Competitive performance with unmatched power efficiency, says ZOTAC
ZOTAC has today followed in the footsteps of Point of View by announcing a pair of all-in-one platforms built upon NVIDIA's ION technology.
Continuing the trend, ZOTAC's mini-ITX ION board comes in two unique varieties - one equipped with a single-core Intel Atom N230, and the second equipped with a dual-core Intel Atom N330.
Promising to deliver "a premium computing experience in a miniature mini-ITX form factor", the ZOTAC ION features an NVIDIA GeForce 9400m IGP - complete with 16 processor cores - and makes light work of high-def video playback thanks to NVIDIA's PureVideo HD technology.
Taking a slightly different approach, ZOTAC's boards offer standard DDR2 DIMM slots, as opposed to the SODIMM slots found on Point of View's ION boards. Elsewhere, it has opted to abandon the implementation of PCIe slots, though a Mini PCIe slot is available as an optional extra. External TV tuners only, then, for the standard model.
The board offers three SATA ports and one eSATA, as well as VGA, DVI and HDMI connectivity. There's Gigabit Ethernet, but integrated Wi-Fi is an optional extra - as is an on-board DC-DC power supply.
With the number of optional extras, one would imagine that ZOTAC's base bundles will be priced competitively. Those eyeing the board up for a HTPC build will also be happy to hear that ZOTAC tells us that passive cooling is possible - contrary to the above image. Sounds promising, and we've included the complete specification and a handful of additional images on page two.
