Just saw this on anandtech:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562
It seems like an interesting board, but it may be too limited for a full HTPC. It looks like the video support is pretty good, and having the power supply built into the board is very intriguing, but it doesn't look like it has any special sound capability, and the lack of any pci slots means all tuners would have to be external usb ones, if needed. It also has only 3 sata ports, but it does have an esata port, so that might help. They do check it for bluray support, and it seems to work for that, and it would probably be ok for video streaming and other chores. The 4gb support is nice for a mini-itx board, so that's a plus. But to me, it seems to be just a little bit lacking. Might be good for a video streamer or dvd/bluray player, but it no room for a tuner or lots of hard disk space makes it seem like it wouldn't give you the full htpc experience.
zotac ion atom mini-itx motherboard review
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jessekopelman
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Re: zotac ion atom mini-itx motherboard review
Depends what you mean. It's got 2-channel analog, 5.1 channel digital over coaxial and optical S/PDIF, and 7.1 channel digital over HDMI. The only thing it doesn't have is 7.1 channel analog (which is of pretty limited usability, given that HDMI is really the way you want to eventually be going for home theater).cordis wrote:but it doesn't look like it has any special sound capability
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jessekopelman
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I think the big unanswered question is Flash performance. I agree that a TV tuner is unnecessary, but being able to utilize Hulu and other streaming sites is a required feature. It could be that pairing the LGA775 socket version of this board with a low-end dual-core is the better way to go as it will provide much better performance for web-based activities. That board plus a PicoPSU plus a Celeron is likely to not cost much more than the Atom 330 version of this board. Anand has promised an addendum to cover Flash performance; hopefully he follows through.londiste wrote:mini-itx, external power brick, enough power for web/office usage and even hd video... what's not to like
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carischila
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Matter of taste. I find very little of interest on Hulu. OTA TV with ATSC would be of interest to me. Netflix "Watch Instantly" is a favorite, despite requiring Silverlight (the only time I ever boot Windows).jessekopelman wrote: I think the big unanswered question is Flash performance. I agree that a TV tuner is unnecessary, but being able to utilize Hulu and other streaming sites is a required feature.
Watching Flash Video on the Ion
You should never have to worry about your system specs when it comes to watching Flash video. Sites like YouTube and Hulu exist simply because of the large number of PCs that can play Flash video. Can the dual-core Atom 330 in the Zotac Ion-A handle watching video online?
To test this I watched the season finale of 24 on Hulu. I performed three tests: I watched the season finale in its default window at low res, high res (480p) and then full screen....
The experience you get when going full screen in Hulu is very dependent on your desktop resolution. With a 1920 x 1200 desktop resolution, 480p Hulu is unwatchable on the Zotac Ion. CPU utilization maxed out just under 80% and video playback was choppy.
Dropping the desktop resolution to 1280 x 720 made things more bearable, with CPU utilization generally under 50% but it still wasn’t totally smooth. I’m not sure how much of this is Adobe’s fault and how much is the Atom just not being able to keep up, but full screen Flash video playback just isn’t in the cards.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3566&p=3