Zotac have provided their brand new ION ITX A Series motherboard for review. Lets see if this pint sized board punches above its weight!

Product on Review: Zotac ION ITX A Series
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Zotac
Street Price: £169.20

Zotac have sent us their ION ITX A Series motherboard for review.

Despite being relatively new to computer hardware manufacture they’re making a good name for themselves.



ZOTAC International (MCO) Limited was established in 2006 with a mission to deliver superb quality of NVIDIA graphic solutions to the industry. It has strong backup from parent group, PC Partner Ltd. Headquartered in Hong Kong, factory in Mainland China and regional sales offices in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. The support ZOTAC provides is currently the largest of its kind around the world.

With 40 SMT lines, 6,000 workers and 100,000 square-feet meter, ZOTAC features a full array of state-of-the-art facilities and machineries. In addition, ZOTAC has over 130 R&D professionals in Hong Kong, China and warranty and service center in strategic countries to enable effective and efficient worldwide as well as localized sales and marketing supports.


The Zotac ION ITX A Series.

Let’s see how the ION ITX A Series performs.

Specification

Model

– IONITX-A-B/C/E/U

Chipset

– Nvidia ION

CPU Compatibility

– Intel Atom N330 (dual-core) (1.6 GHz) HyperThreading compatible
– Front-side bus – 533 MHz

Memory

– DDR2 667/800 MHz
– 2x 240-pin DIMM
– Up to 4GB

Integrated Wifi

– 802.11n

Ports

– DVI 1 (HDCP)
– HDMI 1 (HDCP w/7.1-channel Audio)
– VGA 1
– SATA 3 (SATA 3.0 Gbps)
– eSATA 1 (SATA 3.0 Gbps)
– PS/2 1 (Keyboard)
– USB 2.0 10 (6 on back panel, 4 via pin header)
– Ethernet 10/100/1000Mbps (RJ45)
– Cooler Passive(Optional Low-Noise Fan)
– Windows Vista Vista Premium ready



The ION ITX A Series is an incredibly comprehensively specified little package.

It has Intel’s incredibly efficient Atom Dual Core N330 chip paired with Nvidia’s new ION integrated chipset. The addition of an onboard 90w power supply only adds to the already impressive feature lineup.

Gigabit lan and fast wireless N WiFi support are further valuable additions to the spec sheet too.

Indeed, the onboard GPU combined with the integrated HDMI output means the board offers a low power ITX form factor capable of full HD playback for HTPC use. This means the ION ITX Series A should appeal to a great many people.

Packaging and motherboard

As with other Zotac offerings the ION ITX A Series comes in their typically colourful box.


Box front.

The brightly coloured front provides basic information on the specific functions of the board while the back provides information on the performance of Nvidia’s ION chipset. The side of the box contains a full list of specifications.


Box back.

Once opened you find the various cabling and documentation covering the motherboard itself.


Opened box.

The documentation includes the instructions, 5 year warranty details and the driver CD. The CD’s slip case also conceals the obligatory Zotac case sticker.


Documentation and CD with sticker enclosed.

Cabling and connectors are also provided including the power cable, sata cables, the power breakout cabling to run from the motherboard’s PSU itself (this will supply the HDD and optical drives used with the board), the I/O plate and the wireless aerial for full WiFi connectivity.


A variety of cables, aerial and blanking plate.

As you would expect with an ITX form factor the board has a lot crammed onto it. The layout seems well thought out and quite well suited to a clean and tidy install.


Motherboard with the supplied 90w power brick.

The Atom and ION cooler dominates the motherboard. The design means that the single fan cools both the chipset and the main processor at the same time.


The heatsink that cools the Atom and Ion.

It is also securely screwed to the board using four spring mounted screws. Much better than push pin’s in my honest opinion!


Heatsink is screwed to the motherboard.

Motherboard continued

As with other ITX designs the DDR2 sockets are closely spaced. However, with no 24-pin ATX socket in the way there should be few obstructions when it comes to the installation and cooling of the dimms.


DDR2 slots have a lot of available install space.

The 3x SATA sockets are free of interference so installing cabling should be straightforward.


SATA sockets are easy to get to.

Next to these sockets is the Wireless N card. This is connected to an aerial socket on the I/O backplate of the motherboard.


Fast wireless courtesy of the N spec module on the board.

Unlike most ITX boards the ION ITX A Series does not have a PCI-E slot. The space this slot would normally occupy is taken up by the wireless card shown above and the power supply section that works with the 90w power brick.


The integrated PSU should be nice and tidy.

The power from the PSU is distributed to other components using the molex header (seen here) when combined with the breakout cables supplied.


The molex used to distribute power to peripheral hardware like HDD’s.

The I/O plate of the ION ITX A Series is well appointed with no less than 6x USB sockets, a PS2 keyboard socket, an eSATA socket, a VGA, DVI and HDMI socket, optical and coaxial digital audio sockets, normal HD audio sockets, a gigabit wired network socket, a wireless aerial adapter and the power socket for the onboard PSU. For almost any other rear panel i’ve ever come across that’s quite a feature list!


A well appointed backplate.

Also, i must note that the motherboard has additional headers to allow an extra 4x USB connections.

Let’s see how this mini marvel performs.

Test setup and installation

RAM: 2gb Geil ULL PC6400 DDR2
HDD: 80gb WD 5400rpm laptop HDD
Optical drive: LG Blu Ray
Case: Antec ISK 300-65

Hardware installation was incredibly straightforward. The layout helped a great deal and was complete in under 10 minutes.

The integration of all the components helped a great deal and the outcome of this was a painless and quick install.

The heatsink has plenty of breathing room in even a small case and cable routing is made easier by the absence of additional 24-pin and 4-pin ATX cabling and connectors.


Absence of ATX connectors helps install space.

Even with the drives installed you can see that there was plenty of space around the heatsink – even in a compact ITX case.


Loads of room with everything installed.

Testing

I tried a variety of tests with the ION ITX A Series to check it’s desktop, AV and gaming credentials.

Initially i wanted to consider raw hardware performance and desktop capability.

I used Everest’s trial version to check performance details:


Everest.

OCCT was used to monitor temperatures at idle and load:



Stock PCMark05 score @ 1280×1024

Physics and 3D 48.94 FPS
3D – Pixel Shader 74.55 FPS
Web Page Rendering 1.19 Pages/s
File Decryption 14.83 MB/s
2D Graphics Memory – 64 Lines 513.19 FPS
HDD – General Usage 3.35 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 2
Text Edit 40.83 Pages/s
Image Decompression 7.96 MPixels/s
Multithreaded Test 3
File Compression 2.91 MB/s
File Encryption 13.17 MB/s
HDD – Virus Scan 37.39 MB/s
Memory Latency – Random 16 MB 6.66 MAccesses

Testing continued

3DMark06 was then used to assess gaming performance:



The ION ITX A Series is not a gaming machine – that much can be seen by the 3DMark results. Despite this i did choose to test it with Call Of Duty 4 running at ‘Standard Settings’ with no AA and no V-Sync.


Call Of Duty 4.

For HD playback i used an LG Bluray/HDDVD drive to see how the ION ITX A Series coped with that kind of material.

I once again used my Sony 40W4000 and an HDMI cable to assess it’s 1080p performance. I also downloaded a few full HD videos from Microsoft’s HD site to see if they caused any issues.

I’m happy to report that all playback was smooth with no lockups, image issues or other noticeable problems.

Sound:

Compared to the last Zotac motherboard i tested the little ION ITX A Series was very impressive indeed. It’s fan throttled when under little to no load and only spooled up a little more during heavy encoding and gaming duties. It was quiet, unobtrusive and would work a charm in a HTPC environment.

Conclusion

The Zotac ION ITX A Series is a very clever piece of hardware that ticks virtually every box its target audience would want addressed.

Yes it’s not a gaming monster and the ability to upgrade it is virtually absent but that is not the point here.

It is compact and is able to dispatch HD material with ease. It’s layout is well thought out and largely uncluttered.

The Zotac ION ITX A Series Motherboard.

I can honestly recommend the motherboard to anyone looking for a compact HTPC motherboard solution. Yes the ION ITX A Series does have some negative points… but for the market it is aimed at it gets a well deserved ‘Gold’ award from me!

Pros:

– It runs quietly
– Is relatively affordable (considering size and PSU solution)
– Is capable with HD
– Uses electricity sparingly
– 90w PSU provides nice headroom for larger systems
– Works very nicely out of the box
– Zotac’s excellent 5 year warranty cover

Cons:

– Not a gaming machine
– Very limited power for video editing and encoding
– Upgradeability very limited

Vortez Hardware would like to thank Zotac for supplying the ION ITX A Series motherboard for review. To Discuss this review please visit our forum.