Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus: Redefining the Small Form Factor PC
by Ganesh T S on April 11, 2012 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- ZOTAC
- Fusion
- HTPC
The other important aspect for HTPCs is performance with network streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix. The ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus comes with a GbE port, so one should never be found wanting in terms of bandwidth. The bundled support for Wi-Fi serves as a backup if the unit is placed somewhere without wired access. We tested out both YouTube and Netflix with our standard test streams used in previous reviews.
The good news is that GPU acceleration is attempted and enabled in both Silverlight and Adobe Flash. The unfortunate aspect is that there are some CPU intensive parts which result in dropped frames.
With Netflix, we started out with a 3.6 Mbps video / 64 kbps audio stream. However, the plug-in seemed to sense the high CPU load and automatically shifted to lower bitrate streams (as can be seen in the screenshot above). This is despite the fact that GPU acceleration was attempted and enabled!
YouTube is a slightly different story. The CPU load is not that high, but it periodically loads up one of the cores fully. At 100% CPU loading on one of the cores, there were visible dropped frames in the playback.
I had encouraging words for the ZBOX at the end of the previous section, but, with OTT streaming, there is no way to put a positive spin on things. Either the drivers have to step up, or the plug-ins have to be optimized. Either way, the ZBOX can't be recommended right now for streaming high definition videos despite the presence of GPU acceleration.
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apexjr - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Can I attach a disk shelf to this thing via eSata port multiplier?TerdFerguson - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
The sweet spot, IMHO, was the ATOM/ION net-top, which at least one vendor managed to bring in under the $200 mark. Sadly, they were only available for an awfully brief time and haven't seen fitting replacements. Everything since has offered half the performance for twice the price.Kakumei - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I believe you are mistaken. While there are/were completed dual-core ATOM/ION nettops, by the vendor hitting under the $200 mark I believe you mean the single-core Atom 230-contained Acer Revo 1600's that were priced at $199.99. The Atom 330 models were priced $100 more ($299.99). The ION2 came with a very slightly more powerful D510, but it wasn't worth writing home about. Either way, the CPU performance certainly wasn't twice as good, let alone as good, as the AMD E-350/E-450. The Graphic performance is superior to ION and ION2 systems as well... (Read an anandtech review).That said, ION nettops were really the only game in town for the form factor at the time. I have a Revo 1600 in my house, though now I end up using my C-60 netbook at friend's quite often. Seeing the further reduction in form factor from this Nano XS AD11 box is exciting. Crossing my fingers that the next gen is as great a leap.
Matias - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
ATOM+ION was slower than Brazos, I had it before.MySchizoBuddy - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Should have waited for Trinityredisnidma - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I guess what the results would have been if an Atom processor was used instead, because according to Ganesh, if the Zacate APU performed bad, then Atom would have been total crap... :/TerdFerguson - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
The better Atom machines had NVidia ION chipsets w/ video support.ganeshts - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Yes, it would have been real bad! I have never been a big fan of Atom-based PCs.. but, given the available feature set, I am sure there is a market somewhere for the capabilities.. Whether the target market is happy with the purchase of the PC after extended use is a different story altogether.jabber - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I rolled out about a dozen Asrock Ion Atom boxes for business/office use a couple of years ago.They are all still trucking along fine and the users still love them.
We had just one user who is a bit of a social media guru who really pushes his hard (well 20+ browser tabs open etc.) so we recently upped to a (slightly better) 7200rpm HDD and 4GB of ram. We also OC'd his box to 1.8GHz (every little helps) and he is still happy too.
457R4LDR34DKN07 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
does the remote have mouse cursor control?