Zotac ION boards now on Newegg

[fyleow]

These boards are finally hitting the retail channel for those who have been waiting. So far Newegg has the single core version with and without external power brick in stock.

The version with the external brick is only $20 more.

Really wish it came with a single PCI 1x slot but other than that it's pretty feature packed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... om&x=0&y=0[/url]

[zodaex]

Damn, out of stock!

[treker]

Got my Zotac Ion DualCore Atom on Mon Jun 1 from the egg. The board is beautiful. Love the integrated power. WiFi. Popped into a Morex 350 case from mitxpc and was running some HD video in no time. However, I had to install the included Zotac 60mm fan on the NB/CPU heatsink. That brought temps down to 30C. And ended the silent computing aspect for now. I will need to change out the fan or install some fan speed reducing hardware because bios (nor speedfan) doesn't seem to control it. Fan needs to be 10mm high because the space is tight in this case. Lots of overclocking, memory tweaking, and other options in bios. For instance, 25% speed increase to 2.0ghz is as simple as selecting 667 fsb instead of stock 533. Didn't seem to cause any heat issue when doing so.

[JamieG]

I will need to change out the fan or install some fan speed reducing hardware because bios (nor speedfan) doesn't seem to control it. Fan needs to be 10mm high because the space is tight in this case.

Try this fan with a Zalman fanmate 2 or something similar.

[treker]

Thanks Jaime. I like Scythe fans. 100x12mm will be a tight fit. The 60mm fits in the heatsink borders. 100 would certainly extend about 1.5in. And the extra 2mm in depth should still clear the case top and heatsink. I used a Fanmate on the stock Zotac fan but needed to run it full speed to keep the temps in low to mid 30s. I don't like running in the 40C range.

So, I think I will try the Scythe in the near future. The fan looks very interesting!

Thanks!

[psyopper]

How does it handle FLV video? ie: Youtube and Hulu?

My Mini 9 with the N230 chokes on anything but standard resolution, and barely runs that stutter free. Is there GPU acceleration for the Nvidia chipsets for Flash yet? Or does the dual core Atom have enough HP to drive that processor hog that Adobe calls an "application"?

[victorhortalives]

Got my Zotac Ion DualCore Atom on Mon Jun 1 from the egg. The board is beautiful. Love the integrated power. WiFi. Popped into a Morex 350 case from mitxpc and was running some HD video in no time. However, I had to install the included Zotac 60mm fan on the NB/CPU heatsink. That brought temps down to 30C. And ended the silent computing aspect for now. I will need to change out the fan or install some fan speed reducing hardware because bios (nor speedfan) doesn't seem to control it. Fan needs to be 10mm high because the space is tight in this case. Lots of overclocking, memory tweaking, and other options in bios. For instance, 25% speed increase to 2.0ghz is as simple as selecting 667 fsb instead of stock 533. Didn't seem to cause any heat issue when doing so.

Thanks for this info !

It avoids my only real complaint with this mobo. Using it was like going back one or two generations of PCs. Now the the speed is more like a modern PC - impressive.

What else are you going to try to change for more performance ?

[dougz]

How does it handle FLV video? ie: Youtube and Hulu?

Here's Anandtech's Anand Lal Shimpi on Flash performance --

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

Emphasis added. Read the whole thing for additional details.

Speculation: Linux with Atom-optimization, using Intel's compiler, might be somewhat better than Windows, assuming the Nvidia drivers were enabled.

Still, it seems like a low-end dual-core non-Atom CPU is really a far better choice for multimedia. Atom on Ion is so close, but just not quite good enough for my needs.