Zotac's Ion: The World's First mini-ITX Ion Board

[DevilSlayer1298]

Anandtech.com has posted a review of Zotac's Nvidia Ion board. The first Ion based board in the world.

Of all of the technologies VIA introduced over the years, I never expected a form factor to be its lasting legacy on the PC industry. The most ubiquitous of VIA’s technologies were its chipsets which are all but gone now - used only by VIA for the most part. VIA’s form factor however, lives on.

The form factor is ITX. Originally introduced by VIA to accompany its line of low-power microprocessors, long before Atom, ITX was designed to deliver much smaller computers than what was defined by the micro-ATX spec.

The Intel desktop Atom boards...work just fine but they’re a bit boring. They are reminiscent of Intel’s older motherboards, before it took competition from the tweakable Taiwanese motherboards seriously.

Zotac is the first manufacturer to produce a mini-ITX motherboard based on NVIDIA’s Ion platform. Take Intel’s Atom processor, pair it up with NVIDIA’s Ion chipset (which is basically a GeForce 9300 chipset) and you have the Ion platform.

Read more at Anandtech.com

[Grimm]

Looks nice. When can I get one?

[AruisDante]

That is pretty sweet.

[treymacdaddy]

**** that is sexy. looks like it is time to build a carputer!

at a price around $80, i could build my mom a sweet internet surfing machine to replace her 478 Dell for practically nothing.

[jevans64]

I actually like this Zotac board better. The GF9300-D-E.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813500022

I would probably get the SilverStone SG05 case and put my GTS 250 in there along with an E8400 or E8500. Cooling would be a problem and I'm not sure whether a Dynatron P199 would be a good solution for a Wolfdale.

[DevilSlayer1298]

Originally Posted by jevans64

I actually like this Zotac board better. The GF9300-D-E.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813500022

I would probably get the SilverStone SG05 case and put my GTS 250 in there along with an E8400 or E8500.

The point of the Ion board is that it's an Atom processor, meaning extremely low power usage, and is dirt cheap to get a board+CPU package. You don't need a big heatsink and fan to cool an Atom making it great for ultra quiet applications.

[Timeset]

Originally Posted by DevilSlayer1298

The point of the Ion board is that it's an Atom processor, meaning extremely low power usage, and is dirt cheap to get a board+CPU package. You don't need a big heatsink and fan to cool an Atom making it great for ultra quiet applications.

That thing is sweet. How small of a PSU could you get away with? Wait does the PS come with it?

[killermodz]

the dual core 330 board came with a 90 watt power brick like you see on a laptop, and their usage graph shows that the under load it uses less than 30 watts.

So while under load, it uses about as much as your hallway night light.

[jevans64]

Originally Posted by DevilSlayer1298

The point of the Ion board is that it's an Atom processor, meaning extremely low power usage, and is dirt cheap to get a board+CPU package. You don't need a big heatsink and fan to cool an Atom making it great for ultra quiet applications.

Yes. I understood that. I also realized that the Anandtech review says that it has a 9300m, which I think is incorrect. The Zotac site states 9400m. I know the only difference is clock speeds and the 9300m is 400c / 800s and 9400m is 450c / 1100s. Ion specs. state 450c / 1100s like the 9400m.

I was thinking a Travla C299 case ( $140 ), 4GB DDR2-800 RAM ( $60 ), Two 2.5" Seagate or WD 320GB SATA drives ( $160 ), and a slim DVD-RW ( $40 ) would make a nice little media box.

[treymacdaddy]

these on the egg yet?

[onewecallgod]

Originally Posted by killermodz

So while under load, it uses about as much as your hallway night light.

Your hallway must be very well lit

[treymacdaddy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pe=&srchInDesc=

**** thats a bit more than i expected....

[daytona]

Surprised it has a PCI-E port, pretty neat.

[killermodz]

Originally Posted by onewecallgod

Your hallway must be very well lit

Sadly i lack a hallway in the new house, but yes the old house hallway was very lit,

::EDIT: Christ, i always thought those little bulbs put out at least 15 - 20 watt. Turns out its 4 - 7 watts. Never mind my hall light statement.

[DevilSlayer1298]

The only thing I'm disappointed about is that, while small, these aren't the Pico-ITX boards that the Nvidia reference board is based on.

[901-Memphis]

Pretty cool. Anyone have a power consumption comparison between the older intel 900 series chipset and the nvidia one? Should cut down power consumption since the nvidia chipset would use less.

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by 901-Memphis

Pretty cool. Anyone have a power consumption comparison between the older intel 900 series chipset and the nvidia one? Should cut down power consumption since the nvidia chipset would use less.

I thought there was a comparison in the review?

yeah, right here: http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562&p=12

[Timeset]

Yeah for that price i'll go for one of the 9300 wifi. I have a ton of lga775 chips laying around. Either way ill need to buy memory.

Additional Comment:

Originally Posted by 901-Memphis

Pretty cool. Anyone have a power consumption comparison between the older intel 900 series chipset and the nvidia one? Should cut down power consumption since the nvidia chipset would use less.

I think that's still to come.

[901-Memphis]

Well depending on what your doing memory is pretty cheap.

[krone6]

These look really good. They would be an extremely good way to go for a htpc build or just general builds. Low power uses+lots of neat features make for a really good mini-itx build imho.

Additional Comment:

I was wondering about this, would any 90 watt brick adapter like you'll find on laptops work to power the D version or any version at all? i assume so but i could be wrong.