New version of Zotac 9300 ITX

Merlinen · Post by **Merlinen** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 11:43 am

Did youst see a new Version of the Zotac 9300 board that have some new whanted fetures

GF9300-G-E (PCB04) has the following differences from earlier PCB versions: DVI is Dual-Link, not Single-Link; S/PDIF header added to board; 3x SATA instead of 2x SATA; CPU/RAM undervoltage now possible (overvoltage still possible); RAID 0+1, 5 added to RAID 0, 1; Wake On USB support added; Onboard Power LED added; Clearance under board altered to increase 3rd party CPU heatsink support.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=52#9300-ITX-PCB04

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:56 pm

Nice find! CPU undervolting sounds especially promising, given that a lot of miniITX mobos seem to lack this feature. The extra SATA port is good too.

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:09 pm

I am interested in the GF9300-G-E as well, I guess it would be perfect with an E3200.
Anyone knows whether it can boot a RAID card in the x16 slot?
Thank you.

Maverickâ„¢ · Post by **Maverickâ„¢** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 3:11 am

It is only -0.10 volts max undervolt for CPU, but at least it is something. They also added more RAM voltages.

Parappaman · Post by **Parappaman** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 5:18 am

If they retained that crappy VIA WiFi chipset, they should have their nails removed.

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:33 pm

Maverickâ„¢ wrote:It is only -0.10 volts max undervolt for CPU, but at least it is something. They also added more RAM voltages.

I wonder if a BIOS hack would allow less. But, I guess another way to save power is to under-clock it.

I ordered a GF9300-G-E board, and I will put in it an E3200.
I do not have a power meter, but I can post the lowest clocks and voltages once I ran some tests.

Parappaman,
I downloaded the WIFI drivers from the Zotax web page and took a look at the INF file. It seems to be a VIA WIFI controller, indeed. The included TXT files refer to it as "VIA Networking VT6656 USB-Wireless LAN Adapter".
What's wrong with it?

bigdoofus · Post by **bigdoofus** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:45 pm

Csimbi wrote:
Maverickâ„¢ wrote:It is only -0.10 volts max undervolt for CPU, but at least it is something. They also added more RAM voltages.
I wonder if a BIOS hack would allow less. But, I guess another way to save power is to under-clock it.

I ordered a GF9300-G-E board, and I will put in it an E3200.
I do not have a power meter, but I can post the lowest clocks and voltages once I ran some tests.

Parappaman,
I downloaded the WIFI drivers from the Zotax web page and took a look at the INF file. It seems to be a VIA WIFI controller, indeed. The included TXT files refer to it as "VIA Networking VT6656 USB-Wireless LAN Adapter".
What's wrong with it?

I was looking at doing this exact same combination (GF9300-G-E, E3200, PCIe x16 RAID card). Let me know it goes, especially the undervolt. From what I can tell from other forums, the only options are -0.05 and -0.10.

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 6:24 pm

bigdoofus wrote:Let me know it goes, especially the undervolt.

Will do, but shipping might take 1-2 weeks (ordered the components Friday night; no confirmation yet).

Maverickâ„¢ · Post by **Maverickâ„¢** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:06 am

Csimbi wrote:
Maverickâ„¢ wrote:It is only -0.10 volts max undervolt for CPU, but at least it is something. They also added more RAM voltages.
I wonder if a BIOS hack would allow less. But, I guess another way to save power is to under-clock it.

I ordered a GF9300-G-E board, and I will put in it an E3200.
I do not have a power meter, but I can post the lowest clocks and voltages once I ran some tests.

This is my pc:

Zotac 9300-ITX rev 01 (4 phase power), Intel E5200 stepping M0 1.2g(100x12) - 1.15v, 1x2Gb Team Group Elite 800, Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320Gb, case JCP MI-02 BS - Integrated dc/dc 60w PSU + external ac/dc brick, Windows XP

idle= 23 watt

I've tried to put the CPU at 0.6 Ghz (100x6) but the power consumption doesn't change, at 1.2Ghz (200x6) power is 24 watt
in this figures WIFI is off and the "Mem Power Features" in bios is Enabled (-0.8 w)
Cpu lower Vcore is 1.15v (using RmClock)

I think that a rev 04 (another -0.1v for the cpu) and a E3200 stepping R0 can go beyond 20 watt

b3nbranch · Post by **b3nbranch** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:26 am

I'd be very interested to know how the undervolting works. That is, does
it disable SpeedStep, or is the voltage change applied to each step equally or proportionately?

Many Thanks!

bigdoofus · Post by **bigdoofus** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:39 am

b3nbranch wrote:I'd be very interested to know how the undervolting works. That is, does
it disable SpeedStep, or is the voltage change applied to each step equally or proportionately?

Many Thanks!

I hope its to each step.

valnar · Post by **valnar** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:56 am

I have the original version of this board - the one that can't return from S3 sleep properly.

Does anyone know if its possible to get Zotac to replace it under "warranty"?

jaydeesan · Post by **jaydeesan** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:46 am

Didn't you mean GF9300-I-E ? => "I"

b3nbranch · Post by **b3nbranch** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:05 am

This "I" model must be quite new ... haven't heard of it before today. NewEgg sells the "G" but not the "I" yet. I'd love to hear more about the improved and possibly die-shrunk GPU. More info will be on the Web soon I suppose.

bigdoofus · Post by **bigdoofus** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:10 am

jaydeesan wrote:Didn't you mean GF9300-I-E ? => "I"

There's an "I" model out now? First i'm hearing of it. Any links?

Found one

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18056

Was announced a few days ago

EDIT: "Zotac has also improved upon the GF9300-D-E's already-impressive tweaking and overclocking options, expanding the range of supported voltage settings for the processor and memory. Users will now be able to undervolt their processors by 0.1V to keep power consumption down. The GF9300-I-E also features one extra internal Serial ATA port (raising the total to three) as well as wake-on-USB support"

EDIT: Essentially the same as the G-E. "The only differences between the GF9300-G-E and the GF9300-I-E are that the GF9300-I-E features an overclocked GPU and a redesigned northbridge heatsink."

http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/index.php ... f-9300-i-e

Edirol · Post by **Edirol** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:07 pm

I wonder how much hotter the GPU will be when it's OC'd (even though it has a newer heatsink).

bigdoofus wrote:
EDIT: Essentially the same as the G-E. "The only differences between the GF9300-G-E and the GF9300-I-E are that the GF9300-I-E features an overclocked GPU and a redesigned northbridge heatsink."

http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/index.php ... f-9300-i-e

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:57 am

I got almost all of my components and I put the system together.
Here are the components:
- CM Stacker case (removed fans from HDD cages and covered upper and side breathing holes with duct tape to force the air through the HDD cages)
- 2x80mm fans from Noctua on the upper PSU slot, plugged into power using silencer resistors
- 1x120mm fan from Noctua above the IO panel, plugged into motherboard
- Nexus Value 430 PSU upside down in the lower PSU slot,
- GF9300-G-E (236-DA105-0540F, this is PCB 4, dunno which BIOS)
- 2x1GB RAM, Kingston
- Intel E3200 Dual-core processor, cooled by a Thermalright Ultra 120 with a 120mm Noctua fan
- Adaptec 51645 SAS controller, having 8xSamsung Ecogreen 1.5TB in a single RAID6 array
- 1xSamsung Spinpoint HDD to test the system
I have a lousy power meter from Fujitech. According to this, by all settings at default the system consumer 113W, measured at the wall socket.

I don't know which BIOS do I have (the POST screen disappears too fast), but these are the settings available for tweaking the voltage:
- Memory voltage control goes from 1.8V to 2.1V in 0.1V increments.
- NB (North-bridge) voltage control goes from 1.1V to 1.25V in 0.05V increments.
- CPU voltage control is a bit strange, because they are not absolute power settings, they are relative to the "Default" setting (whatever that might be, this is quite confusing). Anyway, there's the "Default" setting, there are two negative settings: -0.1V and -0.05V and finally the positive values: from +0.02V to +0.3V in 0.02V increments.

The system is quiet as expected (I can hear only the rear fans; I think I am going to slow them down even further and I will try to remove the CPU fan and see if I can get away with just one fan).
There system consumes more power than I originally expected. I thought it would consume about 90watts. (30W for CPU and motherboard, 48W (8x6W) for the HDDs and 15W for the controller). Though I have an extra HDD inside and I forgot to unplug the Stacker's cross-flow fan.
I'll do some tweaking and get back with more later.

Edit#1:
I forgot to say anything about the temperatures. There's no OS installed yet; the CPU temp is 36C and the MCP temp is 39C according to the BIOS at the default settings.
Also, there are BIOS settings to tweak the iGPU frequencies, more on that later.

Edit#2:
I realized that the RAID6 array is being rebuilt/verified, so that might be the reason for the additional power draw. I'll experiment with the HDD shut-off timers, too and see how that changes the situation (the NAS will be sitting most of the time idling anyway).

Walter Dyson · Post by **Walter Dyson** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 3:55 pm

The reason for higher power consumption may be that you have a much more powerful PSU than your system really needs. PSUs, as far as I know, are most efficient when you run them at approx. 80% load of their maximum.

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:34 am

Hi Walter,
yes, I think so, too. I was planning on getting the PicoPSU, but I plan on extending the system with more HDDs in the near future. According to my estimation, the fully built system would consume something like 140-150W (with all components active, for example, at startup), and the biggest from PicoPSU is 120W currently. I would not want to risk over-driving the Pico.

I did some tweaking regarding CPU multiplier and FSB speed.
I could lower the CPU multiplier to 6x, no problem.
However, the FSB speed seems to have a negative impact on the Adaptec 51645 card: it would produce read/write errors at lower FSB speeds. This is interesting, I guess I will contact support because in my opinion this should not happen.
Anyway, for now, I am stuck with 800Mhz FSB and 6x multiplier, which means 1200 MHz clock speed. It feels still too much for a file server.
With these settings, the system idles at 72W - when all hard disks have stopped spinning. Mush less than 90W, so it's looking good.

Walter Dyson · Post by **Walter Dyson** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:55 am

Mcubed manufactures an external 150W brick-type PSU. It comes with a Pico-PSU. They also have a 190W model but it comes with a larger internal unit, which seems to suit (out of the box) only their own enclosures. May be there are others. But why just not take a less powerful internal PSU? All these external PSUs are needed if you either have a very small enclosure or fighting noise. It seems that neither is the case.

victorhortalives · Post by **victorhortalives** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 8:25 am

Csimbi wrote:Hi Walter,
yes, I think so, too. I was planning on getting the PicoPSU, but I plan on extending the system with more HDDs in the near future. According to my estimation, the fully built system would consume something like 140-150W (with all components active, for example, at startup), and the biggest from PicoPSU is 120W currently. I would not want to risk over-driving the Pico.

150W versions are available. See : http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12383

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:18 am

victorhortalives wrote:
Csimbi wrote:Hi Walter,
yes, I think so, too. I was planning on getting the PicoPSU, but I plan on extending the system with more HDDs in the near future. According to my estimation, the fully built system would consume something like 140-150W (with all components active, for example, at startup), and the biggest from PicoPSU is 120W currently. I would not want to risk over-driving the Pico.

150W versions are available. See : http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12383

Lovely, thanks. I'm going to check availability with their EU distributor.

Edit.
They are available now:
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/popups/prod ... p?id=49362

I ordered another Zotac board to build a HTPC. Same hardware, but only one SSD HDD and a different case. I'm curious how much this system is going to consume.

Csimbi · Post by **Csimbi** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:38 am

I put the new system together, this the HW:
- SilverStone SST-SG06B case (and its 300W PSU), but replaced its front 120mm fan with a Noctua 120mm.
- Intel E3200 CPU with stock cooler
- Kingston KHX8500D2K2/4G
- 1x Kingston SSDNow V 40GB
- Logitech DiNovo keyboard

Installed Ubuntu and XBMC using this guide.

Using auto speeds for CPU, FSB and memory.
Decreased CPU voltage to -0.10V.

Power consumption using SilverStone 300W PSU:
Idle: 35W.
x264 1080p playback on 1920*1080@60Hz: 36W.
NOTE: HD playback is done using the on-board video card, CPU utilization is only 5-6%.

I guess the idle consumption seems a bit high while the consumption during HD playback seems favourable.

The Noctua fan is spinning at its lowest speed: 600 RPM.
The stock intel CPU fan is spinning at about 900RPM (auto, 1sec sampling, target temp: 50C), the CPU temp is about 35-37C.
Dunno how fast the PSU fan is spinning, but it's inaudible.
Since the HDD is a flash drive, the overall noise generated by the system is nearly un-noticable.

I am still waiting for my PicoPSU to arrive; I will update this post once its here. I am planning to add a fan to the back, once the PSU has been removed.

PS. I re-greased the chipset fan. The factory grease seems to be a low-quality, sticky grease. I applied a hint of Arctic Silver, and the result: chipset temp dropped about 10C.

javitxi · Post by **javitxi** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 11:41 am

Any I-E user overhere? I have one as you can see overhere, but I haven't yet completed the sys, so I can't give you any real finally numbers.

Also, they have realeased K-E version.

I'm interested on doing some UC to 9300 chipset, because by making some tests with prime95 at 100% load checking everything is ok with Artic Silver 5 on CPU and Chipset, the case at open air without the fan of Big Shuriken blowing down air and at default BIOS settings, Everest reported ~80-90s ÂºC on GPU and -because of it proximity to CPU- ~60s ÂºC on CPU. I maintained these temps ~10 min. I think when AS5 has some cicles heat/not heat will perform better. Also the temp on my bedroom would have been ~20ÂºC.

Csimbi, I'll probably take some of your ideas on OS if you don't mind

when I'll tweak the sys.