In the last few years, manufacturers have focused on bringing out low power, compact computing solutions. The Atom processor is ideal for this kind of task, except the subsystem around it wasn't geared for high-definition content processing.

The Ion platform from NVIDIA is built for that purpose. We received the ZOTAC Ion platform which comes with a built-in Atom N330 dual core processor. What makes it different is that if's powered by a GeForce 9 series graphics solution. The mini-ITX form board is just 17 x 17 cm in size. An equally compact case from Panache was sent to us.

The board, although tiny, isn't handicapped in any way. To give you an idea, it comes with a built-in 802.11n WiFi module, a gigabit Ethernet controller, 3 SATA ports, HDMI out and digital audio outputs. The only thing missing on these boards are the PC! and PCl-E expansion slots.

The ZOTAC board has no 20-pin power connector and it connects directly to the DC power connector. There's also a 4-pin male molex connector to connect your hard disk drives, and other optical drives.

The case is equally tiny and just about fits everything in. A fan on the side channels out the hot air but fortunately, the Atom and Ion solution doesn't generate too much of it. There are a few issues with the case though. There's no space to install an optical drive or an internal hard drive, so you are forced to use USB or eSATA devices.

We tested the board with 4 GB of DDR2 memory and a 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive. The graphics performance was considerably better than the Intel 945's graphic solution that are used on low power desktops and netbooks.
Even PCMark05 churned out better overall scores. Memory scores stayed more or less the same. We also ran a couple of game benchmarks. Doom 3 for example, showed average frame rates between 25 and 28 fps with low and ultra quality settings. The processor is clearly the bottleneck here.

But the Ion was made for a completely different purpose low power HD playback. WMV HD content works rather well without any glitches. We then tried H264 content with the default settings on both Media Player Classic and VLC. At 720p, we noticed some slowdown and heavy stuttering with 1080p H264 videos. The performance wasn't what we expected. It was only after some fooling around, that we realized , that you need to set your media , player to use thE graphics card to process HD content. We did . this with Media Player Classic with DXVA enabled. The CPU utilization dropped from 80-90 per cent right doWn to 10-15 per cent, which' is something we've never previously seen an Atom do. It's a pretty impressive sight!

This undoubtedly makes a good low power media centre solution. It also makes good sense as a download rig. You might need to setup your media players once to use the Ion's power properly though.



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