Zotac's Ion: The World's First mini-ITX Ion Board
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 12, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power Consumption
Compared to the Intel Atom boards, the Zotac wins out - it doesn't have to use a bulky desktop power supply which isn't as efficient at these low power draws. Compared to something more similar however, like the Atom 230 based ASUS Eee Box with its own external DC power supply, we see that the Zotac Ion does draw more power than Intel's Atom platform. I'm not sure how much more this could be cut down when used in a netbook/notebook, but that could be a deal breaker for more mobile versions of Ion.
Final Words
What do I think of the world's first mini-ITX Atom Ion motherboard? I like it. Zotac did a good job of delivering pretty much everything I'd want in a board like this, going even further than expected and offering a solution with an external power brick. I don't like the external power option from a long-term replacement standpoint, but I do appreciate its convenience. My only complaint is the price, at $189 it's a bit expensive for the performance you get but I do concede that there are some benefits in the convenience department. All you need to add is memory and some sort of storage and you're good to go, you'll have a system that's easily capable of playing back high definition content (not to mention very power efficient while doing it).
The general application performance of the Zotac Ion isn’t actually any better than the Intel D945GCLF2. It’s when you look at GPU-enabled applications that the Ion holds any real performance benefit. Blu-ray playback or 3D gaming are its real performance strengths; if you plan on doing neither then the platform isn’t very useful.
I did try some CUDA applications on the Zotac Ion board and they were definitely faster than using the CPU alone. While our x264 test managed around 12 fps on the Zotac Ion, using Badaboom I was able to encode at just under 20 fps.
When it comes to the Atom processor, at least on the desktop, there’s simply no reason to opt for the single-core model. Most tasks are so completely CPU bound on Atom that any increase in processing power is instantly noticeable. The Atom 330 ends up being faster than even a 1.6GHz single-core Celeron 420 in many tests, particularly video encoding and 3D rendering, while falling behind in other applications like WinRAR and even our general SYSMark tests. With enough cores, the Atom architecture is efficient in delivering good floating point performance it seems. Branchy integer code however favors the speculative execution engines of more conventional desktop microprocessors. The only reason I see the single-core Atom being of any use is if you're building a cheap file server, but otherwise the Atom 330 is so much faster across the board that it's more than worth it. Hyper-Threading definitely helps the Atom 230, but there's no replacement for another fully functional core. The added power consumption is nothing serious.
If you do need more CPU power, Zotac actually offers an LGA-775 version of the board but it of course requires a standard power supply:
Power consumption on the Zotac Ion is appreciably low, thanks in part to its 90W DC power supply. Compared to ASUS’ Eee Box however, the Ion system does use nearly 50% more power under load.
Everyone seemed to want an Ion based motherboard after NVIDIA first showed off its reference platform. Acer delivered the first Ion system, but it looks like Zotac is delivering what we all wanted from the start. Now it's time to see how people start using these things....
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KidneyBean - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
Isn't it stealing to use Media Player Classic if you use patented decoders without paying for them?If so, I would hope you don't publish such information in articles in the future.
Penti - Friday, May 29, 2009 - link
Nope infringement is never steeling. It's pretty okay as long as it isn't used commercially. Usually your allowed to use any patents for personal use though. So it's fine. You won't go to jail. Of course he won't publish stuff that discourage the use of homebrew codecs and software that are needed for playing warez and illegally ripping your movies. It would be silly as that's what people use computers for, especially htpcs. It would really be a limited worthless device without it.sprockkets - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
With MPEG4, you only pay what you publish with it, not decode.DXA for nvidia cards is clearly documented on how to use it.
Dolby Digital is another story, but seeing as how you can send the bitstream to your receiver to decode it legally, what's the big deal?
Jeffk464 - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
I don't understand what the major need is to have a low power desktop. If it plugs into the wall its not really an issue like it is with notebooks. Its seems like the main focus for a Home Theater PC should be in keeping things quiet. Why not use a notebook processor and focus on making a super quiet heat sink and fan. I like the idea of compact pc's but HP has managed to squeeze a full on systems with a high end cpu onto the back of a lcd display in a nice little package.cosmotic - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
How are Flash (normal animation and (HD)video) and Java graphics performance?For Java, you can install the JDK and double click the jar:
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_13\demo\jfc\Java2D\Java2Demo.jar
The composite and transform demos would be particularly helpful.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
I've been meaning to talk about FLV performance, I'll try and include that in a short followup soon.Take care,
Anand
strikeback03 - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
The version of the Intel LF2 board you have here is already being pulled from the channel. It's replacement is the LF2D, which loses the S-Video port. Not a huge loss, as most people who tried to use it could not get what they wanted out of it (does not support different content to both the VGA and S-Video ports).Was Vista the OS for all the tests? I am using an LF2 board in my carputer with 1GB RAM, running a somewhat stripped-down version of XP on a 7200RPM 2.5" drive. Running on the car touchscreen (7", 800x480) or in PIP on my desktop monitor, and it feels pretty snappy in general usage. If I give it the full 1920x1200 though it slows down a lot, especially in my front-end software. Also, the image quality over VGA is not as good as some laptops I have hooked up to that monitor over VGA.
For carputer use I would like to see a better onboard audio codec and more ports. The 3-port thing doesn't give much flexibility on inputs and outputs.
Is the increased power consumption of the Intel boards due to using a standard ATX PSU? Did you consider getting one of the Pico-PSUs (like this: http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-150-XT-102-power-k...">http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-150-XT-102-power-k... ) to try on a more comparable basis? Also, is there any way to test the draw on each rail? The Intel boards are not really compatible with the lower-powered Pico-PSUs due to rather excessive draw on the 5V rail.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
Vista was the OS used for all of the tests and I'll second what you're saying, I've found XP far snappier than Vista with these Atom based systems. I just stuck with Vista to keep the results somewhat comparable to other CPU results.I did use a standard ATX power supply on the Intel boards but that's why I also tossed in the Eee Box results to show you what an Atom system with a smaller PSU can do.
Take care,
Anand
Jeffk464 - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
I don't understand what the major need is to have a low power desktop. If it plugs into the wall its not really an issue like it is with notebooks. Its seems like the main focus for a Home Theater PC should be in keeping things quiet. Why not use a notebook processor and focus on making a super quiet heat sink and fan. I like the idea of compact pc's but HP has managed to squeeze a full on systems with a high end cpu onto the back of a lcd display in a nice little package.sprockkets - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - link
Look at the prices on logic supply for a laptop socket itx board and how much the processor is and you will see how much cheaper this setup is.Besides, the vast majority of Anandtech readers prefer to build ourselves, not buy OEM crap.