OC3D Review: Zotac ION N330 WiFi ITX 'A' Motherboard

[JN]

"They say that the best things come in small packages, but does this rule also apply to PC components? Join us as we review the Zotac ION 330 ITX platform." by Mul.

Zotac ION N330 WiFi ITX 'A' Motherboard

 

[w3bbo]

Nice review Mul.

Dunno if I would have been so generous with the marks being as tight as I am! I've never really grasped the point of mini pc's with so many good notebooks around now there just seems little point. A form factor to far maybe? For the price I would've liked to have seen a better cooling solution.

That said m8, good review

The graph needs fixing (load temp/passive)

 

[noobieocer]

i prefer mini itxs over laptops for home use becuase simply i hate how laptops get so hot and toasty. while mini itx temps can change depending on how you cool it.

 

[Rastalovich]

Only on OC3D would a mobo aimed at an entertainment (mainly) audience be installed with FarCry2 and oc'd

Sounds like an awesome mobo for ur htpc, full web and office needs.

Imo u/OC3D should install WoW on them. Not on any fan basis, but it's the single game those who intensely do the above would be likely to play otherwize. (hardcore fps'ers generally have gaming rigs, WoW u can play on a laptop) I am surprized there's no WoW benchmark tool for these purposes - argument being it isn't testing, but from the experience I get - "can u build me a pc, I do this'n'this - oh and play WoW", generally that's it.

Great oc test, good mobo, great review.

I'd be interested if the dc adapter has the balls to grow with the oc over a period.

 

[Mul.]

Nice review Mul.

Dunno if I would have been so generous with the marks being as tight as I am! I've never really grasped the point of mini pc's with so many good notebooks around now there just seems little point. A form factor to far maybe? For the price I would've liked to have seen a better cooling solution.

That said m8, good review

The graph needs fixing (load temp/passive)

The graph doesn't indicate a passive load as the temperatures simply didn't settle and continued to rise under passive conditions. That said, the ambient temperatures, the airflow in a HTPC environment and the tough Linpack test were major contibuting factors and in other situations it may have functioned fine. To an extend I also agree with your sentiments about Mini ITX, particularly due to it's pricing. After all, £175 would buy a much faster CPU/Motherboard/Graphics/PSU combo in ATX flavour!

Many thanks for the feedback

i prefer mini itxs over laptops for home use becuase simply i hate how laptops get so hot and toasty. while mini itx temps can change depending on how you cool it.

Also a fair point. The Zotac was placed in a HTPC environment and I feel that this is particularly where it excels especially if space is a major concern. The Atom CPU will always be a limitation of the platform and personally, that would make me think twice before downsizing my own HTPC to something like this.

Only on OC3D would a mobo aimed at an entertainment (mainly) audience be installed with FarCry2 and oc'd

Sounds like an awesome mobo for ur htpc, full web and office needs.

Imo u/OC3D should install WoW on them. Not on any fan basis, but it's the single game those who intensely do the above would be likely to play otherwize. (hardcore fps'ers generally have gaming rigs, WoW u can play on a laptop) I am surprized there's no WoW benchmark tool for these purposes - argument being it isn't testing, but from the experience I get - "can u build me a pc, I do this'n'this - oh and play WoW", generally that's it.

Great oc test, good mobo, great review.

I'd be interested if the dc adapter has the balls to grow with the oc over a period.

I would say that the DC adapter would probably be okay in the longterm with the mild overclock as the Atom CPU itself consumes a very small amount of power and without being able to raise it's Voltage, I doubt I could get power consumption to rise that much. There was however scope to add one more optical drive or hard disk drive, which may have affected power supply performance more. Interesting thought about the use of WoW though. Cheers for the feedback

 

[tinytomlogan]

Very nicely done dude. Been looking into mini itx myself. This mobo wouldnt suit me, but a great informative review.

 

[Mul.]

Cheers dude, though if it's performance you're after, take a gander at the Zotac GeForce 9300 ITX WiFi. Still very happy with mine

It's just a shame that no one offers any Socket AM2+/AM3 ITX boards with a full PCI-E 16x slot. J&W have one but it's TDP limited and only does PCI-E at 4x bandwith.

 

[denis6902]

snobish time

Sorry guys, but i thibk i was the first lucky one to get my hands on the mobo!

I received it on the begining of the last week from june and i was able to play quite a lot from it, just botting from USB ubuntu.

Now we are in Brazil and i dont have a keyboard to set it up yet, but i will make sure i do post some pics when i manage to find someone to sponsor some acrilic around here to make a neat mni-itx case. Because the mini-itx cases here blow over the 1500 quid, so modd on first!

BTW the pics i took when i received it are quite good too, so here it goes!

 

[Rastalovich]

That last shot is a good one with the CD on the mobo. Puts it all into perspective.

 

[monkey7]

Very nice review, I spotted two errors though:

As time moved on3, a number of motherboards began to trickle

Typo?

No abnormal behaviour was observed while applying settings such as a blank screen or CMOS Checksum Error. All in all, a very comprehensive BIOS for a motherboard of this type.

Might want to reorder that sentence, it now sounds like you applied a blank screen or CMOS checksum error setting

Also, how is the wireless reception? A motherboard like this will most probably be used as a media center and possibly stream media off an NAS using wireless. How is the range / speed compared to something else you already have?

 

[Mul.]

Many thanks for pointing those out. I'd looked through the final article multiple times and yet more errors! *face palm*

Wireless reception was more than adequate, operating at 54mbps throughout usage, some 40ft from the router including two major walls. My only real reservation about the WiFi was the data transfer rate result from SiSoft Sandra's WiFi benchmark. In real world usage however, I didn't notice the wireless adapter performing poorly at all.

 

[denis6902]

i hope the pics have helped whoever is interested in them too.

Pic with dvd on top was eactly for the perspective comparinson. take it easy!

 

[FarFarAway]

Mini-ITX is a format I've always been tempted to get into. Especially to grab an old bit of AV kit, scrape out the innards and stuff an entire PC in it. Loving the ideas more and more. That and the fact you could build a proper passive PC. It's just a shame it's missing a PCI-E slot for a sound card as I feel that would be a huge benefit

Great little review Mul. mate, looks like a nice bit of kit.

 

[denis6902]

Mini-ITX is a format I've always been tempted to get into. Especially to grab an old bit of AV kit, scrape out the innards and stuff an entire PC in it. Loving the ideas more and more. That and the fact you could build a proper passive PC. It's just a shame it's missing a PCI-E slot for a sound card as I feel that would be a huge benefit

Great little review Mul. mate, looks like a nice bit of kit.

in that case u should look into the Zotack Mini-ITX 9300 which has the pic-e 16x and also socket 775!

 

[FarFarAway]

I would still want Atom, just with a decent sound card.

 

[Acic]

Is it possible to upgrade it to atom 2.0 ??

 

[JN]

I'm wondering how tall the cooler is on that thing because I quite fancy gutting my Sony DVD Player and fitting it out with a complete HTPC setup if physically possible.

 

[PeterStoba]

I'm wondering how tall the cooler is on that thing because I quite fancy gutting my Sony DVD Player and fitting it out with a complete HTPC setup if physically possible.

Doesn't look much taller than the IO backplate, so around 35mm?

 

[denis6902]

i will make a shot for all as soon as i can,

kisses to all! :**********

 

[Johnbear]

This mobo wouldnt suit me, but a great informative review.

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