Review of ASRock ION 330 system with ATOM 1.6GHz processor based on NVIDIA ION chipset
Bluetooth 16 Sept 2009

Introduction

Desktop machine have always been around despite portable notebooks and netbooks become common place. While most people would go for a desktop for maximum performance, it would be great if manufacturers could make it smaller and more compact. The early days of such devices appear in the form of Small form factor boxes. These devices are generally smaller than the regular PC and provide enough power for work and gaming (with external graphics). It would be better if it can be shrunk further. The major concern would be heat issue, power consumption and graphics performance.

In fact, there are a couple of designs emerging in the market. Most paired up an Atom N270 or N330 with the aging 945GC chipset. As we all know the power of the 945GM is quite limited. It is slow in 3D performance and it is unable to decode H.264 with acceleration. In terms of specifications, the ION 330 supports a higher bandwidth of DDR2-800 while the original Intel 945GC only supports DDR2-533.

The ASRock ION 330 is based on Intel Atom N330 processor clocked at 1.6GHz with NVIDIA ION chipset. The ION chipset which is basically a reinvention of the defunct MCP7A comes into play. This chipset is known as GeForce 9400M and comes with GPU Shader clock of 1.1GHz. It supports DX10, OpenGL 2.1, NVIDIA® CUDA™ and PhysX™ games with ease.

The box is small (2.5L) and has a silent fan with acoustic level below 26 dB. The system is also Energy Star 5.0 compliant.

ASRock uses solid capacitor is sourced form 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors. It also supports a maximum of 4GB of DDR2-800 in dual channel mode as compared to single channel DDR2-533 on other nettops. In addition, ASRock incorporated Instant Boot turn on your PC in just a blink of an eye! For those who wants more speed, the ASRock OC Tuner allows you to overclock the ATOM processor within Windows with voltage adjustments. Alternatively, you could choose to o/c using the Eazy Overclock (EZ-OC) pull down menu for the target processor speed 1.6 ~ 2.1GHz. There is also Good night led option which allows one to turn off the annoying LED lights for HDD and Power indicator of the box.

The package comes with the support CD, Quick setup guide, AC power cord, AC/DC Adapter, HDMI->DVI adapter and a anti-slip pad. Below is a video of the package.

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