Any new Mini ITX boards coming soon?

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mrfatboy

Senior member
Sep 3, 2006
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I'm am thinking about buying a Zotac Atom ION 330 (dual core) for my HTPC but will wait if something is coming soon that is more powerful. I have seen talk about pinetrail & ION2 but I have not seen anything specific.

Does about know if these new mini itx ION2 & Pinetrail boards are coming soon? if so, when?

thanks
 
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Zap

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
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More powerful? You can already do Core i7 in mini ITX. Is that not enough?

Actually for HTPC there are a couple of upcoming boards from Intel and Zotac that take Core i3, who's integrated video is supposedly very sufficient for HTPC duties.
 
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mrfatboy

Senior member
Sep 3, 2006
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I was looking for a low power & cost solution hence the Atom ION. I wanted to know if they were coming out with the next gen soon?
 
nenforcer

nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
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I don't think nVidia can make motherboards for PineTrail because of the bus hence ION2 is suppose to be more like a discrete add-on. Seems almost uncessesary since PineTrail includes the GPU, albeit the PineTrail GPU still cant even play 1080P YouTube video. I just don't like having two graphics cards in one system.

I hope they do make an ION2 330 system.
 
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mrfatboy

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Sep 3, 2006
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I don't think on board graphics set for the pinetrail would be fast enough. I certainly would not add on a ION2 solution because of power and price concerns.

I have to believe there will be a next evolution of the 330/atom/ion but I can wait forever :)
 
Zap

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
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mrfatboy said:
I was looking for a low power & cost solution hence the Atom ION. I wanted to know if they were coming out with the next gen soon?
Click to expand...

Is "now" soon enough for ya? ^_^

Intel BOXD510MO Intel Atom D510 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo $84.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121399

Intel Atom D510: Pine Trail Boosts Performance, Cuts Power
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3692

Average 10% faster than Atom 330 overall, due to on-die memory controller and graphics, DDR2-800 support (versus 667 on older chipset except ION). Also, only around 50-70% of the power consumption of the older Atom 330 (with Intel chipset).
 
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mrfatboy

Senior member
Sep 3, 2006
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the cpu is faster but what about the gpu? Is it better or worse than the ION? Does the gpu support GPU? Is the GPU supported by Flash 10.1?

Seems to cheap to beat the other Dual core atom ions.

Hey if it does, I'm in :)

I just want it to play 1080p without stuttering without a bunch of tinkering. Can it do that?
 
Zap

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
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mrfatboy said:
the cpu is faster but what about the gpu? Is it better or worse than the ION? Does the gpu support GPU? Is the GPU supported by Flash 10.1?

Seems to cheap to beat the other Dual core atom ions.

Hey if it does, I'm in :)

I just want it to play 1080p without stuttering without a bunch of tinkering. Can it do that?
Click to expand...

GPU is slower than Atom and does not support GPGPU and is not supported by Flash. No, it can't play 1080p.

ION2 is basically a GPU built on to the motherboard, since there is no "chipset" that can be replaced by Nvidia. Some manufacturers are just doing an end run around the whole situation by releasing PCIe x1 cards since that's exactly what ION2 is, but just on one PCB.
 
2

21stHermit

Senior member
Dec 16, 2003
927
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Here's a comparison of Ion (HP Mini 311, N270) vs. Pine Trail vs. PT w/Broadcom.

broadcom-v-ion.jpg


Linky if you want to read more.
 
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hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
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pine trail boarsd i think are not allowed to have dvi out because of intel restrictions. or hdmi just like the netbooks. intel loves to make artificial market segmentation restrictions.

hopefully there will be some more amd itx boards released or something.
 
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mozartrules

Member
Jun 13, 2009
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A Pentium G6950 in a low feature H55 motherboard will be so much more flexible (probably close to your E6750!). You know that you are fine for 1080p video or any flash based issues and the machine will be able to do video transcoding if you should need it.

The idle power use is higher than the Atom based boards, but nothing to be concerned about (easy fit with PicoPSU and easy to cool). You will typically get both VGA, DVI and HDMI outout with the latter having sound. And the price is not much higher than a typical ION motherboard.
 
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Auric

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
9,591
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21stHermit said:
Here's a comparison of Ion (HP Mini 311, N270) vs. Pine Trail vs. PT w/Broadcom.

broadcom-v-ion.jpg


Linky if you want to read more.
Click to expand...

The framerate should either be a solid 23.976 to play normally or else not be arbitrarily limited to 60 in a benchmark test.


hans007 said:
pine trail boarsd i think are not allowed to have dvi out because of intel restrictions. or hdmi just like the netbooks. intel loves to make artificial market segmentation restrictions.

hopefully there will be some more amd itx boards released or something.
Click to expand...

The Dell Mini 10 above does have HDMI but I am not sure about audio bitstreaming.
 
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mrfatboy

Senior member
Sep 3, 2006
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@auric,

I have tested the Acer 3600 (single core/ION), Acer 3610 (dual core/ION), and a Zotac Dual core 330 ION. I used the Avatar 720p, 1080P videos for tests.

The Acer 3600 just barely played the Avatar 720p video. Stutter once in a while. No what in heck it will play the 1080p version

Both the Acer 3610 & Zotac barely played (not watchable in my opinion) the 1080p version. There was a lot of stutter and frame skips.

I did multiple tests with these system with XP & Win 7.
 
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