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Novatech ION – Atom 230 PC Review
Author: Rhys Published: October 9th, 2009 3:43 PM Category: Other Products, Reviews Rating:
Introduction
A common trend which has grown considerably over the last year is the idea of a ‘Green PC’ – a computer system which uses minimal power. Although entailing much lower specifications than your average computer, these energy efficient PC’s usually come with much more appealing price tags. Therefore, for students, businesses and home users looking for a computer which can handle everyday tasks, it makes for a very tempting purchase.
Today we have for review a pre-built ‘Green PC’ from UK computer manufacturer, Novatech. The system has been named the ‘Ion Home PC’ and comes at a mere price tag of just £163.74 for the most basic model. Is this low spec’d computer system the ideal candidate for the home office? Let’s run it through a bunch of synthetic and real-life benchmarks and find out…
About Novatech
“In February 1987 Novatech was founded with a simple ethic of supplying high quality products at the lowest possible prices with excellent customer service. Novatech are now one of the UK's top mail order computer suppliers employing over 150 people at their HQ in Portsmouth.”
The Product Naming: Novatech Ion
In terms of computing, ION is an Nvidia based graphics processor which has been designed to work on low power PC’s. Central processors such as the Intel Atom 230 which is used in this system can be coupled with ION technology to turn a basic work computer into an all-singing, all-dancing ITX machine capable of watching 1080P content and playing DX10 games.
Although the name, ‘Novatech ION’ may seem to imply that this PC boasts Nvidia’s ION technology, to my amazement it does not. Instead it uses Intel’s 945GC Chipset which includes the rather awful Intel 82954G graphics adapter. Don’t be put off by it yet though; we haven’t even opened the box!
