Power Consumption and Conclusions
This is where all of those performance numbers get turned on their head – yes the AMD Athlon X2 7750 processor on the AMD 780G chipset motherboard is outperforming the NVIDIA ION platform in most areas where the CPU is the bottleneck. However, the idle power consumption on the Zotac board is less than HALF that of the AMD motherboard and the load power consumption is almost a quarter!
Put it in the perspective of performance per watt then: in PCMark05, the overall score, the AMD 7750 scored a 4441, or 27.62 points/watt. The Zotac ION motherboard scored only 2363 but was able to reach 52.39 points/watt (1.89x better). That gets escalated even further in Left 4 Dead, where the two platforms performed nearly the same: the AMD system works out to 0.14 FPS/watt while the NVIDIA ION system is able to get an impressive 0.56 FPS/watt (4x better)!
Put it in the perspective of performance per watt then: in PCMark05, the overall score, the AMD 7750 scored a 4441, or 27.62 points/watt. The Zotac ION motherboard scored only 2363 but was able to reach 52.39 points/watt (1.89x better). That gets escalated even further in Left 4 Dead, where the two platforms performed nearly the same: the AMD system works out to 0.14 FPS/watt while the NVIDIA ION system is able to get an impressive 0.56 FPS/watt (4x better)!
Performance
The Zotac IONITX-A-U motherboard, with the Atom 330 processor and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics core is an impressive motherboard for its size, for its power consumption and for the features it includes. The problem with the ION platform is that it can’t compete in raw CPU-based tasks with the likes of the AMD Athlon X2 7750, or even the Intel Celeron processor for that matter, simply because the Intel Atom core is so limited in its computational power. If you were to just look at it from a pricing point of view, the AMD system is a much better performer for the money than Zotac’s ION platform is. But when you start to look at how that performance scales with heat and power consumption, the ION platform begins to look a lot more appealing.
And, as millions of netbook users can attest to, the Atom may not be fast but it might be ‘fast enough’ for your needs.
Features
There is certainly no lack of features on the Zotac ION motherboard both from a technical perspective and a consumer electronics perspective. The mini-ITX design gives the user a lot of flexibility in terms of installation and creativity while the dual-channel memory controller, dual-core Atom processor and slightly overclocked GPU core do their best to keep performance high in all kinds of workloads from games to Blu-ray playback to basic media encoding. The on-board SATA RAID controller on the ION chipset supports RAID 0, 1 and 0+1 (though 0+1 can only be used when using the eSATA port on the rear of the system) and with support for 6 USB 2.0 ports you should have enough connectivity options for any PC.
From a home theater angle, the ION platform also offers a lot: 1080p HDMI 1.3 output support, dual monitor option, 7.1 channel uncompressed audio output, both coaxial and optical audio output and of course that ever-important Blu-ray decode acceleration. In truth, playing high bit-rate movies on the Intel Atom processor would be simply impossible without the power of NVIDIA’s ION platform and if you are looking for the lowest power consumption solution for your home theater PC it’s going to be nearly impossible to best this option.
And of course, could you forget about CUDA and PhysX? Actually, in this one case, NVIDIA did leave out PhysX as a focus feature for the ION platform; likely because the GPU is already being stressed by moderate gaming as it is. CUDA however, is still a big selling point for NVIDIA’s solutions over both Intel and AMD platforms. Though in my view the jury is still out on whether or not CUDA can become a notable success before the wave of OpenCL software begins to arrive, applications like Badaboom!, vReveal, Nero Move it and others are making a stronger case for GPU computing than ever before.
Zotac ION motherboard models, Pricing and Availability
There are going to be four different models of the Zotac ION motherboard:
- IONITX-A-U (the one we tested today) – $189
- Atom 330 processor
- External power brick
- 802.11n WiFi
- IONITX-B-E – $139
- Atom N270 processor (single core)
- No external power brick (PSU required)
- open mini PCIe slot
- IONITX-C-U
- Atom N270 processor
- External power brick
- IONITX-D-E
- Atom 330 processor
To Each Their Own?
Despite the fact that I keep bringing up the performance of AMD Athlon X2 7750 system in this article, there are some very important aspects of the Zotac and NVIDIA ION platform that shouldn’t be overlooked. First, is the mini-ITX form factor: this can potentially allow for a much greater amount of flexibility in system building – ask any hardcore case modder how valuable a few inches on the size of the components going into any design and you will quickly learn that getting similar amounts of power in smaller size box is not always easy.
The second, and prominent point I think, is the power consumption aspect of the debate. Yes, the AMD CPU performed better nearly across the board, but look at the power consumption numbers: AMD’s offering used about 4x the power of the Intel Atom + NVIDIA ION combination and that means 4x more heat as well. If you are looking at a quiet (and thus cool) HTPC then these are considerations you need to take into account before spending your hard earned cash.
Final Thoughts
The Zotac IONITX-A-U motherboard featuring the Atom 330 dual-core processor and NVIDIA ION graphics core is the first of what I believe will be many DIY-ready ION solutions. The question now is how well will they be adopted by an crowd used to higher performing parts but may not be used to sacrificing performance for power consumption and efficiency. While I would hesitate to call the ION platform as it stands today a budget gaming platform, there is a good argument to be made for it as a great starting HTPC with some basic gaming abilities. If you have an interesting project idea that could benefit from an externally powered, high performing computer, then the motherboards based on the ION platform will be a great place to start.
One thing I do hope we’ll see this year: the ION platform attached to OTHER processors than the Atom. In the block diagram that NVIDIA provides they mention Celeron, P4 and even Core 2. I think a ULV Celeron core on a motherboard like this MIGHT be enough to get more enthusiasts attention.
