ZOTAC IONITX-G-E Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz, dual-core) Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

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Atom + DVI/HDMI.four SATA's instead of 2.My eventual use for it will be WHS (Windows Residence Server).But I wanted to try it 30 days with Win7 just to make positive it worked. Figuring out how to get it to POST/Boot.Had to visit zotacusa.com site to figure it out.Most beneficial link:http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/topic񳑷-difficulty-with-ionitx-f-e/ For those of you with no video posting concerns.Get rid of every thing except 1 stick of memory.Use a PSǘ keyboard rather of USB.Get it to post/boot.Then add items back in one item at a time.I went:Second stick of memory.Harddrive.PCI-E Television Tuner Card.I got every thing to boot up and got Win7 installed using this process.If you can't get it all installed and POSTed or booted, then your energy supply may well be under powered. Whilst ATOM is low energy, the DVI/Memory/USB Devices/Etc (all added together) require some juice.In spite of that, the P/S I was working with originally didn't work until I did the above procedure, beginning with just the board, psǘ keyboard and 1 stick of memory.

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Nice and smaller, reasonably low power, has 4 SATA ports, and 1 1x Pci-E slot (for expansion.) I RMA'd the 1st board since it would hang with a corresponding video glitch. The replacement did the same, which led me to locate that the memory I had (A-Information AD2U800B2G5-DRH) was not poor, but incompatible for some reason. I had tried running it slower and one stick at a time with the very same result. And the A-Information memory is now working flawlessly in yet another PC. So, my mistake to RMA, but I thought I covered all my bases. Still not confident why it didn't work and I'm a bit disappointed that I now have 2GB instead of 4GB in this machine. Otherwise I wish this also had a standalone digital audio out (in case I ever re-purpose this as my HTPC.) I added 2 a lot more SATA ports on this and have 6 tough drives hooked up as a Linux file server. This replaced an old nForce two MB w/ an Athlon XP 2500+. I couldn't be happier. Over Gigabit Ethernet I can get > 100MByte/sec information rates from the tough drives. On the 2500+ I topped out at about 35MByte/sec given that the SATA drives and Ethernet were all on the similar PCI bus. Memory bandwidth was far more than double based on 'hdparm -T' outcomes. So far so great!

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Works somewhat as advertised. I think I received a bad board honestly. Normal operation works fine, but got this particularly for HTPC service. Operates at cool temps, normal Windows apps function effectively. As I stated, I believe I received a bad board. RMA'd.HDMI output by no means worked. All choices tested. Even checked older drivers to see if perhaps it was a driver issue, but even according to Zotac support, HDMI really should function at POST.Video would not accept updated NVidia drivers. All media programs (THT3, PowerDVD) reported incompatible video card. Saying fundamentally the board did not have the juice to push Blu-Ray. This is a accurate bummer as was searching for a very good AIO remedy. Oh nicely. Really disappointed, but once more...we all get poor gear as soon as in a although. This boardWD 2TB Green (RMA's also, bad drive)Plextor Blu-Ray PX320sa300watt PSU

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Wonderful small MoBo! As other people have said, handles 1080p great! This is my 2nd Atom 330/Ion HTPC build and 3rd HTPC build in 6 months. Both Atoms run fantastic.Makes a wonderful TIVO companion when configured with massive storage, TIVO Desktop software and TIVO CODECs for Win Media Player. None. I did my homework, chose my parts wisely and have no regrets Oh yeah, the digital audio thing. You have to tell Windows that your HDMI output is the audio out path or it will default to the rear panel audio with front panel alternatives.My 3rd HTPC is my network's anchor acting as central media server, Web terminal, streaming content viewer and central backup location (Including each TIVO HDs).

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I decided to replace my old AMD HTPC with an Atom box, to tidy up my home theater setup.Old HTPC specs: Antec 300, AMD X2 5050e, Asus M4A78-Plus, Asus HD4350, 4gb or ram, Windows XP.New Atom HTPC specs: Zotac Ion G-E, Apex MI-008, Kingston 64gb SSD (OS), WD 1TB green HD (media), Mushkin 4gb XP2-8500, Windows 7 HP.It comes as no surprise that the atom box is not as fast as my old box, having occasional (but rare) slowdowns when having many apps running simultaneously. But for checking email, surfing the web and media playback, the performance is great (see flawless).Heat, even in a cramped space (Apex MI-008), is a non-issue. Admittedly, I have replaced the stock thermal paste with MX-2, but the stock temps were more than tolerable.The biggest perk of having an Atom system is the footprint (size). I can now put my HTPC next to my Xbox360, tucked under my LCD TV.All in all, recommended if you're expectations are in line with what a low-powered, low noise system can perform...!