The Zotac ION A-Series ITX Motherboard

The Zotac ION ITX motherboard measures a mere 17cm x 17cm; this follows the ATX standards for Mini-ITX boards. Many newer mobos have ditched the standard brown PCB and instead gone for a more fashionable black, the Zotac too follows this trend.

The front of the ION A-Series offers two DDR2 667/800 memory slots. The total maximum memory supported from these slots is 4GB – so 2GB max can be installed in each slot. 4GB should be more than enough for any user. Anymore than this would be overkill with the Atom N330 onboard.

Also located towards the front are a 3-pin system fan header, bios speaker pins and the standard front panel pins. Interestingly there’s a placement for a 20-pin ATX connector – if this was soldered into place you could also power the motherboard using a normal power supply instead of the laptop style one included. It’s a shame the connector isn’t soldered into this placement as it would make this motherboard so much more flexible with upgrades.

The bottom of the Zotac ION holds the CMOS battery. Next to the battery is a Mini PCI-E slot with an AzureWare AR5B91 802.11b/g/n WiFi card installed. Of course, this Wifi card is optional and if you wanted you could remove it completely and install some other device into the Mini PCI Express slot it occupies.

There are also three SATA data connectors positioned towards the bottom. A ‘Clear CMOS’ jumper sits above the connectors and a COM header sits below. Nearer to the I/O connectors are the pins for a front audio connector.

Moving to the opposite side it’s much more featureless, there is simply a DC-Out Molex connector. This Molex connector connects to the cable included with the 3xSATA power connectors and therefore allows for up to three drives to be powered by the motherboard itself. This is the biggest restriction the Zotac ION entails. If the ATX connector was soldered into place it would be much more flexible as you wouldn’t be restricted to three devices.

Hidden behind the DVI/VGA connector are two USB headers and another 3-pin system fan header.

Dominating the motherboard is a Zotac branded aluminium heatsink. This ‘sink sits on top of the Atom CPU and the Nvidia Chipset. On arrival, no fan is installed to the heatsink and so your immediate thought is that the fan is optional. We will try the motherboard with a fan installed and without –just to see.

The CPU sitting beneath is an Intel Atom N330. This is a 1.6 GHz 45nm Dual Core processor which is 64bit capable. It boasts a 133MHz bus speed and 12x multiplier.

The backside of the motherboard is a rather standard sight. The heatsink appears to be secured with spring loaded screws.

As for I/O connections the Zotac Ion A-Series offers plenty. From left to right there are:

• PS/2 keyboard and dual USB connectors
• HDMI connector
• SPDIF Out (Coaxial / Optical)
• DVI and VGA connector
• eSATA and dual USB connectors
• Gigabit LAN and dual USB connectors
• Audio Connectors
• WiFi Antenna jack
• 19V DC Power Input

As you can see all the needy connectors are included. Even ones such as HDMI and SPDIF are included which would make it an ideal purchase as a HTPC.