Zotac ION N330 or Acer Revo N230

[Olle]

Hello

I need a small pc which shall only be used for playing 1080p movies, downloading and surfing.

Acer Revo seems like a brilliant product, but it only comes with 160GB hard drive and only a singlecore Atom.

Zotac ion is "only" a motherboard, but comes in a version with integrated PSU, Dualcore Atom, and the same nVidia Ion graphics as the Revo.

Zotac must obviously be the best performer. But as far as I've read is the Revo great at 1080p-playback. Which is the better choice?

Zotac ION N330 PSU + 500GB 3,5" HDD + 2GB DDR2 RAM
are only 35 USD more expensive than the
Acer Revo ION N230 160GB 2,5" HDD 2GB DDR2 RAM


Which is the better choice and why?


Thanks

 

[Olle]

And second:

Which OS is best? XP, Vista or 7?

XP must be the better performer, but is 7 better than Vista?

 

[Helloworld_98]

go with the zotac board.

oh and all the OS'es you mentioned are pretty much equal in performance at the moment, so choose out of vista and 7.

 

[Olle]

Thanks for the reply "Helloworld_98".

But is there any logic in the Revo being better at some areas?
I mean, that can't be true?

 

[Helloworld_98]

^ the revo can't be better, they utilise the exact same core components except the CPU and that you can have 4GB of ram with the zotac board.

 

[Olle]

Okay, thanks.

And Intel Atom only supports 32-bits, yes?

 

[witcherx]

There is a 64-bit version of the Atom (specifically, the Atom 330).

Win 7 rc.. is still with some glitchs.. but its better than vista..
I use it as my primary os.. in PC..

check the alternative...

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-7456-view-Athlon-neo-vs-Intel-Atom.html

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzNSw0LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

also Neo with a dual core will be a step up...
and dnt be left out with that lower performer...

 

[rewindlabs]

Yeah Witcher is spot on....for around the same price you are going to pay for these you could get an HTPC that you wouldn't have to ask if it would be enough and any cheap gpu would power full 1080p/bluray...

 

[Olle]

Thanks.

Now I'm confused 😀

 

[sproggit]

This isn't strictly true guys.

I've got an Acer Revo R3600 - the one that had a base model with 2Gb RAM and a 160Gb HDD. I uprgaded RAM to 4Gb and disc to 500Gb.

I then installed ubuntu 9.04 instead of Vista, using the 64-bit edition of the software. It works like a charm.

I can also fire up "System Monitor" and see two different cores running, kind of a strong hint that this machine sports a dual-core chip.

So far the only thing I'm struggling with is getting the display to step up to 1920x1200 [ I've just purchase a new monitor and need to reset my display settings to go that high ].

Bottom line is that this isn't a power machine - and for the price that Acer charge you shouldn't expect such, either. But for what it is, it works exceptionally well.

 

[Guest]

I uprgaded RAM to 4Gb

How did you do this, can u give a link to the website where u got the ram

 

[extremesquared]

Unfortunately what you are seeing as two cores is the atom hyperthreading. The msi wind i'm typing this on shows 2 cpus in sys mon and i guarantee it uses the old atom. But hey, as long as the performance is there, there's no reason to be bothered by it.

I can also fire up "System Monitor" and see two different cores running, kind of a strong hint that this machine sports a dual-core chip.

 

[gunnar-medial]

I'm testing this right now on the Asus Eee Box EB1012 which got similar specs and Atom N330 with ION/NVidia graphics. I tried running Ubuntu 9.10 release candidate 64 bit, seems to work fine. I see four processors,
that is; the two cores and each with hyperthreading. I'll find time this week to evaluate this further.

 

[shata]

Just For people wanting a Revo this forum is what i use there is alot of info for 3600 series and 1600 revo.
http://www.revouser.com/forum/index.php