In calculating the efficiency of the PicoPSU powered system, is the efficiency of the power brick also calculated? Therefore, does the choice of power brick not also influence the overall power efficiency of the system?

Neat little board, but I think that price is really holding it back. With a quick check to directcanada(one of the cheapest Canadian etailers I know of), I found the Gigabyte P55 mITX board that you guys reviewed plus a Intel G9650 (or for a hyper-threaded i3 540 add $10) for CDN$203. That gives you a huge boost in processing power, a bit better HTPC functionality (bitstream 7.1 codecs over HDMI without downsampling), the same idle power (27W with the Seasonic 400). The only downside is the intel heatsink/fan is worse than the one with this board, oh and I guess no Wi-fi on the GB board. Still, these CULV and Atom boards need to be a LOT cheaper to be competitive IMO...

It's all accounted for. But yes, the brick matters; the picoPSU does not touch the 12V output from the brick, just passes it straight through. Most bricks hit >85% at a very low power level though, and that's where the main advantage is -- a 3-400W ATX PSU will be hard pressed to reach anywhere close to its rated efficiency at <50W.

Will it fit into the ISK-100 you guys are testing?

Do you mean the ISK-100 we already tested? Why not? It's a mini-ITX board. The ISK-100 fits them all; it's only heatsink height that's restrictive, and the one on this board is not tall.

Eh? I see a review for the ISK 300-65, but in another thread, you mentioned that



Since the review doesn't seem to be up yet, I assumed it was still being worked on.

My bad, I confused the two cases. Will report soon.

Nice board, but the price does seem a bit steep compared to an H55 ITX with G9650. If it were 2/3 the price I'd be ordering one from Amazon right now, just to play with.

I'd love to see some overclocking results. Seems like Atom and CULV (in the Asus UL notebooks) can be overclocked a reasonable amount with minimal impact on power draw and heat output.

Any thoughts on whether this would run well in a system without the on-board CPU fan ?
If all the cooling is done by a single case fan (directed at the CPU) in a well ventilated case (Lian Li Q07), then the noise of a bigger slower fan should be better than the smaller CPU fan.

Will this be able to handle say a Ceton quad tuner? View live HD stream while recording 2 HD streams at the same time for example. Very capable board by the way. Peace

The one thing that is always missing from the MOBO specs is what verion of HDMI is used. if MOBO vendors used that spec and conformed to it then we (the users) would easily know if the HDMI supported digital sound over HDMI and even 3D.

Does anyone know if this is v1.2, 1.3, or v1.4?

hEdly

Too little, too late. Socket 1156 ITX boards have far more power for the cost, and the power consumption difference isn't enough to warrant any benefit. If low power has priority over speed, Atom is still the way to go.

Well, this is a Zotac board so I'm sure they'll be releasing an incremental version before long and the price on these will drop.

I hope not. I still have headache when I try to identify the various (I guess seven) GF-9300 ITX boards they made...

I ordered two of these. A friend of mine is using one successfully as a NetBSD desktop. I will be setting the other one up as a Windows 7 HTPC this weekend. Newegg has it at $207.55 including shipping, so unfortunately it's not cheap.

From my feedback on Newegg:

Pros: silentpcreview loves this board.

Very low power at idle, modest power under load, with decent performance.

The placement of the ATX connector is good for cases that don't have any clearance to the side of the board, such as the Antec ISK-300.

Cons: No fan control on case fan -- why in the world not? A bizarre oversight, particularly on an SFF board.

Other Thoughts: The wifi I got was an Atheros AR9285, but I guess that could change in future revisions of the board. Other than that chip, everything on the board should be well supported by your freenix of choice.

The Windows 7 HTPC is all set up now:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=12751851
$79.99 Antec ISK 300-65 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case
$12.99 Scythe S-FLEX SFF80A 80mm Case Fan
$29.99 SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model SN-S083F/BEBE
$199.99 ZOTAC IONITX-P-E Intel Celeron SU2300 (1.2 GHz dual-core) NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
$65.99 Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KVR1066D3K2/4GR
$89.99 Intel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$84.99 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
$15.99 IOGEAR GBU421W6 Bluetooth 2.1 USB Micro Adapter
$26.99 GIGABYTE GM-M7700B Noble Black 1 x Wheel Bluetooth Wireless Laser Compact Laptop Mouse
$78.99 Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 - Retail
Total: $685.90

Drivers: So far, seems to work just fine with the drivers included with Windows, including wifi and the bluetooth stuff. The installation process went totally smoothly using a PS/2 keyboard. (Later, installed NVIDIA's drivers).

Case:
I didn't find the ISK 300-65 to be difficult to work with. While the PSU cables are too long, there is a bunch of room in the front of the case, under the drives and above the power board, to wedge them. Wonderfully, the PSU cables include a slimline SATA power connector for the optical drive. Yay! In general, the case seems to me to be really thoughtfully designed.

Noise:
The mobo fan can be slowed down in the BIOS to the point of near silence, as indicated in the review.

My one disappointment with this is that the (80mm, 1000 RPM) case fan hums noticeably (though not loudly). Not sure if this is because it is hard mounted, or just too fast. I plan on slowing it down with a Fan Mate at some point. It's not the room I sleep in, so it's not a big deal.

Also, as mentioned in the review, the power brick buzzes annoyingly when the system is off.

Other notes:
Connected via HDMI to a really basic 1360x768 LCD TV.

Not too surprisingly, once the machine has gone to sleep, the bluetooth keyboard/mouse can't wake it up. So I just turned sleeping off in the Windows power config.

Hi!

To you guys who actually bought this board; can you please provide a measurement of the height of the board? From underside of PCB to top of fan...

Thank you!

Edit: I see in the review that Mike measured the heat sink height to 37 mm, but looking at the Zotac web page, it shows a different heat sink design which seems higher including the fan. Which is the commersial version?

What sort of temps are other people getting with this board?

I've just put together a build inside a Super Case MI-008, with the psu removed and replaced with a picopsu. The only other items in the case are an SSD and DVD drive.

With the cpu fan going at full blast, and both cores at 100% using prime95, I'm getting temps of 68c and 71c. Even if I take the case cover off I get 57c/60c, way above the 48c the article reported with the fan on quiet setting. I'm afraid to see what temps I'd get if I lowered my fan setting to quiet.

These temps are from SpeedFan. I tried also with Core Temp, which consistently reported temps 5c higher on both cores.

Anyone know what the maximum safe temps for this cpu are?

Poorly-ventilated small cases will do that. But mobile gear is supposed to run hot. Intel should have the maximum temperature of the CPU on its website but it's probably not the part most likely to suffer from high temperatures.
See the temps of Zotac's system (they're higher than yours): http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1069-page5.html
If you can't underclock/undervolt this thing a bit, it might be safer to use a good case fan, to mod the case or something.

With the new AMD Fusion boards coming out, I wondered how they would compare with the IONITX-P-E. The review at Tom's Hardware indicates that the Celeron SU2300 still gives you a faster and cooler system. However, the E-350 platform will have the advantages of choice (six so far) and price (eventually).

Celeron SU2300 vs. ASRock 350M1 vs. Atom 330

Announced AMD E-350 boards:
ASRock E350M1
Asus E35M1-I Deluxe
Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3
Jetway NC85-E350-LF
MSI E350IA-E45
Sapphire Pure White Fusion

Anandtech has different power consumption results for a different board here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4134/the- ... -miniitx/7
I find Tom's numbers more believable but facts are often surprising. It may be a variation between boards. No one has tested any of these boards with an appropriate PSU yet, right?

Preliminary AC power data on ASUS E35M1-M Pro w/ 2x2GB 1.5V RAM, Win 7-64 on OCZ SSD, powered with Seasonic X460.

idle: 23~25W
prime95: 32.5W
prime95+furmark: 40W
1080p clip: 29~32W

We now have official numbers, with context.
Either MSI's E-350 board is more efficient than Asus' or Anandtech's fishy numbers were misleading.
It's a disapointment but not a surprise. I had more hope for Ontario than Zacate anyway.