ZOTAC IONITX-F-E Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz, dual-core) MCP7A-ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

Pros: Quiet, low heat, Runs Win7/XMBC/1080p no problem. Great board for an HTPC as long as you don't need an RMA.

Cons: No advanced RMA option. You need to send in your item, wait several days for processing then days more for return shipping.

Other Thoughts: No advanced RMA? Really? Even if I pay a free? No? Wow, even Dell does that! You're not going to repair my board, so just ship me my replacement the next day and let me use that packing material to return the defective one back. Bill me the price of the board and shipping now, credit back the board charge when you get the defective unit back. Simple. Just ask any of your competitors.

Seriously, this is the first piece of PC tech that I could not get an advanced RMA for... and I've worked in hardware support for years. Having a system down for over a week just isn't acceptable service these days.

Pros: Motherboard continues to work well after five months.

Cons: Rebate still not paid after five months.

Other Thoughts: Will likely get another Intel Atom / Nvidia Ion for a HTPC.
Will look for a more reputable brand.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear customer,
I'm glad that you are satisfied with our motherboard. I realize that this reply is a bit late in getting to you, but if you still have not received your rebate I recommend you contact our rebate department at rebate@zotacusa.com and give them the details of your rebate.

Pros: This board just fit in any computer case. It's small and full featured. I never had experience with the Zotac brand before and I would say I like it now.

I first bough one to build a htpc. I install Ubuntu 10.04 plus XBMC. I didn't have any trouble. The nVidia driver work very well with vdpau acceleration. The hdmi port work without trouble at 1920x1080 with sound.

I would definitely recommend this board too anyone building a HTPC. At the time of write this review, 3 of my friend bough one to build something similar to me.

Cons: It's only has 3 SATA onthe board plus one eSATA. But this may be over come by installing any Sata controller.

Pros: Perfect board for a Minimyth front end. Integrated fan control keeps it quiet and hardware "just works" with most myth distributions.

Cons: Rebate never sent to me. I bought two of these boards, filled out all the paperwork, registered on line, yada, yada. No rebate sent.

Pros: As noted elsewhere, runs cool, handles HD video, S/PDIF, so it makes a great HTPC. With NO fans - no CPU fan, no case fan, and no power supply fan - mine idles at 55 oC and plays video at 75 oC, which is well within spec. Small case fan drops temps by 30 oC. Ubuntu lucid recognized everything out of the box.

Cons: The wireless card comes with only one of two antennae installed, and it's near worthless. Adding a second antenna, scavenged from an old laptop boosted wireless speed from 150 kb/s to 108 Mb/s. Look for one with an "MC" connector. On linux, you may need to install compat-wireless or wireless-backports.

Pros: Runs a Windows 7 media setup smoothly

Cons: Wifi is useless

Other Thoughts: I went from 150W media center under load to about 55w with this board. All other components stayed the same. It dropped down to 5 - 8 W when you walk away before it went into standby (idle). The system would pay for itself in 2 years and you can sell your old setup.

Pros: So far this board has run extremely cool. I don't have a heat-sink fan and my one case fan is on the lowest setting.

It streams from Hulu, Netflix, and ESPN 3 great, as well as any other sites I throw at it without a hiccup.

Cons: The wireless isn't the greatest, but updating all of the drivers does improve it a lot (still not great though).

I get a little lag when navigating through WMC, but I haven't tried tweaking anything yet to get rid of it.

Other Thoughts: I don't DVR, I just stream online content, and this board shines at the task. I built it with an Intel SSD so it boots Windows 7 in under 5 seconds. I'm in the browser before my DVD player can even finish loading.

I've had the board running since mid-December of 2010. And since then have used it almost every day for about 2.5 hours per day.

I usually don't shut the PC down, just let it go into sleep mode on its own, and I haven't had any trouble so far.

My case is an Antec ISK 300-65 which is solid steel and has really good airflow, not to mention an external power supply. I could probably go completely fan-less if I set up the box in "tower" mode, as convection would provide sufficient cooling.

Pros: works well

Cons: but, doesn't matter how good it works, if they don't send you the $25 rebate. Yes, Nice way of conducting business! I'll think twice before buying a ZOTAC product.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi Chico,
Sorry to hear you have not received your rebate! Please submit an inquiry to rebate@zotacusa.com (or submit a Support Ticket) and a representative will be happy to assist you. Thanks!

External Link(s):

Support Ticket Submission|

Pros: This is a great combo to buy, they packed quite a few features onto this little Mini ITX board. I purchased this item to be a part of an HTPC unit.. The ION packs enough punch to get out all of the HD content that I give it from my file server, and it very rarely has issues.
It lives up to the "Good enough" philosophy that I believe they are going for with these ION machines. Elaborate interfaces such as the Aeon skin for XBMC will most likely require you to overclock a bit.. I'm running stock clock and it's usable but not exactly smooth.. this is a great purchase for a basic HTPC.

Cons: If you understand what you're paying for then this is a great item. I would not recommend it for much more than a basic HTPC, or perhaps a fancy "file server with benefits". I'd personally opt for something a bit more powerful if you're looking to make this your multi-purpose PC mobo.. if you've got a high res display you'll run into performance issues with basic tasks.. the processor will hold you back.. This board was very obviously made with a specific purpose in mind.. but it comes with plenty of perks.

Other Thoughts: I had problems with my first board, but that's just bad luck.. Newegg service was great as always and I am really enjoying this little addition to my home network.

Pros: Small, quiet, feature rich... decent options on BIOS

Cons: Would have preferred a fanless capability, but it just runs too hot without the fan. The wifi is really bad and seems flaky even with AP nearby.
No built in bluetooth.

Other Thoughts: Really need to think about how you are going to transfer files to this system for whatever media center ideas you have. The poor wifi will either require a hard wire or new/different wifi attachment to get good performance...

Since my plan was to use a different machine on the network for file storage I ended up hard wiring into a repeater just to get decent connectivity.