Asrock Ion 330HT-BD Nettop Review

I want one of those, here in Chile I was looking for a Gear Ion series computer which has the same n330+ion 2gb ram and 320gb hdd, without an optic drive it measures a bit less than that and looks much more stylish too, just waiting for the old computer to sell, has pretty decent gaming hardware, but nowadays I don't even have time to play so... I want one of those =)

Looks very cool, and could be a great higher end Blue-ray player option or great little computer for non power users. Wouldn't pass mustard for my main pc though. I would love one as a multimedia pc connected to my TV, the only thing to be missing from my wish list is to be able to able to use this as a TV capture device.

I may have to get one of these to replace my larger HTPC that I put together earlier this year, which I may repurpose as a gaming rig for my son

@compdata, there are plenty of USB capture devices that work very well for TV capture. I've personally used one of the Hauppauge models, and for my HTPC that I built, I got an ATi 650 HD which is USB, has digital and analog input, and an integrated MPEG-2 encoder to crunch the video as it comes in, rather than taxing the CPU. Pair 1 (or 2) of those with this little media gem reviewed here, and you'd have a great system.

Very slick. I've forwarded this on to our IT Manager for consideration.

Great review - thanks!

The only thing missing are USB 3.0 ports. I still don't know why most manufacturers are not including these on stuff they make !?

Looks good.

You did a great job on the review!

Probably because one of very many reasons...

Posible First: Would increase the cheap factor from this to not so cheap and in the end would be much more convenient to buy another thing.

Posible Second: They don't work with any mainboard, they use limited hardware and most of it is notebook oriented, and the mainboard must be very limited as it is.

Posible Third: It just didn't fit into the box.

Posible... I don't know, picture it

For how small it is it packs quite a punch. I might buy one in a year or so when prices come down a bit. But first, i want a high-end PC.

For the price it has Puiu, I doubt it will come down a bit at all.

I doubt big time that it could go any lower.

Nice machine and a comprehensive review. One thing I would have liked to be given more attention would be gaming. Even though this HTPC isn't very good at it, it's something I'm still interested in. First of all, I think that such an HTPC would likely be used with an HDTV, so 720p and 1080p are better resolutions to test with than those tested. Secondly, it'd have been nice to see some benchmarks of lower quality settings and games that might run, instead of just commenting about it. Games that appeal to the whole family, like WoW, might be good candidates for a living room HTPC.

@ET3D I have a comparable zotac ion that I've been playing with over the last few months. Unfortunately nothing in the last 5 years is even remotely playable, even with all the settings turned down.

I would like to see what's 'under the hood' here.

Yea...that seems right. I personally wont buy anything without them. In six months from now, when 3.0 is the new standard , I would have to buy all new stuff again...Better off waiting..

I really don't think USB 3.0 is an important consideration right now. It will be some time before devices such as the Asrock Ion 330HT-BD support USB 3.0 and truth be told you are not missing out not having it with such a product. External drives should use the eSATA port while USB will mostly be used for low bandwidth devices anyway.

Also ET3D mentioned that we should have tested more games ... I do not feel that it was necessary. The Ion 330HT-BD is not suitable for gaming and should not be purchased with the intention of doing any kind of 3D gaming. Basically we showed what we did only to prove that statement.

I second ET3D to test drive this sort of machines for casual gaming.

I for one would love to see how WoW or DDO would run on it, I know I ran DDO on a GMA945 with a bit of lag normal gameplay, and a lot of it in big areas. On the other hand, how the n330 works on java games, like facebook games, with an N270 some games lagged hard, even on an a64 5000+ have seen them lag when too many objects are on screen.

The idea ET3D gave was not for hard gamers, but the casual you can play on the net maybe.

@Fastvince: I doubt we will have USB 3.0 as new standard in 6 months, maybe a little more time to come.

Steve, I did a little googling, and looks like Tom's Hardware did a little gaming test on a similar platform earlier this year (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/zotac-ion-atom,2300-5.html). WoW actually ran pretty decently at 720p. So don't discount it so easily.

My first thought on seeing this was 'But I can get a PS3 for $300, and even with all the cables, I can get it for under $350 - and it plays PS3 games also'. I know the PS3 is rather picky about the formats it will take for video, but from the guides I have come across online and playing with my friends PS3, its not all that hard to get it to play movies on his HDTV, and it has a Blu-Ray player.

By no means am I saying this isn't a beautiful little HTPC - I would rather own a PS3 personally.