Joined on 04/14/07
Loving it!!

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
Quite

Pros: This fan is QUITE! I can hardly hear it, even with my ear next to it. If you are looking for a fan that moves ~60 CFM and you want it to be quite, this is the one. It's also pretty visually appealing. The colors, the shape and the power cord are great. Cougar did a really good job on designing this fan. I used a couple of them on my Cooler Master 212 and they looked absolutely excellent. The build quality seems to be very good.
Cons: All that said, I will be sending mine back. They aren't really what I was looking for. My Cooler Master 212 has a ~70 CFM fan on it that I wanted to replace and add another. I wanted both the fans to move 100+ CFM a piece as I am overclocking with air cooling. Newegg's description, while not intentionally misleading, leads on to believe these will push >100 CFM but in fact what that number really means is 102.6 m3/h. While searching for this fan t here is one place you can see it says that, but then on the page for the fan it just says: 60.4 / 102.6 CFM, which is incorrect. Newegg needs to update this.
Overall Review: I replaced the 2 Cougars on my Cooler Master 212 with 1 SILVERSTONE FM121 and it dropped by temp by about 5-6 C. I will be adding one more to the other side of my 212 and replacing the case fan with a Silverstone. Should make for some really good cooling. The silverstones are significantly louder though not annoyingly so.
Horrible, lying company
I will never buy from antonline again. I ordered an SSD on 11/29. On 12/04 they still hadn't shipped. I emailed and asked why they hadn't shipped yet. Their response was: "The packages are not scanned until at a UPS or USPS Hub or even out for delivery. This time of year some packages only show scan on the delivery day which should be within a week." Yet after this response I had a tracking number within 1 hour and received my SSD about 3-4 days later. My order obviously had gotten lost by them and they didn't realize it until I inquired about it. This wouldn't be a big deal, I can accept mistakes. What I can't accept is companies that lie to their customers and this was an outright, blatant lie to cover their mistake. I do not like untrustworthy companies. I will be sure to avoid antonline when purchasing from newegg, to the point of going somewhere besides newegg if they are the only provider of the item I need.