Like gaming? Move right along to the
iBuyPower booth, please. Want an unobtrusive PC that will feed your Hulu and YouTube HD streaming addiction? Say hello to the ZBOX HD-ID11. It's basically a desktop version of the same Ion 2 setups you saw announced on the mobile front
yesterday, and as such should provide flawless Flash 10.1 playback while occupying an
extremely lean footprint on your desktop.
Zotac has matched
MSI's Wind Box DE220 with its inclusion of a dual-core 1.66GHz Atom D510 CPU, though it obviously differs with its NVIDIA Ion 2 graphics subsystem that includes 512MB of dedicated DDR3 memory. HDMI 1.3a and standard VESA wall-mounting are expected extras, with six USB ports, integrated 802.11n WiFi, dual-link DVI, and a 6-in-1 media card reader covering the rest of your bases. Check out some 1080p playback on a similarly specced system
right here while you wait for pricing and availability to be revealed.
Update: We've heard directly from Zotac on the matter of pricing and we're told that the American MSRP will be
$209.99 ($239) for the barebones edition, which will require you to add your own hard drive, memory and OS.
Update 2: Zotac seem to have been a little too ambitious with the initial price they quoted and have asked us to correct that number upwards by 30 bucks -- MSRP is now expected to land at $239.
posted March 3rd 2010 9:40AM
Does it really come without any optical drive? For a portible device okay, but if I want to use this for gaming or multimedia I want DVD or BluRay in it...
@user47alpha
That defeats the entire point of it being cheap, small, and quiet.
@GenericMessage
agreed. this type of box is designed to move past the idea of physical media (discs, blu-rays, etc.) and deliver all content in digital form (whether it be streamed across a network, downloaded to the hard drive, or found live through netflix, hulu, etc.)
adding an optical drive would make it more expensive, larger, and louder. if you need a DVD drive you can purchase a decent external usb powered drive for around 50 USD.
@user47alpha
I'm with you. I ultimately settled on an AsRock Ion 330HT. It's small, quiet, and runs WMC 7 like a charm. Sure, it's not as svelte as some of the nettops without optical drives, but it's getting the job done.
I tried an Acer Revo, but the thing had buggy firmware that rendered an external optical drive inoperable after a few minutes. I couldn't load the d*mn OS on the machine, so I returned it.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to have an optical drive in my PCs. They're PCs after all.
Built in wireless-n, ability to push 1080p, HDMI included...Might make for the perfect HTPC.
@Nitesh
So long as they get wireless right this time. Zotac's been known to have wireless issues.
@Ken J The ZBOX HD-ID11 uses an Azurewave mini PCI Express WiFi card
@ZOTAC
Well I hope its better than what people were complaining about before. I'm certainly looking to pick one of these up.
Acer already makes a similar device, called the Aspire Revo. It also has HDMI (1080p IIRC), and has been on sale for some time.
If what I've seen so far is correct, the Revo's nVidia ION LE will perform better than the ION2 as well. At least for video. The Zotac's dual core should make it do a bit better with everyday tasks.
@sweffymo I forgot to mention that the Acer has 802.11n built in as well.
@sweffymo
They all use the dual core atom.
@BigJayDogg3 Ah, you're right. The Atom 330 is the dual core, hyperthreaded Atom. at first glance I thought it said 230, which is the single core, HT version.
@sweffymo I could be completely wrong, but as of now I think ION2 is supported by Flash 10.1 while ION LE is not.
@Mitch The original Ion is supported by Flash 10 as well.
@Mitch Do you mean DirectX 10.1?
No gigabit ethernet? Fail!
@DoctarPeppar Ethernet: 10/100/1000Mbps
Very nice... Wonder how much RAM can be inserted in the RAM-slot...
@kashve The maximum amount of single stick DDR2, which I believe is 4GB as of yet.
@Nitesh Yeah, that'lll be sufficient! :-)
Can't get past the name...I keep think Zantac and ulcers...
Here are the specs directly from Zotac's page.
New ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11
Next-Generation NVIDIA® ION™ platform
NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology
NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD technology
Intel® NM10 Express chipset
Intel® HyperThreading technology
ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11
Intel® Atom™ D510
Dual-core
1.66 GHz (667 MHz front-side bus)
Tool-less case design
VESA monitor mount included
HDMI (1080p) & Dual-link DVI outputs
HDMI 1.3a compliant
xvYCC Color and Deep Color support
HDCP compliant
Microsoft® DirectCompute ready
Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 decode acceleration
OpenCL compliant
Gigabit Ethernet
Onboard 802.11n WiFi
Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 with Shader Model 4.1 compatible
OpenGL® 3.2 compatible
Microsoft® Windows® 7 with premium Aero® user interface ready
I wish these things would start coming with built in IR receivers, then it would be the perfect HTPC.
@BlackLabel767
Check out the AsRock Ion 330-HT. The HT model has built-in IR. It also has an optical drive, so it's a bit bulkier than the slim nettops, but it's not incredibly large.
Too bad the "front" of the unit is so ugly.
I just bought a Zino HD, which I'm really happy with it (once I configured it right.) Even with the diminutive size of the Zino, I bet this machine would do the job quite nicely.
@GoogleGeek85
your zino can not do flash HD there is a forum post of 300 pages complaining about that very thing also you have to configure the zino HD with all the trimmings and it will end upo costing around $500-$600 and still to date does not do what it said it would "HD"
@raaaaaa
Nonsense. I've read and posted in that forum from the beginning. If someone isn't getting flash HD acceleration with flash 10.1 then they didn't properly install the drivers and flash. Further, there are a number of different configurations. With a discount, I bought the highest dual-core processor along with the discreet graphics card and wireless-n for $360. HD Flash content plays smoothly even without flash 10.1. It easily out performs ION boxes.
@GoogleGeek85 Lets compare some prices. The Zotac is $209.99 without OS or RAM or hard disk. Add an OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for $104.99 from newegg. Add a 2GB stick for what, $40? An 80GB drive for $40? Total price $394.98.
A Zino HD can be had with a 802.11n, a 320GB drive, 3GB of RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium for $444. So its more expensive. Comes with a keyboard and mouse, but you'll likely toss those for Home Media Center use...
I want to buy one of these just for my TV and use it as a media hub.
The MSRP for the ZBOX will be around $209.99 USD for the barebones...add your own hard drive, memory and OS (XBMC works great).
@ZOTAC
Just a nitpick, but XBMC is not an OS, it is a media center/player application. XBMC Live is an Ubuntu Linux distribution with XBMC as a front end. I'm sure you know that, but some people reading your post might not.
@glennS
Sadly, you are right, the base Zino HD does not live up to the HD moniker. However, I found an employee price, and bought mine top of the line for 500 when all was said and done.
It looks like this is 200 bucks barebones. let's say you pay an additional $150 for all the spare parts. For an extra $150 I got a real processor and probably a better GPU (ATI 4330). Also, I have it right now, whereas you'll probably be waiting months for the release.
@GoogleGeek85 What do you need to add to base Zino HD spec to make it do HD?
@ZOTAC I'm assuming there motherboard will be for sale by itself too? How much would that run?
@LEDfoot Our mini-PCs do not use standard mini-ITX motherboards. We still offer our ION-ITX series, GeForce 9300-ITX and H55-ITX motherboards for the DIY users.
@ZOTAC Another update. The MSRP will actually be $239 when it hits stores in a couple weeks. Our apologies for the pricing confusion.
So this is coming out next week???
@ZOTAC But are you planning a D510 ION 2 mini-ITX board? It would be great for a NAS if it were similar spec to the NM10-DTX (lots of sata) but could also output 1080P to one TV directly (ion 2).
Of course this comes out right after I buy an AR1600
Bastards
Why hello, hello. You belong in my media center, letting me cut cable.
$209.99, Sold! I have a few SO-DIMMS, 2.5" HD's, and OS discs laying around so barebones is not a problem.
Zotac... wasn't that the name of the fortune card machine in Big?
@TheHoldSteady the name was Zoltar, if I recall.
Has eSATA. Woohoo! External optical drive and a nice 80 GB SSD and the system is rockin!
wtf they stole the germs logo!
@Consequence9 The Blue O isn't our logo, its a power status LED. When the system is off, its completely black, when its on, its a solid blue light. During standby, it flashes slowly.
The color of the O varies by chipset -- our NVIDIA ION chipset + Atom 330/230 ZOTAC MAG mini-PCs have orange LEDs while the Intel chipset models will have blue LEDs.
@ZOTAC oic, that's pretty neat (a manufacturer reply? that's quite something!). The barebones edition is just the right price & I'm in need of a nettop (or i will be when i have money in a month or so), i'll definitely be keeping you guys in mind above others ;]
@ZOTAC if not mounted behind your HDTV, will this led lighting be able to go "lights out!" on a dark living room, so that it does not distract the viewer from the content being watched?
@theguedz Just use some masking tapes.