Jonesing for a new small form factor PC, are you? Not so keen on selecting a pre-fabricated unit? If you definitely fit the bill here, it's worth taking a gander at Zotac's recently released
IONITX-A motherboard. As the first of its breed to actually ship, a whole lot is riding on its solder points, and according to reviews found 'round the web, it's done a satisfactory job of living up to expectations. The test bench-abusin' kids over at
Hot Hardware found that Zotac's board (and the included dual-core
Atom 330 CPU) performed "as expected," notching results that were "significantly better than any of the single core Atom 230-based systems." The unique DC power input was also lauded, and the silent nature made this a perfect candidate for a low-power, highly-capable carputer building block. All in all, this here mobo won't transform your life, but it's certainly a welcome extra in the all-too-stale DIY SFF market. Check the links below for all the bar charts you can handle.
Read - Hot Hardware ("most appealing of the Ion-based products")
Read - PC Perspective ("an impressive motherboard for its size")
Read - The Tech Report ("as good as the Ion platform gets")
Read - Tom's Hardware ("it's most promising destination is in the HTPC space")
posted May 13th 2009 8:57AM
Point of View has a Ion PC out too
http://www.pointofview-online.com/showroom.php?shop_mode=product_detail&product_id=83
More info at http://www.tweaktown.com/pressrelease/1326/point_of_view_releases_its_first_nvidia_ion_mobo/index.html
Good job missing the anandtech review:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562
Yes, It would be great if something like this was put in a small, "book" shaped device that one could surf the "net", among other things.