Product Listing

The Ion Lives - ASUS AT3N7A-1 NVIDIA Ion Motherboard

By Kenny Yeo - 28 Aug 2009

Test Setup & HD Video Playback Performance

Test Setup

We'll be comparing the ASUS AT3N7A-1 very closely with Zotac's DIY Ion kit. We expect performance to be very similar since they both come with Intel Atom 330 processors, and we've used the exact same memory, hard disk and optical drive to benchmark the ASUS AT3N7A-1.

We've also added the previously reviewed ASRock Nettop BD-330, which should offer a close fight since it too is equipped with a dual-core Atom 330 processor. Also thrown into the mix are the Acer AspireRevo, NVIDIA's very own Ion engineering protoype, and the Intel D945GCLF2.

The ASUS AT3N7A-1 was installed with Windows Vista SP1 and slightly dated ForceWare 185.55 display drivers which was last used to review the Zotac DIY Ion kit to ensure that ASUS does not have any unfair advantage. On top of that, the onboard GeForce 9400M GPU was assigned with 256MB of frame buffer, similar to what we did with the rest of the systems tested.

Specifications/ System ASUS AT3N7A-1 ASRock Nettop ION 330-BS Zotac Ion Motherboard Acer AspireRevo NVIDIA Ion Intel D945GCLF2
Processor Intel Atom 330 (1.6Ghz) with 1MB L2 cache Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz) with 1MB L2 cache Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz) with 1MB L2 cache Intel Atom 230 (1.6GHz) with 512KB of L2 cache Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz) with 1MB L2 cache running a single core Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz) with 1MB L2 cache
Chipset NVIDIA ION NVIDIA ION NVIDIA Ion NVIDIA Ion NVIDIA Ion Intel 945GC
Memory 2GB DDR 2GB DDR2 2GB DDR2 2GB DDR2 2GB DDR3 1GB DDR2
Video NVIDIA Ion (256MB) NVIDIA Ion (256MB) NVIDIA Ion (256MB) NVIDIA Ion (256MB) NVIDIA Ion (256MB) Intel GMA950 (128MB)
HDD Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA Seagate Momentus 5400.6 SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA Hitachi 5400RPM SATA Seagate Momentus 7200.2 SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA

The following are the benchmarks that we'll be using:

  • PCMark05 (ver. 120)
  • PCMark Vantage
  • 3DMark06 (ver. 110)
  • Unreal Tournament 3 (version 1.1)
  • CyberLink PowerDVD 8.0 (for Blu-ray playback testing)

Blu-Ray Playback Performance

To measure the systems' Blu-ray playback performance, CyberLink's PowerDVD 8.0 (build 2021) was used and we played a sampling of Black Snake Moan Blu-ray disc (H.264 encoded) while using Vista's built-in Performance Monitor utility to record CPU utilization figures.

Given that the ASUS AT3N7A-1 and the DIY Zotac Ion kit are identically kitted, we expected both cards to produce comparable results here. Surprisingly, however, the ASUS AT3N7A-1 recorded an impressive CPU utilization rate of only 25.3%, making it even lower than the ASRock Nettop BD-330. Evidently, the AT3N7A-1 is well equipped to handle HD videos, more so than even a similarly specced DIY Zotac Ion kit.

But as good as the Ion and Atom 330 processor is, the ASUS AT3N7A-1 was no match for the ASUS P5N7A-VM mATX board, which was added in here for the sake of referencing and recorded a low 8% CPU utilization. Bear in mind, however, that the P5N7A-VM has a GeForce 9300 mGPU and was tested using a much more powerful Core 2 Duo E8500 processor. Clearly, there is a limit to how effective a basic Ion setup can be, but 25.3% CPU utilization is certainly something we could live with.

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