ZOTAC fleshes out value-orientated ION ITX mainboards

The mini-ITX form factor must be proving increasingly popular as ZOTAC just doesn't want to stop churning out new revisions of its ION ITX series.

ZOTAC's range, already consisting of a wide range of mini-ITX boards, has today been expanded with the introduction of the ION ITX-E Synergy Edition and ION ITX-G Synergy Edition. Based upon NVIDIA's ION chipset - complete with GeForce 9400M IGP - the boards differentiate from one another by being paired with Intel's 1.6GHz single-core Atom 230 and dual-core Atom 330, respectively.

How are the Synergy Editions any different to ZOTAC's existing ION A, B, C, D and F series? Well, we're told the duo of new additions target "value price points", and though we've yet to see any firm figures, we'd expect both boards to be ZOTAC's cheapest NVIDIA ION-based platforms.

With a low-cost audience in mind, it's no surprise to see the Synergy Editions lose out on certain aspects of functionality - there's no PCIe x16 slot, and the likes of eSATA and Wi-Fi haven't been invited to the party.

However, if those aren't features you'd deem to be important, the Synergy Editions are flexible in other areas. Two DDR2 DIMM slots provide support for up to 4GB of memory, there's a single PCIe x1 slot, four SATA ports, 10 USB ports and Gigabit Ethernet. If the price is right, and ZOTAC seems confident that it will be, the Synergy Editions could be a useful base for a low-cost HTPC.

No word on availability yet, but ZOTAC's complete specifications can be found below.