"To Zotac’s credit, we found the IONITX-P-E stable and functional for everyday use..."
Yes... for Zotac, when it works, its credit (or a Plus... since even bricked bios Zotac does not take away from it´s download list and solving the problem takes forever).
For other manufacturers... a motherboard that works stable and is fully functional is mandatory (even though some forget that on the launch... and focus on overclock... shame :( )
Still, Zotac does a lot of Mini ITX and it´s good to see many options (hope the competition will catch up). Price wise... well....
Thanks for the review. Since the power consumption is in similar if not better than Atom, have you guys tried running the board without the fan? Did you test what the temps are like (with the fan)? It'd be sweet if you could run this thing passively cooled with the stock heatsink...
There's no reason for Nvidia to come out with another Core2 / Atom chipset. Core2 is a dead end. Both Atom and the Core i CPUs use DMI or QPI for the system bus, and Nvidia doesn't have a license for either of those.
They do have a newer and better chipset, the 320M, which seems to be an Apple exclusive. It is a pretty powerful chip, a least compared to the 9400M. The 320M is what the 9400M was 2 year ago. The absolute minimum and you should not go lower than that.
Worst idea ever? Why not compare to a pentium G9650? Naw... that would make toooo much sense. Anyway I'd suspect this ion system to be worse than even a G9650, which is undoubtedly cheaper.
If you read the testbed setup section, you'll see I mentioned why I did not test against the G6950 - because I don't have one. I agree though, the G6950 should sit in between the Celeron and i3-540 results.
Can someone tell me what the actual name of this Pentium chip is?
Is it the:
G6950 or G9650
Because both seem to produce results in Google - I'm inclined to think it's the G6950 because that's what I see more but I genuinely don't know, even Wikipedia is not consistent (I know Wikipedia is not proof of anything).
I have been seeing a few reviews of the Mini's here on Anand and I have a request (which could also be done right here in comments).
What has been done to make a tru HDPC+gamer mini? this board looks great (looks) but it seels that, until they make a micro NVidia card or do it vertically, you are still stuck with a cute box that will do everything but play Crysis 7- The Thaw.
What can be done with this box, a suitable case, and peripherals to make it run with the pack of average gaming machines (or TOTL 1/2 year old gaming machines....)?
If you really want a gaming mini, you're better off going with a HM55 / Core i mini-itx motherboard. The only way you're going to get decent game performance is with a dedicated video card.
since you can pick your own suitable ATX PSU to go with the CPU and video card of your choice. Now excuse me while I chop off my uncooperative arm that is reaching for my credit card!
That said there are three things against this setup from 1) ITX boards are way too crammed to have enough power states for a good overclock on the cpu. 2) ITX boards often have very little space to place a nice heatsink, sometimes a nice heatsink would be blocked via the memory or the videocard. Now you can alleviate the space problem with a small waterblock+cooler but most cases don't have enough space for that. For example the SG07 doesn't have enough space for a corsair h50 3) I have heard incidents where the 5970 overheats and freezes up on people during long gaming sessions when used in combination with the small case of SG07. A 5850 or a 5770 would be preferred.
First off, I want to say that I have been watching the Ion chipset and was really thinking of purchasing an itx board last year so I could put together a mini HTPC.
Here is the issue. I recently purchased a patriot box office for $65.00 at newegg and for an extra $60.00, I put in a 500 gig hard drive. I have a file server that I keep all my pictures, music, and movies on and I stream it over my home network.
Anyhow, my point is, as far as HTPCs go, my patriot box office does everything I need. I even am able to stream blue ray iso files over the network with flawless playback (using NFS, not SAMBA). The only downside is that it has a very plain gui and unlike a ION mini itx, you cant install XBMC on it. Anyhow, with the availability of boxes like this that are extra small and cheap and other devices such as the boxee box comming out in November, there doesn't seem to be a niche anymore for HTPCs unless you plan on some moderate gaming.
I had bad performance with my MKV Bluray files over the network using the PBO... it would play but had intermittent drops/etc. I though it was due to my MKV files being full 1080p + 5.1 or 6.1 FLAC just too much - but I was doing this via SAMBA from my 2K8 server.... so maybe it works better via NFS? For your ISOs, are you playing the hi-def audio?
While Clarkadle has more rwa power the drivers are STILL a mess.
Case in point - a STUPIDLY PRIMITIVE DX8 Worms World party simply crashes on Intel IGP while it runs happily on any ATI/NV IGP since 2004 ...
While Intel seems to has invested heavily in support for benchmarks and current titles (aka review titles) the general 3D support is still a nightmare.
Yes, it is. Even not counting GMA500, it is. One more reason to look forward to Bobcat; and for normal machines, to go AMD. The added single-threaded i3 performance is small, and made up for quite well, especially if you stick to 785 or newer IGP.
Seeing as how Zotac's ION Atom boards are priced, this isn't bad at all. Just wish the pci slot was faster.
In any case, I prefer a system be fanless and compact, which that H55 board isn't. This might come close.
While having a built in PS is nice, what if it breaks? There goes the whole board. Besides the cases this would go into already have ITX sized power supplies anyhow. The one here is nice since it allows for an optical drive and two 2.5 drives: one SSD and one high capacity notebook drive.
Having experienced the trials and tribulations of Nvidia's GF8300 onboard graphics over HDMI in an ASUS board for AM2, I will not soon sign up again. I can't imagine buying a board with these chipsets. It's indicated in the review that they had no issues. Did you confirm that the HDMI works flawlessly? Did you check to see if it would work with an AV Receiver of switch. Can you adjust for over scan on a 720P Television in the NVidia control panel. Can you effectively adjust resolution at all over HDMI? Does the HD sound work perfectly after every reboot.
"Stepping out to a discrete GPU, the ION systems get blasted to smithereens by the i3-540. ION lacks the raw muscle required to handle the GTX 275. 1.875GHz is the maximum stable frequency we achieved on our processor without running out of cooling headroom."
That's not ION's fault if the pci slot is really x16m, that's the fault of having a low clocked CPU and an older generation one to boot.
Still, for the average person, this is much better than Atom. Same thing is happening on the laptop front as well.
We need a review on the new Asus M4A88T-I DELUXE Its a mini-itx motherboard for AM3 with a crapton of features (usb 3 wifi n, bluetooth, etc)
I already purchased this board and I can attest, the thing is awesome, the 95w cpu support is a bit lacking but I have it paired with an Athlon II x3 445 (3.1ghz), you can even put one of the quad core phenoms or the lower power 6 cores that are supposed to be out soon. It absolutly flies with the 5770. I'd just like to see a full review and what kind of over clock potential it has on a small wattage psu (my case came with a 300w).
Just more exposure to the awesomeness that is mini-itx at a price point lower than Intel.
I have a much-overlooked but very serious request to the Anandtech testers - I know we readers demand a lot but this is not that bad a request I think.
In building the odd core i3 system, even with the excellently power-efficient Intel DH55TC board, I get idle power of around 20W and load power of around 50W. While that 20W figure is actually very favourable from a heat/noise/performance per watt point of view, the load power isn't, especially when we're looking at these types of systems aimed at low power. People feel they really have to choose: go for the truly low-power SU7xxx/Atom-based system but give up the ability to... well, really do any real computing, and on the other hand go for the full-featured system but having to cope with the necessary active cooling and power drain.
This is not true, because core i3 and i5 processors actually undervolt quite a bit. I have undervolted systems very non-aggressively (mind the prefix 'non') and gained over 12W difference in load power: that is still 20W idle power, but just 38W under load. That is very competitive with the CULV-stuff around there, especially considering the MASSIVE performance increase. The real power zealots will probably say I have to use a picopsu to get everything even more efficient but that is really not worth the cost anymore in this realm. Undervolting is, and that is why I ask you to consider this in future benchmarks of this kind of systems.
Otherwise, it looks very...OK. But no such system, today, needs a fan. Given the cost of the whole thing, it would easily be worth an extra $10-15 to have a proper heatsink for it all, instead.
Even if they did that, though, Mr. Gill's conclusion about what you get for the price would still keep it from being a great buy.
"That leaves one more weapon in IONs current repertoire that may factor in swaying a purchasing decision; XBMC support - it appears Clarkdale is not currently/well supported by Linux for such use. If looking for full media center functionality, ION remains the better choice."
XBMC is not the only media center application out there, and it does not even offer full media center functionality with it's lack of basic TV-support. Mediaportal on the other hand does.
I use it running WIN 2008 server, is been excellent for that. No not a high demand server, but its perfect for file share, DHCP, back up server. Super low cost for a low demand server is unbeatable.
Mines been runing great since i set it up no problems whatsoever, its low power and low profile make it excellent for running 24/7 at a cheep price for home network server.
zotac w/atom 330 cpu - 2gb ram - 2x 1tb HD's + case - psu - cd drive all less then 400 bucks for the rig, and its been uptime 24/7 just over 6 months now with zero problems as my DHCP, file, proxy, and back up server.
For home user that doesnt want to spend alot of money and has use for background computer services ( aka HTPC, file server, basic networking services, those types of things. Cant beet it for the cost. The small form and the low power means it can be on 24/7 with no big dents to the wallet.
Only note I would recommend when getting these types of systems, is insure you get dual core or better type of CPU, the single cores simply dont have enough juice to not LAG the heck outta the system even for simple tasks as launching a web browser and such. A dual core least remains usable even though its not a speed deamon you can do basic stuff without waiting 2-5 mins per mouse click as some of these single core models do.
Go test out an atom N450 vs a 330 and you will see why to not buy an N450 ever for use, those single cores are lag monkies.
my little ionitx not booting well no graphics does anyone have any idea what mybe up with it? tried the hdmi the vga the dvi even put a gainward 8800 gtx graphics card in still nothing...... all fans spinning what looks to be correct speeds etc lost
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42 Comments
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Ipatinga - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
"To Zotac’s credit, we found the IONITX-P-E stable and functional for everyday use..."Yes... for Zotac, when it works, its credit (or a Plus... since even bricked bios Zotac does not take away from it´s download list and solving the problem takes forever).
For other manufacturers... a motherboard that works stable and is fully functional is mandatory (even though some forget that on the launch... and focus on overclock... shame :( )
Still, Zotac does a lot of Mini ITX and it´s good to see many options (hope the competition will catch up). Price wise... well....
fredson - Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - link
Olaestou querendo usar essa placa em sistema para ficar passando imagem em 3 monitores o que vc acha com relaçao ao funcionamento e consumo de energia!!!
abs
Fredson Jorge
hybrid2d4x4 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Thanks for the review. Since the power consumption is in similar if not better than Atom, have you guys tried running the board without the fan? Did you test what the temps are like (with the fan)?It'd be sweet if you could run this thing passively cooled with the stock heatsink...
mindbomb - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
ffdshow includes a truehd transform filter.so the lack of bitstreaming doesn't mean you can't enjoy a truehd track.
aguilpa1 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
I wish we could evolve past this 9400 or 9400 derivitivesDigitalFreak - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
There's no reason for Nvidia to come out with another Core2 / Atom chipset. Core2 is a dead end. Both Atom and the Core i CPUs use DMI or QPI for the system bus, and Nvidia doesn't have a license for either of those.Taft12 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Oh there is plenty of reason for Nvidia to come out with a chipset for this platform. Too bad Uncle Monopoly says no.DigitalFreak - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Boo hooBlendMe - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
They do have a newer and better chipset, the 320M, which seems to be an Apple exclusive. It is a pretty powerful chip, a least compared to the 9400M. The 320M is what the 9400M was 2 year ago. The absolute minimum and you should not go lower than that.BlendMe - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Hey look! It's a Mac mini! Sort of...Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Worst idea ever? Why not compare to a pentium G9650? Naw... that would make toooo much sense. Anyway I'd suspect this ion system to be worse than even a G9650, which is undoubtedly cheaper.Rajinder Gill - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
If you read the testbed setup section, you'll see I mentioned why I did not test against the G6950 - because I don't have one. I agree though, the G6950 should sit in between the Celeron and i3-540 results.-Raja
plewis00 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Can someone tell me what the actual name of this Pentium chip is?Is it the:
G6950
or
G9650
Because both seem to produce results in Google - I'm inclined to think it's the G6950 because that's what I see more but I genuinely don't know, even Wikipedia is not consistent (I know Wikipedia is not proof of anything).
Rajinder Gill - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
It's the G6950http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43230
-Raja
Rajinder Gill - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Micro Center have a deal on the i3-540 at present ($99):http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....
-Raja
Ninjahedge - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Hey,I have been seeing a few reviews of the Mini's here on Anand and I have a request (which could also be done right here in comments).
What has been done to make a tru HDPC+gamer mini? this board looks great (looks) but it seels that, until they make a micro NVidia card or do it vertically, you are still stuck with a cute box that will do everything but play Crysis 7- The Thaw.
What can be done with this box, a suitable case, and peripherals to make it run with the pack of average gaming machines (or TOTL 1/2 year old gaming machines....)?
Has there been an article about Gaming Mini's?
DigitalFreak - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
If you really want a gaming mini, you're better off going with a HM55 / Core i mini-itx motherboard. The only way you're going to get decent game performance is with a dedicated video card.Taft12 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
He's right, this is not an appropriate platform for a mini gaming box.Here is the right place to start for that:
http://giga-byte.ca/products/product-page.aspx?pid...
This would be a fine step 2:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
since you can pick your own suitable ATX PSU to go with the CPU and video card of your choice. Now excuse me while I chop off my uncooperative arm that is reaching for my credit card!
sprockkets - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
eh, that case is like, weird.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
And it includes an proper power supply.
Or I would buy this nice barebone
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
And this time the pci ex slot is inner so you can use a dual slot card.
Roland00 - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
The SILVERSTONE SG07 has enough space to fit a 5970. The powersupply is also large enough for the 5970.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
That said there are three things against this setup from
1) ITX boards are way too crammed to have enough power states for a good overclock on the cpu.
2) ITX boards often have very little space to place a nice heatsink, sometimes a nice heatsink would be blocked via the memory or the videocard. Now you can alleviate the space problem with a small waterblock+cooler but most cases don't have enough space for that. For example the SG07 doesn't have enough space for a corsair h50
3) I have heard incidents where the 5970 overheats and freezes up on people during long gaming sessions when used in combination with the small case of SG07. A 5850 or a 5770 would be preferred.
Powerlurker - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
XFX just released a single-slot 5770 which would probably be a great match for a more gaming oriented mini-ITX system.-BubbaJoe- - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I'm using a Asus M4A88T-I DELUXE + Athlon x3 445 + a 5770 in a silverstone sg05, thing plays BF2:BC2 at max settings at 1080pI think this qualifies as a mini-gamer :D
chomlee - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
First off, I want to say that I have been watching the Ion chipset and was really thinking of purchasing an itx board last year so I could put together a mini HTPC.Here is the issue. I recently purchased a patriot box office for $65.00 at newegg and for an extra $60.00, I put in a 500 gig hard drive. I have a file server that I keep all my pictures, music, and movies on and I stream it over my home network.
Anyhow, my point is, as far as HTPCs go, my patriot box office does everything I need. I even am able to stream blue ray iso files over the network with flawless playback (using NFS, not SAMBA). The only downside is that it has a very plain gui and unlike a ION mini itx, you cant install XBMC on it. Anyhow, with the availability of boxes like this that are extra small and cheap and other devices such as the boxee box comming out in November, there doesn't seem to be a niche anymore for HTPCs unless you plan on some moderate gaming.
kmshark - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
I had bad performance with my MKV Bluray files over the network using the PBO... it would play but had intermittent drops/etc. I though it was due to my MKV files being full 1080p + 5.1 or 6.1 FLAC just too much - but I was doing this via SAMBA from my 2K8 server.... so maybe it works better via NFS? For your ISOs, are you playing the hi-def audio?mino - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
While Clarkadle has more rwa power the drivers are STILL a mess.Case in point - a STUPIDLY PRIMITIVE DX8 Worms World party simply crashes on Intel IGP while it runs happily on any ATI/NV IGP since 2004 ...
While Intel seems to has invested heavily in support for benchmarks and current titles (aka review titles) the general 3D support is still a nightmare.
Cerb - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Yes, it is. Even not counting GMA500, it is. One more reason to look forward to Bobcat; and for normal machines, to go AMD. The added single-threaded i3 performance is small, and made up for quite well, especially if you stick to 785 or newer IGP.CSMR - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
A combination of old tech. Why would anyone bother with this? It's even more expensive than Clarkdale. Now a Clarkdale CULV would be more interesting.sprockkets - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Seeing as how Zotac's ION Atom boards are priced, this isn't bad at all. Just wish the pci slot was faster.In any case, I prefer a system be fanless and compact, which that H55 board isn't. This might come close.
While having a built in PS is nice, what if it breaks? There goes the whole board. Besides the cases this would go into already have ITX sized power supplies anyhow. The one here is nice since it allows for an optical drive and two 2.5 drives: one SSD and one high capacity notebook drive.
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/c299
Wineohe - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
Having experienced the trials and tribulations of Nvidia's GF8300 onboard graphics over HDMI in an ASUS board for AM2, I will not soon sign up again. I can't imagine buying a board with these chipsets. It's indicated in the review that they had no issues. Did you confirm that the HDMI works flawlessly? Did you check to see if it would work with an AV Receiver of switch. Can you adjust for over scan on a 720P Television in the NVidia control panel. Can you effectively adjust resolution at all over HDMI? Does the HD sound work perfectly after every reboot.Again not for me.
sprockkets - Thursday, August 26, 2010 - link
"Stepping out to a discrete GPU, the ION systems get blasted to smithereens by the i3-540. ION lacks the raw muscle required to handle the GTX 275. 1.875GHz is the maximum stable frequency we achieved on our processor without running out of cooling headroom."That's not ION's fault if the pci slot is really x16m, that's the fault of having a low clocked CPU and an older generation one to boot.
Still, for the average person, this is much better than Atom. Same thing is happening on the laptop front as well.
-BubbaJoe- - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
We need a review on the new Asus M4A88T-I DELUXEIts a mini-itx motherboard for AM3 with a crapton of features (usb 3 wifi n, bluetooth, etc)
I already purchased this board and I can attest, the thing is awesome, the 95w cpu support is a bit lacking but I have it paired with an Athlon II x3 445 (3.1ghz), you can even put one of the quad core phenoms or the lower power 6 cores that are supposed to be out soon. It absolutly flies with the 5770. I'd just like to see a full review and what kind of over clock potential it has on a small wattage psu (my case came with a 300w).
Just more exposure to the awesomeness that is mini-itx at a price point lower than Intel.
hvakrg - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
If this had come with a chipset that could bitstream TrueHD I'd be all over it, replace Ion with MR5xxx and it would be great.ssj3gohan - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I have a much-overlooked but very serious request to the Anandtech testers - I know we readers demand a lot but this is not that bad a request I think.In building the odd core i3 system, even with the excellently power-efficient Intel DH55TC board, I get idle power of around 20W and load power of around 50W. While that 20W figure is actually very favourable from a heat/noise/performance per watt point of view, the load power isn't, especially when we're looking at these types of systems aimed at low power. People feel they really have to choose: go for the truly low-power SU7xxx/Atom-based system but give up the ability to... well, really do any real computing, and on the other hand go for the full-featured system but having to cope with the necessary active cooling and power drain.
This is not true, because core i3 and i5 processors actually undervolt quite a bit. I have undervolted systems very non-aggressively (mind the prefix 'non') and gained over 12W difference in load power: that is still 20W idle power, but just 38W under load. That is very competitive with the CULV-stuff around there, especially considering the MASSIVE performance increase. The real power zealots will probably say I have to use a picopsu to get everything even more efficient but that is really not worth the cost anymore in this realm. Undervolting is, and that is why I ask you to consider this in future benchmarks of this kind of systems.
ProDigit - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
You got all the extra options, but nowhere near enough low power to compete with netbooks.Also no multi-thread compatibility.
Necrosaro420 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
What is that coax cable for?Rajinder Gill - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Wi-FiGigantopithecus - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
IMHO overpriced across the board. (Pun intended.)Cerb - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Otherwise, it looks very...OK. But no such system, today, needs a fan. Given the cost of the whole thing, it would easily be worth an extra $10-15 to have a proper heatsink for it all, instead.Even if they did that, though, Mr. Gill's conclusion about what you get for the price would still keep it from being a great buy.
hvakrg - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
"That leaves one more weapon in IONs current repertoire that may factor in swaying a purchasing decision; XBMC support - it appears Clarkdale is not currently/well supported by Linux for such use. If looking for full media center functionality, ION remains the better choice."XBMC is not the only media center application out there, and it does not even offer full media center functionality with it's lack of basic TV-support. Mediaportal on the other hand does.
KOOLTIME - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
I use it running WIN 2008 server, is been excellent for that. No not a high demand server, but its perfect for file share, DHCP, back up server. Super low cost for a low demand server is unbeatable.Mines been runing great since i set it up no problems whatsoever, its low power and low profile make it excellent for running 24/7 at a cheep price for home network server.
zotac w/atom 330 cpu - 2gb ram - 2x 1tb HD's + case - psu - cd drive all less then 400 bucks for the rig, and its been uptime 24/7 just over 6 months now with zero problems as my DHCP, file, proxy, and back up server.
For home user that doesnt want to spend alot of money and has use for background computer services ( aka HTPC, file server, basic networking services, those types of things. Cant beet it for the cost. The small form and the low power means it can be on 24/7 with no big dents to the wallet.
Only note I would recommend when getting these types of systems, is insure you get dual core or better type of CPU, the single cores simply dont have enough juice to not LAG the heck outta the system even for simple tasks as launching a web browser and such. A dual core least remains usable even though its not a speed deamon you can do basic stuff without waiting 2-5 mins per mouse click as some of these single core models do.
Go test out an atom N450 vs a 330 and you will see why to not buy an N450 ever for use, those single cores are lag monkies.
Googer - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
SPAM!seanc1 - Saturday, January 12, 2013 - link
my little ionitx not booting well no graphics does anyone have any idea what mybe up with it? tried the hdmi the vga the dvi even put a gainward 8800 gtx graphics card in still nothing...... all fans spinning what looks to be correct speeds etc lost