ASRock ION 330-BD

dangerstat · 30 Sep 2009 at 19:41

Is anyone else thinking of getting one of these bad boys? Dual core Atom (software OC'ing upto 2.1Ghz stable), Blue Ray drive, 2GB and 320GB laptop HDD. All for £300-ish. Sounds like a good deal to me, and I've seen some fairly positive reviews - aparently it copes with full 1080p HD playback of BluRay disks thanks the ION chipset. I've got to say I am tempted. Anyone else?

PhilipM · 30 Sep 2009 at 20:01

I might, if it had an OS. But then again, you can build something more powerful for that price!

Even OC'd the performance is something similar to a Celeron operating at half that speed.

dangerstat · 30 Sep 2009 at 20:19

PhilipM said:
I might, if it had an OS. But then again, you can build something more powerful for that price!

Even OC'd the performance is something similar to a Celeron operating at half that speed.

True, but it is tiny. And the whole system uses less that 100W/ph. an old school celeron would probably warm up half the atlantic if left on for a few days!

PhilipM · 1 Oct 2009 at 10:47

If you have to factor in the price of the OS, the acer aspire revo r3600 looks very tempting. Single core atom, but still with the ION chipser for good 1080p performance.

reflux · 1 Oct 2009 at 10:48

You can build a mini-ITX Core 2 system for nearly the same price, which will still run nicely off a 120w PSU, but will be a lot more powerful.

Ducky Spud · 1 Oct 2009 at 11:01

but the atom can be run passive (if you dont overclock it) which will reduce noise and thats pretty much the idea of a media PC, get it as quiet as possible, not as powerfull as posible.

I think they look pretty good, Im looking at building an m-itx system at some point and my spec comes to about £320 without a blu-ray drive (which cost £150+). Only bad point for the Asrock is the small hard drive and the fact it doesnt have wireless which I'd need.

reflux · 1 Oct 2009 at 11:09

Well I put together a mini-ITX system in this case last week, using the Intel stock cooler and the noisiest thing in the case by far is the old hard disk we used. Other than that it is barely audible.

To be honest, I think this whole Atom thing is a bit of a con; when you have the space and power for a proper desktop CPU, you may as well use one. Netbooks are the only place Atoms are useful tbh.

[RB] · 1 Oct 2009 at 11:12

I've purchased the model without the Blu-ray drive and I'm extremely happy with it. For a few pounds over £200 you can't really argue with it if you're after a small quiet system!

I've also tested it with a power meter and I struggled to make it go above 40w!

snow patrol · 1 Oct 2009 at 13:00

is the psu powerful enough to cope with several usb2 external discs

iraiguana · 1 Oct 2009 at 17:14

The non ION 330 atom boards are great for small home servers, it is what I use mine for. Good transfer speeds with gigabit network and lots of space with 1TB+ drives installed.

dangerstat · 1 Oct 2009 at 21:10

Atoms really shouldn't be compared to Celerons / other desktop processors. Mainly as they have a much much smaller power requriement, that's why you buy one. The fact of the matter in my view is that you can do 90% of what you need on one of this ASRock machines and leave them on 24 hours a day without batting an eyelid over the eleccy costs.

simpletom · 2 Oct 2009 at 00:35

Got the one without BD and it is the best computer buy I have made for ages. My main machine is not doing much now as I don't play games a lot. Using the Nettop now, in fact.

I guess it got to the point where I couldn't be bothered building systems any more and I wanted a neat, useful PC that I could stuff under the TV.

reflux · 2 Oct 2009 at 08:51

dangerstat said:
Atoms really shouldn't be compared to Celerons / other desktop processors. Mainly as they have a much much smaller power requriement, that's why you buy one. The fact of the matter in my view is that you can do 90% of what you need on one of this ASRock machines and leave them on 24 hours a day without batting an eyelid over the eleccy costs.

Yeah, but you'd hardly be batting your eyelid over the leccy costs off a Penryn Core 2 running off a 120w PSU either, would you? I just don't think anyone's made a convincing case for the Atom except in environments where space and heat really is at a premium - ie, a netbook. It just seems a gimmick - and an expensive one at that.

Illusion · 5 Oct 2009 at 17:34

reflux said:
Yeah, but you'd hardly be batting your eyelid over the leccy costs off a Penryn Core 2 running off a 120w PSU either, would you? I just don't think anyone's made a convincing case for the Atom except in environments where space and heat really is at a premium - ie, a netbook.

I'd say space and heat is at a premium in a lot of Media Centre PCs, making Atoms worth considering.

I think the setup I have just built is perfect as a media centre. Single core Zotac ION C (fanless Atom 230 / 9400M GPU), running MythBuntu.

Yes I could have built something around a C2D but it would be using more power, probably need slightly more in terms of cooling and I would expect the processors to cost a bit more aswell.

I have absolutely no need for masses of processing power as any HD video playback is accelerated using the GPU and the Atom is more than capable of playing back SD content.

I could understand if someone was wanting a multi purpose machine doing CPU intensive taks but purely as a media centre the integrated Atom solutions are extremely convenient and make sense.

Shakeel · 8 Oct 2009 at 02:59

i might get one for a media centre pc

deadite66 · 8 Nov 2009 at 07:25

should have a revo coming monday, linux version single core no wifi (i have a spare wlan module so no problem)
i'll install ubuntu karmic and XBMC, XBMC supports vdpau so i'll have HD support.

current system is a Pentium M 2Ghz and a nvidia 6200 pci, my tv doesn't support edid though vga (damn you panasonic) so i hope hdmi will be ok.

chippy08 · 8 Nov 2009 at 14:08

Well i wouldnt buy the old version of the asrock 330 i would wait and buy the version 2 the one that comes with wifi raid and a remote control.

chippy08 · 8 Nov 2009 at 16:24

Does anyone have an idea of power usage in watts of a mini itx build that uses a qaud core cpu.

HighlandeR · 11 Nov 2009 at 00:16

chippy08 said:
Does anyone have an idea of power usage in watts of a mini itx build that uses a qaud core cpu.

Good question, I guess if someones building a low power/nettop/htpc or server/download box its nice too have a quad so that way u have the power to do anything but then power would go up a lot surely.

chippy08 · 11 Nov 2009 at 00:35

HighlandeR said:
Good question, I guess if someones building a low power/nettop/htpc or server/download box its nice too have a quad so that way u have the power to do anything but then power would go up a lot surely.

Well i am still waiting for the new zotac board to arrive in stock then i can finish building my mini itx and then i can test it on my power tester to see how much power it uses but it will use more than than the asrock 330 but not sure how much yet.
I have asked another person on here to check is power usage as well so hopefully will know soon.
Power usage was one of my concerns but i will only use it for playing films really.