ASRock put out an Ion system based on the Intel Atom 330 processor; note the use of the word system. The ASRock Ion differed from the Zotac. My ASRock ION 330 contains two fans: CPU: 30x30x10mm 12V YS-Tech fan FD123010LS 0.07A brushless fan. Case: 50x50x20mm 12V YS-Tech case fan FD125020ML 0.10A brushless fan. The small (CPU) fan is (in my case) making the most noise.
Taking apart the Ion 330HT-BD
We were keen to take a look inside Ion 330HT-BD. Much like the exterior, everything was very tidy under the hood. Asrock designed a neat cable system for delivering power and data cables to the optical and hard disk drive. Mounted above the motherboard we found a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 2.5' 320GB hard drive, along with the Sony Optiarc BC-5500S Blu-Ray combo drive.
This drive supports 2x Blu-Ray read speeds and 24x CD read speeds. The maximum write speed for DVD+/-R media is 8x and 4x for DVD+/-R DL and DVD+/-RW media, while CD-R media can be burnt at 16x and CD-RW media at 10x. The drive features a 4.5MB buffer with access times of 320ms for Blu-Ray, 200ms for DVDs and 190ms for CDs.
Apart from a dual-core Intel Atom 330 processor clocked at 1.6GHz and the Nvidia Ion graphics chip, we found a few other interesting components residing in the AMCP7A-ION motherboard.
There's a pair of DDR2 SO-DIMM slots populated with 1GB Elixir DDR2-800 modules for a total capacity of 2GB. Upgrading the Ion 330HT-BD's memory will have you doing away with this memory and replacing it with two 2GB modules at a cost of around $40 - $50 each.
On the network front the 330HT-BD uses the Realtek RTL8211C(L) Gigabit Ethernet controller along with an Atheros 802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN PCI Express Half Mini Card. Although the former uses the old PCI bus, throughput won't be severely limited as there are few devices sharing it.
Asrock has also stuck with Realtek for audio, using their tried and true ALC890B 8-channel audio codec, while adopting the Nuvoton NCT6775F IC Asrock has achieved the EuP2.0 standard which indicates that the total AC power consumption of the system is under 0.5W when turned off.
The Ion 330HT-BD is even capable of supporting RAID 0 and RAID1 when installing a secondary 2.5' hard drive. That's an impressive feature for such a tiny device. While Asrock didn't provide much guidance as to how would one go about installing a second drive, we were able to work it out with a little effort.
The drive in question must be mounted under the primary drive. However, in order to do so the optical drive and primary hard drive will have to be removed from the mounting bracket first. Asrock also included a cable that connects from a special power connection on the motherboard to the second hard drive.
Ultimately this opens the possibility of purchasing a pair of WD Scorpio Blue 640GB hard drives, configure them for RAID0, and getting over a terabyte of fast storage inside the same little box.
The cooling setup is typical for an Atom system. The CPU is cooled via a small silver aluminum heatsink. This heatsink is actively cooled via a tiny 25mm fan, while the Nvidia MCP79 chipset is passively by a much larger heatsink. This combination manages to keep the Ion 330HT-BD both quiet and cool.
Article Index
The ASRock ION 330HT-BD features six USB 2.0 ports, LAN, HDMI, VGA, a powered eSATA port, five audio jacks and an optical S/PDIF output are part of the package. There is also a small DC-in power connection for a Delta Electronics 19v AC/DC adapter. The 'Home Theater' version of the Asrock Ion 330 comes bundled with a Media Center Edition remote control. This should provide a convenient way of watching movies or listening to music from the comfort of your living room couch, completing the 330HT-BD as an ideal HTPC solution.
Editors Liked
Editors Didn't Like
Expert reviews and ratingsBy TechSpot on
Whenever we look at Small Form Factor (SFF) systems or even laptops, we often come away thinking much could be improved or added. This was not the case with the Asrock Ion 330HT-BD. Perhaps the biggest disappointment remains the Atom processor, as...
By FutureLooks on 85
Benchmarks: HD Tune So, how did this HTPC hold up in the testing and benchmark arena? For starters, I ran the 320GB 2.5″ drive through HD Tune 2.55. As you can see through the screenshot above (click for the big version), it came out with an...
By HardwareHeaven on 90
The ASRock ION 330HT-BD is a product which really should appeal to everyone who is looking for a HTPC where gaming is not a priority. The system was completely stable throughout our testing and near silent in operation; in fact it was often hard to...
By Expert Reviews on 80
This compact nettop looks smart, but you'll need to supply your own operating system and Blu-ray playback software....
By ThinkComputers on 100
Home Theatre PC’s or HTPC’s have been around for a few years now and are very popular. Most people use their old PC for a HTPC. The problem with that is that they are loud, not that powerful, and take up a lot of space. Well ASRock has got...
By techPowerUp! on 92
There are plenty of companies offering ION based netbooks and nettops these days. Most of them have very similar spec sheets and thus the price becomes the only deciding factor. ASRock has taken a different approach with the ION 330HT-BD. This...
By Good Gear Guide on 90
ASRock’s diminutive Ion 330HT-BD ’nettop’ media centre is brilliant if you’re an avid movie watcher with a large collection of digital media or Blu-ray discs. It’s head and shoulders above any Blu-ray player or media...
By Bit-tech.net on 60
In this industry it's important to keep an open mind. It's rare that hardware that has traditionally been, to put it bluntly, crap, can suddenly turn around and take a big bite out of the WIN cake. It can happen though, and the combination of...
By OCWorkBench on 84
The ASRock ION 330HT-BD system is definitely a major leap forward for ASRock. In fact, ASRock has incorporate a number of our suggestions in our earlier review and they include remote control, eSATA/USB powered ports, WiFi-N. ASRock has also listened...
By Rbmods.com on
First off, this is a pretty silent unit, the only thing that actually makes a bit of noise is the Bluray player if you decide to use a disc. I was able to run 720p without issues from a .iso file but the unit is not able to play a 1080p although the...
By Extreme Overclocking on
I'll admit it, I am thoroughly impressed with ASRock's ION 330HT-BD. From a HTPC or NetTop standpoint, the system is simply superb. Blu-ray & DVD playback was perfectly smooth, even watching online HD videos was an enjoyable experience with...
By Fudzilla on
The ASRock Ion330HT box is a two edged sword. While we were impressed with the HD support of the Ion and the quite delay-free operation under Windows, we have some issues with the box itself. The 3cm fan is a bad idea, because it's not possible to...
By Phoronix on
The integrated Intel graphics found on most nettops and netbooks really cannot handle much in terms of OpenGL applications or games, so for this comparison we largely looked at the 2D / X Render performance between the Intel 945 IGP and NVIDIA's ION...
By PCWorld France on 90
ASRock propose une version ultime de son nettop ION + Atom, visant clairement le marché des PC Home Cinema... 90 Excellent ASRock ION330HT-BD Pour :Dimensions compactesLecteur Blu-rayTélécommande Contre :Émissions sonoresSurface...
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2022
Categories |