Two New Ions: ASUS AT3N7A-I and ASRock Ion 330
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 28, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
The Price Showdown
ASUS was very clever with the pricing of the A3TB7A-I. These days a Zotac Ion with an Atom 330 will set you back $169.99 without a power supply or $189.99 with the external DC power adapter. ASUS decided to undercut Zotac by $10 and is coming in at $159.99:
| Price | |
| ASRock Ion 330 | $379.99 |
| ASUS AT3B7A-I | $159.99 |
| Zotac IONITX-A-U | $189.99 |
| Zotac IONITX-D-E | $169.99 |
The third option, the ASRock Ion, is more difficult to compare as you get a lot more in the bundle. To see what the most affordable way into an Ion would be (assuming you don’t already have any components) I priced out barebones systems using the ASRock, ASUS and Zotac routes:
| ASUS AT3B7A-I | ASRock Ion 330 | Zotac IONITX-A-U | |
| Base Price (Motherboard + Accessories) | $159.99 | $379.99 | $189.99 |
| 2x1GB DDR2-800 | $29.98 | Included | $29.98 |
| Mini ITX Case + PSU | $38.99 - $49.99 | Included | $38.99 - $49.99 |
| Seagate 320GB 5400.6 2.5" HDD | $69.99 | Included | $69.99 |
| Internal DVD Slim Drive | $34.99 | Included | $34.99 |
| Total | $333.94 - $344.94 | $379.99 | $363.94 - $374.94 |
Curious. The Zotac would win the price comparison if it weren’t for one thing: even the cheapest mini-ITX case at Newegg comes with a power supply. So the $189.99 Zotac board with power supply doesn’t save you any money, you just end up with an extra mini-ITX PSU after you’re done with your build. Naturally you could opt for the PSU-less $169.99 model, but then ASUS has already got you beat on price by $10. The one thing I didn’t include is the cost of a WiFi dongle, because you do get WiFi with Zotac but not with ASUS.
Depending on how much you spend on a mini-ITX case, the ASUS AT3N7A-I will get you into an Ion system for around $40 less than the ASRock Ion 330. That’s not an insignificant amount of money, and something you could use to beef up some of the components. Ahem, SSD.
Who wins the price comparison? The newcomer ASUS, unless you want WiFi in which case the $169.99 Zotac IONITX-D-E is a better deal. The cheapest USB 802.11n dongle will set you back around $20, making the ASUS solution $10 more expensive.
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
We are the trading and manufacturing company,Our main productions are:Nike,Jordan,Air Max,NIKE SHOX,AIR FORCE ONE,DUNK,TiMBERLAND ADIDAS ETC. high quality,best prices and fine workmanship.And most products displayed on my website.We insist that " Customer the highest, Quality first ".With high-standard quality,fastest delivery and satisfied service and reasonable price for you. Welcome to visit our website:www.shoes-un.com or send email interest in ourProducts,please don't hesitate to contact us.
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
We are the trading and manufacturing company,Our main productions are:Nike,Jordan,Air Max,NIKE SHOX,AIR FORCE ONE,DUNK,TiMBERLAND ADIDAS ETC. high quality,best prices and fine workmanship.And most products displayed on my website.We insist that " Customer the highest, Quality first ".With high-standard quality,fastest delivery and satisfied service and reasonable price for you. Welcome to visit our website:www.shoes-un.com or send email interest in ourProducts,please don't hesitate to contact us.
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
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shoes666unm - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
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eversteegt - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - link
Hello Anandtech,First of all: Great article! Based on this article (and a similar one on Legit reviews) I bought the Asus AT3N7A board.
Unfortunately, I am very disappointed with it. Despite their statement to you, it still has the faulty and whining fan, so the wrong one DID make it to the retail versions. To make things more nasty: Their "valued customer" tech support is utterly refusing to help me out. They state that a new fan DOES NOT exist and I should stop complaining (apparently, the think Anandtech and Legit reviews are telling lies).
I can't help hoping this is just a miscommunication/misunderstanding between your contacts and the info not making it to the tech support. But for now, I have had it with Asus and their beautiful lies.
Otherwise, the board performance very good, but the Fan and lousy tech support just spoil all the fun :(
gnif - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
When the XBMC tests were done you said you used the Live CD... is is possible to have some performance tests done on the latest SVN version...I patched a major bug in XBMC about 4 months ago that caused huge slowdowns on all systems, that especially affected embedded systems such as the ION.
See: http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/6761">http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/6761
I would love to have an ION to test on, but I just cant afford it.