ASRock A330ION Intel Atom 330 PBGA437 NVIDIA MCP7A-ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

Pros: Four internal SATA port + 2 eSATA; PCIe slot for adding better supported NIC. 2 core/4 thread handles load smoothly. Fan is quiet for a 40mm device. Good price. Full sized DIMMs.

Cons: I would have preferred 5 SATA + 1 eSATA.

Other Thoughts: Excellent compatability and performance with Nexenta NAS software using AHCI mode on SATA controller.

Pros: SMPLAYER/LIBVDPAU1/Ubuntu10.4_64/Enable VDPAU In GENERAL Video Options.

And Wah LAh It Works Like A Dream. CPU Went From 80% To 8-15%!

Cons: None It Makes A Great HTPC

Other Thoughts: LOW POWER

Pros: I like it so far. It runs as a server for me, and uses little power and keeps up with all ive asked of it.

Cons: cant think of any so far.

Pros: It's small,4 internal SATA ports with 2 eSATA! Nvidia ION chipset. Handles all the streaming media with the exception of NetFlix (thanks to Microsofts Silver Light cr@p). Runs on XP, Win7 and Linux! Works great with Media Center, Media Portal, XBMC, and other media center softwares. This board rocks for its purpose, home server or HPTC center.

Cons: None its suits its purpose!

Other Thoughts: Had it up and running with 4 gigs of RAM (512 Megs for video) and Madriva in the time it took to plug in the ram, a DVD plaer and a hard drive. OS loaded in 20 minutes! Reloaded Windows in under an hour for testing purposes.

Pros: We are using this as a media server to hold music and video files for delivery to Apple TVs throughout the house. For our needs, it has been great.

Cons: Performance during use and for compressing video is expectedly low. It's an Atom, so I didn't figure it would be a beast but it is a little slower than I was anticipating.

Other Thoughts: Here's what we're using-
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
2x WD Green 1TB drives in a RAID 1 Mirror
1x Samsung 2TB drive for weekly backups, installed in a 3.5 - 5.25 hot swap bay
1x Samsung BD-ROM / DVD-RW
2x 2GB Kingston 1066 DDR3 memory
Apex MJ-16 MicroATX Tower with 250w power supply in a desktop configuration

Pros: Works very well as HTPC motherboard. HDMI and DVI outputs work well for full 1080p display. Everything works with Win7 Ultimate/Media Center. Priced right, and I didn't have to waste money on a useless wireless controller(I can't stream wirelessly-- need a gigabit connection for that).

Cons: Didn't find any for my application.

Pros: Low power system.(I am using a 250W PSU with no issues)
Nvidia ION has no issues displaying my HD content.
Pretty quite and low heat output (Although sound does not bother me...cant here it over my 200w floor speakers and I don't sleep in this room :) )
Stable and priced well.
PCI-e slot on board.

Cons: IR drivers not listed on the ASRock site,although Windows 7 updates had them. I did not use the driver cd and might have been on there,or might be a windows only released update(like when UBS2.0 came out you had to have SP1 on Xp installed to be able to use USB2.0)
Not anything to knock an egg off,and I did not take the time to research why the site does not have the driver listed, as Windows 7 recommended update had it.

Other Thoughts: I am using this as my front end media machine using windows 7 32bit and XBMC as the media app. If you are using this same set up and have poor play back in XBMC but VLC/WMP works fine. Download the latest XBMC Dharma and go the video settings and turn on Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2).

CPU went from 60% to 80% spikes down to 5% to 10% and butter smooth play back on a 42inch Vizio XVT.

Also HDMI audio was not set as my default in windows 7 YMMV.

All in all a great media machine,does what I built it for with out any issues,can't ask for more!

Pros: Best Board Features that we found for Atom. 4 sata - 2 e-sata and pci-e x16 slot plus DDR3 memory - used Kingston KVR1066D3N&/2G (two of these for 4 gb) - good, cheap memory.

Cons: Installed Windows 2003 - could NOT mix hardware raid with singular SSD drive (for C drive). If you choose RAID - then (under 2003 Server - at the very least - and according to a manufacturer e-mail - not at all) you cannot have non raid drives installed in any other of the 4 internal sata ports. (thus our singular SSD (OS Drive) was not seen in RAID mode in bios)

Also need the e-sata ports to work - they wouldn't - never detected disk - whether plugged either before or after machine powered up. They require AHCI mode to function. Had to use IDE mode in bios - could NOT use AHCI mode - tried to install intel windows 2003 driver for AHCI but it wouldn't let the driver install. The only driver that seems to work - is the Nvidia all in one (that's the chipset with a fan!) - it does the sata, video and audio.

NET - we are going to go to install Windows 2008 - see prior feedback - that seems to work well for him and thus get our e-sata functioning.

Other Thoughts: Still hopeful that Windows 2008 will be the charm. This would also apply to XP vs Windows 7 - you should figure on running Windows 7 or Server 2008 to get full functionality. (Vista should work also - but who wants that vs 7 ?).

Pros: It's small, low powered, has 4 internal and 2 eSATA ports, and worked with FreeNAS. Worked GREAT with the CHENBRO ES34169 Pedestal Server Chassis - hooked up all 5 drives. Supports x64 - Low Cost - GREAT for embeded System

Cons: With it had 6 SATA ports or a internal eSATA header.

Other Thoughts: Only purchases 2 GB of RAM - works well.

Pros: Gtreat Little Board For Ubuntu 10.4 HDMI Works Well With Sound!

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Wish I,d Of Got 4GB Memory Instead Of 2