- Celeron
- DDR3 1066
- NVIDIA ION
Loving it!!
01/18/2011
This review is from: ZOTAC IONITX-P-E Intel Celeron SU2300 (1.2 GHz dual-core) NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo
Pros:
Great Mobo/CPU/GPU combo! Everyone says this Mobo is not for gaming, while that is true to a degree, it's not entirely true. I use this mob in a system I built as a media server and yet it games pretty well. I get 40-50 fps in World of Warcraft with all settings set to low except textures and view distance, which I have set to high. Game still looks great and runs awesome. That ION really is a little powerhouse!
Cons:
The CPU is the weak point on this mobo but from what I read it out performs its Atom brothers and I really can't complain as, despite the fact it is the lowest score on the Windows Experience Index, I notice no sluggeshness when doing anything on the computer.
This motherboard only has SATAII on it. Not that big of a problem as it's not a bottleneck unless you are running an SSD. A PCIe SATAIII card would fix this though.
The bios is set by default to run the PCIe as 1st Gen, slow. You can set it to force second Gen though which is fast. Not sure why it was defaultly set to 1st Gen.
If you find that the ION doesn't get the job done for your gaming (which this system isn't for a hardcore gamer, more of a budget gamer) you could always throw in a PCIE 2.0 graphics card. If you have this MoBo in a small case be aware of your video cards size and the limitation your case may cause.
Those aren't much of cons, but this MoBo really is a killer, no REAL cons to speak of.
Overall Review:
System specs
8gb 1066MHz ram
C300 128Gb Crucial SSD
PCIe 6Gb/s SATAIII card
Love this motherboard. It does the trick for me. Runs 1080p movies flawlessly. Also plays games pretty well. WoW is a bit of an older game, but it does well with it, which is all I need it to play anyhow. If you are on a budget and are looking for a MoBo that can handle WoW pretty well without needing to sink some money into a graphics card, this is as good as it get's. The ION is really a killer chip and I am quite impressed.
If you go to play 1080p movies in VLC player, you will find that it has a VERY hard time playing it. Just go into the VLC player settings and enable GPU acceleration to have VLC take advantage of the GPU and 1080p plays flawlessly.
I also have this CPU OCed in the bios to 950 FSB and have set the GPU to manual so I could use 512mb of my ram instead of 256mb for the GPU.
Tried a little OV, but no noticable difference. Don't OC passed 970 and don't OV past 0.1v
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- Ashlee D.
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Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 week to 1 month
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