Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330

Overclocking

When I first tested the Zotac Ion board I managed to overclock the 1.6GHz Atom 330 CPU to 1.92GHz, using a 160MHz FSB.

The ASUS board boasts slightly better overclocking. Our 1.6GHz Atom 330 managed to hit 2.0GHz using a 167MHz FSB.

The ASRock was the overclocking champ. While I could get the machine to POST at 2.15GHz, it was the most stable at 2.04GHz (170MHz x 12). It’s tough to say whether the better overclocking was due to motherboard design or simply better yields on the later Atom CPUs compared to what was on the Zotac.

At 2.04GHz the performance improvement over the stock Atom was noticeable: