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Testing

To test the Novatech Ion Computer System we will be pacing it though a few synthetic and real-life benchmarks to consider its performance.

Startup and Shutdown

We timed the amount of time taken (with a stopwatch) for the Novatech Ion system to Startup (from pressing the button to desktop) and to also Shutdown (from pressing Shutdown to turning off). These tests were conducted after all essential Windows Updates were applied to the system – SP3 came pre-installed.

Both Startup and Shutdown times were definitely impressive. Although not quite as quick as the i7 rig that sits beneath my desk, for a lowly specified machine it certainly gets applause in this test.

Temperatures

Considering the only fans inside the Novatech Ion is an 80mm case fan and a PSU exhaust fan, temperatures in this system ought to be pretty high – certainly at load. But actually, they’re the complete opposite.

An idle CPU temperature of 31 degrees Celsius for a heatsink which has no fan is definitely impressive. At load it only increased 7 degrees, which shows just how cool the Intel Atom CPU runs.

Power Usage

We can compare power usage of the Novatech Ion with a couple of other similar Intel machines which have also been reviewed here at Tech-Reviews:

• Asus EeeBox B204
• Zotac ION A-Series

Although still being very energy efficient when compared with a standard computer system which will usually use way more that 100w, the Novatech Ion is slightly behind in the graph. This is slightly confusing as both the other systems were higher spec’d.

HD Playback

A popular benchmark used in many system reviews is the ability to playback 720P and 1080P HD videos. The clip I have chosen to use is a trailer from ‘The Dark Knight’ which can be downloaded from here for free. The clip is encoded in H.264 and runs at 25fps. We’ll be testing both the 720P and 1080P versions on the Novatech Ion.

Although the 720P video could be played back with low CPU utilization and no quality problems, the Novatech failed at playing the 1080P clip. This isn’t uncommon though as the Asus EeeBox B204 which also uses an Intel Graphics Adapter also failed on this test. The only Atom CPU machine we’ve had run 1080P content is the Zotac ION A-Series motherboard – which uses the Nvidia ION graphics adapter rather than the Intel one.

Gaming

I attempted to benchmark the Novatech Ion system using Serious Sam 2 with all settings set to maximum and the resolution lowered to a mere 640480 (the benchmark failed at the other resolutions). Unfortunately though the system still only scored a meagre 3.6FPS.

PCMark05

The Novatech Ion scored 1685 in PCMark05. Many systems nowadays score much higher than this. However, considering this PC is an Intel Atom machine, the score is pretty good.

Noise

In terms of noise I would definitely recommend this system as a quiet computer for just about any home or office environment. I happily left the system I reviewed running 48 hours straight and not once did it bother me. It runs very quietly.

Pricing

The Novatech Ion starts at just £163.74 excluding an operating system and monitor and goes up to £279.00 for the package which includes XP Home and a 19” Acer Monitor. There is also many other pricing structures available to suit your needs.

Related posts:

1. Novatech readies i5 system
2. Zotac ION A-Series ITX Motherboard