on £100.

Cheerios

[Philipp]

I can tell you that scan are r8ping you @£700.

Add the cost of the parts up.........

Cheers

[onestep]

£444.99 without an OS

£526.98 with.....

Further more its a rather large media centre, our system should be online shortly removing options like PowerDVD 9 Ultra and the USB TV tuner saves close on £100.

Cheerios

M8 that's also assuming we aren't going to use Win7 RC or our own OS's.

Also, large media center?! The OCUK case is smaller than the scan one in width & depth!
It's 42mm higher because of the internal PSU.

OCUK In-Win BM639 Mini-ITX Case:
Dimensions: 230mm x 264mm x 112mm (W x D x H)

SCAN Compucase 8K01 Mini-ITX Case:
Dimensions: 268mm x 318mm x 70mm (W x D x H)

Not being funny dude, I love Scan & buy 90% of my PC components there (inc my 1st ever build, sniff) but OCUK have clearly got the best deal here & I like many others want the best bang for my quid at the mo & even with an OS the basic Scan HTPC (no wifi etc) is NOT £73 better.

I know this is a Scan site & all so if I shouldn't list other sites stuff let me know & i'll remove these posts (also didn't mean to rain on your launch).

[onestep]

Just spotted the J&W MINIX 780G-SP128MB mobo for £95 on Scan for pre order.
Anyone know when that's going to be released?

That's pretty tempting with an Athon 2 250...

[onestep]

(no wifi etc) is NOT £73 better.

*Sorry, meant no tv tuner.

(WiFi is standard on the zotac)

Will scan be getting the 775 ion board in?

How about a round up of Mini ITX @ Hexus as reviews are still hard 2 come by 4 SFF.

**2 more weeks till my HTPC build so looking at all options feverishly**

[Will404]

there is an "EDIT" button, Onestep.

Sorry everyone else

[onestep]

Sorry, I don't usually post here so didn't notice (de-lurked as im in the hunt for a new HTPC build).
I usually hang on Anand where there's no edit on dailytech posts so I kinda got used to that.

My bad though...