Product Description

ZOTAC IONITX-D-E Atom N330 1.6GHz Dual-Core Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Product Details

• Brand: Zotac
• Model: IONITX-D-E
• Dimensions: 6.69" h x 1.45" w x 6.69" l, 13.20 pounds
• Memory: 4096MB
• Processors: 1

Features

• ION's 16 high-speed stream processors
• NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology
• Blu-ray playback
• D-Sub + DVI + HDMI
• Mini ITX board

Customer Reviews

Impressive little board that does HD!
If you are looking to build a light weight system that has the ability to render 1080 HD playback, this might be your ticket. I've got two of these ATOM N330 boards running MythTV. One is the frontend, the other does both frontend/backend service on Mythbuntu 9.04. If you go to the trouble to enable the Linux VDPAU branches, this baby can play flawless 1080 HD with less than 15% CPU utilization. (Typical is 8% in full screen [not windowed] mode. If you use the stock Mythbuntu 9.04, you will need to manually change the sources list and create a new profile for VDPAU, otherwise, you will only be able to play 720p smoothly and that is over 95% CPU.

Mythbuntu 9.10 is now in Beta, and includes VDPAU out of the box, so it will be a no-brainer in a few weeks. (or get the Beta test distro now) Mythbuntu recognizes all hardware devices, including the onboard NVidia video and Gigabit NIC. I didn't check the WiFi, but I expect that to be functional as well. These boards run very cool, with the stock CPU cooler fan being enough and it's relatively quiet, although audible in a really, really quiet room.

Never tried these boards on Windoze, so I can't speak to that.

Great HTPC foundation
I picked one of these up recently for use in an HTPC, and after some time figuring out the various setup issues it's working great! I'm using it with an Antec ISK 300-65, 2GB RAM, and an 8GB USB Flash Drive as the boot drive--the whole box came together for just over $300. As I'm storing nothing on the box itself--all media is being pulled from a networked file server--the flash drive is perfect for a low-power, near-silent box.

I went the XBMC and Ubuntu w/ VDPAU route. I'm running 9.10, the latest XBMC from the SVN PPA, and the latest nVidia 190 drivers. HD playback is smooth (including 1080p) with very minimal CPU usage; and, once I'm done, a press of the power button on my MCE remote puts the box to sleep. (Another press of the power button on the remote wakes it up.) Speaking of which, I wanted to outline a few "big" issues I had initially that I was able to figure out after extensive Googling:

-HDMI audio only worked for me after enabling the "Internal Codec Only" option under the BIOS' Southbridge options
-Use the latest XBMC SVN PPA, and the latest nVidia 190 PPA; the "stable" XBMC is buggier, and the latest nVidia drivers provide better VDPAU playback
-If you run into the problem where the box suspends, then immediately unsuspends without any user input, see the bottom of this thread (ignore the instructions in the initial post): [...]
-You'll also need to manually echo your USB 1.1 devices to an "enabled" state in /proc/acpi/wakeup under Ubuntu 9.10 if you want to be able to wake your machine with an MCE remote/other USB device

The box is now up and running, and I'm extremely happy with the performance. Highly recommended for HTPC builds, and I highly recommend the Antec ISK 300-65 as well; it's a great case!

A good pure HTPC board/kit
Pros:
This is a good and complete mini-itx board for a HTPC assembly.
Has Wifi-N, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI with Audio, S/PDIF Optical Audio out.
The latest revision has Wake-on-USB bug fixed, so you can turn on with your MCE remote or keyboard.
The stock fan is silent.
Never exceeded 38 degrees C.
Easy to OC upto a stable 2 Ghz; [...]
Win 7 easily found all relevant drivers, hassle free installation, up and running within an hour.

Cons:
1) USB ports are not powered (or less powered), so if you want to use a portable HDD, better use with an external power.
2) Atom 330 is good only for a single application at a time. When multi-tasking, you may find movies occasionally choppy or MCE remote/keyboard non-responsive for few seconds, even if it is OC'd at 2 Ghz.
3) NVidia hasn't resolved a serious issue on HDMI Audio for Windows 7. I am not sure of other OS. So, for now I am using Optical out to receiver, and HDMI Video to LCD TV.
4) HDMI is not CEC compliant, guess I got that right. So, your TV will not turn off when HTPC enters standby or vice-versa. This is actually a minor minor con.


Config & Thoughts:
Case - Athenatech's Mini Itx White Mini Itx. A good case, but has only 1 SATA power but two MOLEX.
RAM - OCZ OCZ2F8004GK PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz 4 GB Fatal1ty Edition Dual Channel Kit
MCE Keyboard - 2.4GHZ Wrls Multimedia Media Center Keyb with optical Trackball; returned for refund. Haven't found a great keyboard yet
OS - Windows 7 64 bit RC; great nice OS for HTPC or any other apps.
TV Tuner - Haven't seen an USB dongle with hardware engine, so no good use for Atom processor.
Flash - Adobe will soon release flash plugin which will offload to GPU instead of CPU. Advantage Atom.

Final line:
Wait for Zotac's IONITX-F-E, has a PCI x16 expansion slot for TV Tuner, a must for HTPC (IMO)
Or get Zotac's GE9300-G-E, and the only major con that I can think of for this is Wireless G only adapter.