IanCutress: AMD makes a few dozen embedded GF designs, not to mention all the Xilinx GF silicon.IanCutress: In other blindingly obvious news,Īpple already reportedly working on next iPhone,.IanCutress: Do people, especially tech journos, still not get that leading edge technology takes years to create?.In the near future? If the fan issues get sorted out, it looks like you’ll have another option with ASUS. If you’re buying today and just want a motherboard, Zotac is the way to go. I took for granted much of what made Zotac’s design work, but it’s clear that effort was made to make that board what it is. As soon as ASUS can get us a sample with the final fan design we’ll retest and follow up as necessary. I’d prefer if ASUS went to a larger, slower spinning fan but as long as it can get quieter I’ll be happy. It’s clear that the ASUS board was an early sample and hopefully the shipping product will be significantly quieter. If you want to build your own, until ASUS gets us a sample with a quieter fan, it looks like Zotac is the way to go. You’d have to ebay (or repurpose) the 320GB HDD that ships with the ASRock Ion in order to make the jump to an SSD without wasting money. As I wrote earlier in the review, a good SSD really helps mask the poor performance of the Atom. And you get no flexibility in the components chosen. Then there’s the issue of price, you do pay a premium (around $40) for ASRock to assemble this thing for you. Stick it in a closet or play a movie and it won’t really matter. Although the fan is quiet, you do hear the motor if you’re close to the machine. The ASRock is well built and my only complaint is the distinct noise of the rear fan. While Acer offers the Aspire Revo, it only comes with a single-core Atom 230, a far less desirable option. If you want a pre-built system and have no components of your own that you’d like to re-use, the ASRock Ion 330 is your only option. That being said, with three real competitors in the DIY market we do actually have a decent set of options to choose from. There have been a handful of significant releases in the netbook and nettop category from OEMs like Acer and Samsung, but for the most part Ion has been quieter than expected. I don't want to see another G45 launch repeat in 2010.Īt the start of this year I expected to see more Ion platforms than three for the DIY market. And let this serve as a warning to Intel: Pine Trail needs to be just as easy to setup and use as Ion. While I could build a faster HTPC, I'm not sure I could build a more efficient one than what I get from Ion. With projects like XBMC that can harness the power of NVIDIA's GPU in Ion, we're starting to see real usage models for these systems.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |