MEGATech Previews – ZOTAC’s New ION ITX-F Series and the MAG ITX System

While many graphics card manufacturers have been focusing on just their cards, ZOTAC has been doubling efforts in the ITX motherboard market producing the best low power, ITX desktop motherboards.  Because of this, they’ve pretty much remained the uncontested ITX champs. A good example of this ingenuity would be the ION ITX-F series that was announced a few days ago. Today we get a special LIVE sneak peak at both of their new products in the silicon. What do you mean two? Well, there’s also the new MAG “Mini All-in-one Giant” ITX system too!

ZOTAC ION ITX-F Series

The ION ITX-F-E, D-E, and A-U come with Atom N33 1.6GHz Dual-Core processors. The F-E has a PCI Express x16 slot while the D-E and A-U do not. All three naturally have the MCP7A-ION Chipset which contains an integrated Geforce 9400M and supports up to 4GB 667/800 MHz DDR2. While the 9400M is more than capable of producing good quality 1080p video, it won’t razzle dazzle the gamers. But, you can expect something decent by installing a 9800GT graphics card in the F-E’s single PCI Express slot. However, the real noise is about the next product…

MAG “Mini All-In-One Giant” ITX System

We’re pleased to help usher in ZOTAC’s newest MAG “Mini All-in-one Giant” ITX system. It’s one of the smallest, if not the smallest, compact ITX system we’ve seen to date. It’s also packed with plenty of features.

The MAG will arrive in two flavors, the HD-ND01 powered by a Dual-Core Atom N330 and Single-Core Atom N230. Both offer 2GB 800MHz DDR2 memory and a 160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive. Both of them will be equipped with an integrated nVidia 9400M GPU and will find its connectivity via an HDMI or VGA port.

The MAG offers a total of 6 USB (4 back, 1 front, and 1 side), 1 eSATA, 2 Data Card readers, 2 analog audio, and 1 optical audio . That should be more than enough expansion to keep a home user pleased. It also has the option of simply standing on your desktop by a simple leg mount that can be assembled and disassembled very easily as shown above.  Don’t worry about airflow as there’s plenty of ventilation all around with or without the leg.

If you don’t have the desk space, you can use the MAG craddle which can be mounted to the back of your monitor or wall. Simply mount the craddle first and insert the MAG unit afterwards.

Performance?

Expect performance to match previous N330 and N230 based ITX systems. You won’t be formatting any HD video, but they can more than easily play your favorite HD movie titles, browse the web, enjoy a few flash based games (yeah, I can see the Facebook people’s excitement), and check out the latest YouTube videos.

At this time, there is no official word on pricing. Suffice it to say that marketing said, “It’ll be competitively priced.” Does that mean we can pick one up for around $300? When we get final word, we’ll do a quick edit and definitely stay tuned for a full review over at Futurelooks!