ZOTAC ZBOX ION 2 MINI PC IN STOCK NOW

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Got a very limited quantity of these great new mini systems featuring ION 2 technology.

Zotac ZBOX Ion2 Mini PC @ £189.99 inc VAT

FS-000-ZT_400.jpg


Enjoy eco-friendly computing with superior energy-efficiency and performance with the Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC powered by the class-leading next-generation NVIDIA ION and Intel Atom architectures. Next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics deliver unrivaled levels of performance and high definition video decode capabilities to the Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC with NVIDIA CUDA, PureVideo HD and HDMI 1.3a technologies for eco-friendly computing with premium audio and video capabilities. High performance eco-friendly computing is only two thumb screws away with the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC thanks to a user friendly design that makes mastering the mini-PC quick and easy. Space for a 2.5" hard drive and one 200-pin DDR2-800 DIMM slot enable users to customize the internals of the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 to their own needs while USB 2.0 ports, a 6-in-1 memory card reader (SD/SDHC/MS/MS Pro/xD/MMC) and eSATA port provide greater external expansion capabilities for perfect eco friendly computing.

- Chipset: NVIDIA Next-Generation ION (w/512MB DDR3)
- GPU: ION
- CPU: Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz Dual-Core (667MHz FSB)
- Intel HyperThreading technology
- Memory: 1x 200-Pin DDR2 800MHz SODIMM
- Storage: 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Drive Bay & eSATA 3.0Gbps
- Memory Card Reader: 6-in-1 (MMC/SD/SDHC/MS/MS Pro/xD)
- Ethernet: 10/100/1000Mbps
- Wi-Fi: 802.11n/g/b
- DirectX 10.1
- OpenGL 3.2
- 1x HDMI Output
- 1x DVI Output
- 6x USB 2.0

Only £189.99 inc VAT.

ORDER NOW
 
Ahh been waiting for this, so how good is ION2 compared to the old ION?
Heard the new atom should be quite a lot faster.

Interested in one of these, debating this or a Foxconn but thats the old atom+ION.
 
ZBOX - Two better than an XBOX!

I kid, but i love this sort of product. All the performance you need for none of the power you want. Does it come preloaded with an OS?
 
I looked at the price and was thinking (purely on price alone) that it compared quite well to an Aspire Revo. I then looked through the rest of the specs and realised that you need to bring your own RAM, HDD and OS whereas with the Revo it's all included. Anyway, the Zbox is still a great purchase, especially since we're all likely to have spare DDR2 SO-Dimms and notebook HDDs going spare anyway. Linux distros are of course free so that's no extra expense unless users want W7 on there.
 
[timko];16587568 said:
I looked at the price and was thinking (purely on price alone) that it compared quite well to an Aspire Revo. I then looked through the rest of the specs and realised that you need to bring your own RAM, HDD and OS whereas with the Revo it's all included. Anyway, the Zbox is still a great purchase, especially since we're all likely to have spare DDR2 SO-Dimms and notebook HDDs going spare anyway. Linux distros are of course free so that's no extra expense unless morons want W7 on there.

Fixed :)

Still, i have all of the above. Two times over, at least. And my dad is looking for a cheap new PC... i'll suggest it to him.
 
How about because the only use it could possibly serve today is for gaming, and lets face it - you're not doing that on this machine.

True
Although I guess some people prefer the windows way since they're used to it.

I would prefer one of these boxes that had space for a 3.5" hard drive since it could fit a 2-terra in there, would make a great light home server I think.
 
Good bit of kit this !. I've had a revo and although the revo's get good reviews and they are a great machine I had problems with mine. I was waiting for one of these but in the end I settled for building my own with a Zotac dual core atom board and the original ION chipset and 4gb ram. Linux distros run great on it like xbmc or suse etc, I have tried a few.

I also have Windows 7 ultimate on there and it flies considering. ION chipset actually runs some basic games far better than any onboard intel chipset could. I use Media centre on it with a usb tv tuner as well and it is perfectly capable of recording and stuff with no slow down. Nothing wrong with running windows on there as well I don't see your problem with it. The media centre is actually pretty decent and the interface silky smooth.


These new ion2 chipset boards have an atom that's "slightly" faster however the actual ION chipset is better/faster as well so I would imagine a nice little boost in performance.

With this you will have to fit your own memory and hard drive but at least you can open it and do that unlike the acer revo's. It makes a nice little server for downloads or streaming and consumes very little power (around 25-30 watts) so you won't feel guilty about leaving it on.

Just my 2 pence ;)
 
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These new ion2 chipset boards have an atom that's "slightly" faster however the actual ION chipset is better/faster as well so I would imagine a nice little boost in performance.

The newer one also has a more limited connection though (Only 1 PCI-E lane I think it was, compared to the previous ION's full 16 lane) so in real terms the performance is largely the same, sometimes a bit better, sometimes a bit worse, depending on the demand.

Anandtech did a fairly comprehensive review of this ZBox
 
True, there's enough games on Linux/Wine to keep most people happy and Windowns only has the advantage here because of its market share.

Of course it does. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that many people simply prefer using Windows.
 
The fact that this is mostly going to be used as a media centre is also another good reason to use W7.

This. I mean who really wants to have to spend, to a total newbie, possibly an hour figuring out that you need to install some proprietary codec that would otherwise come as standard with a windows installation, then figure out that they have to use synaptic or whatever to get to it, but not be able to find it because they haven't yet realised they need to enable the specific repo that holds proprietary software. I suspect your average 'I just want to watch films on it and maybe browse the internet occasionally' guy would probably find it quite frustrating every time his screen turns up black because his system didn't know what to do with his video drivers after a kernel update...
 
This. I mean who really wants to have to spend, to a total newbie, possibly an hour figuring out that you need to install some proprietary codec that would otherwise come as standard with a windows installation, then figure out that they have to use synaptic or whatever to get to it, but not be able to find it because they haven't yet realised they need to enable the specific repo that holds proprietary software. I suspect your average 'I just want to watch films on it and maybe browse the internet occasionally' guy would probably find it quite frustrating every time his screen turns up black because his system didn't know what to do with his video drivers after a kernel update...

Firstly, that situation almost never happens, and i've never come across the need to switch repos. And why the hell are you doing kernel updates? With a 6 month release cycle it's really not worth the risk it poses as an untested and potentially unstable update to a perfectly fine distro.

Lets see what would need drivers in this. The ION chipset? Just use EnvyNG to find them. Other than that i can't think of anything.

And then - why would a 'I just want to watch films on it and maybe browse the internet occasionally' guy be on a computer enthusiast site? They would find it more frustrating having an unstable, bloated and slow (especially on this hardware) OS that can't do anything without giving you an error message or BSODing.

XBMC with a good skin is miles ahead of anything in W7.
 
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