<span class="content"> <p><font size="2">We always enjoy opening new boxes that come from ASRock. They are one of our favorite motherboard suppliers when it comes to delivering high value performance solutions. We were speaking with them just a couple of weeks ago about their BIOS updates for the X58 Supercomputer X58 motherboard that allows 2000+ memory clocking now along with general improvements when running all four x16 (x8 electrical) slots populated with the GTX295 boards. </font></p> <p><font size="2">They mentioned a new X58 motherboard design and asked if we wanted to look at it. We of course obliged and thought nothing else of it until the package arrived a few days ago. We ripped the box open, looked around, and thought to ourselves this is a nice update to the current X58 Deluxe board. That is until we started noticing a cleaner layout, power/reset/CMOS switches, a new 8-phase power delivery system, and an abundance of fan headers. However, the proverbial rock that hit us on the head was the little note with the suggested MSRP of $169.99. </font></p> <p><font size="2">Yes, that&rsquo;s right, we finally have a full featured ATX X58 based motherboard below the $170 mark without a rebate or reduced feature set. While you could purchase a great AMD 780G board and processor in that price range, this a quite reasonable price for an X58 product. We wanted to provide a full review of the product before it launched, but it showed up for sale earlier than expected. This is good news for bargain hunters looking at upgrading to the X58/i7 combination, bad news for us. As such, we are providing a very quick first look at the ASRock X58 Extreme today with additional details to follow in the near future.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3593">Read more...</a></font></p> </span>

<span class="content"><font size="2">It must be because this thing is so darn tiny that I don&rsquo;t mind testing it all the time, but today&rsquo;s short update marks the third follow up to our original Zotac Ion review.<br /> </font><span class="content"> <p><font size="2">The original article crowned the Zotac Ion as the best Atom based mini-ITX board I&rsquo;d ever encountered. It wasn&rsquo;t a hard feat to accomplish, after all, there are only two other Atom based mini-ITX boards on the market and neither one offers a real GPU.</font></p> <p><font size="2">The first follow up addressed questions that readers of the first article had. Looking into things like the overclocking potential of the platform and additional detail on power consumption.</font></p> <p><font size="2">The second follow up addressed the Zotac&rsquo;s wake-on-USB support, or lack thereof. Today I&rsquo;m publishing what I hope to be my last update on this hardware until I get a new revision, but as always if there&rsquo;s something you&rsquo;d like to know don&rsquo;t hesitate to ask.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=602">Read more...</a></font></p> </span></span>

<p><span class="content"><font size="2">In response to our first article on the first mini-ITX motherboard based on NVIDIA's Ion platform, many of you asked enough questions that warranted a follow up. In said follow up I mentioned that wake-on-USB did not seem to work reliably on Zotac's Ion motherboard. Today I've got confirmation, said feature does not work.<br /> <br /> </font><a href="http://anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=601"><font size="2">Read more...</font></a><br /> <br /> <br /> <font size="2">Update:<br /> </font><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3611"><font size="2">Zotac's Ion Rev 2: Wake on USB Fixed</font></a></span></p>

<span class="content"><font size="2">&nbsp; We were speaking with MSI a few weeks ago about their upcoming product plans and one item stood out in the conversation. No, it was not the excellent 790FX-GD70 motherboard that has earned our admiration and soon our praise, nor was it the new N260GTX-Lightning Black Edition GTX 260 video card or their updates to the Wind Netbook line. Now, all of these and some we cannot discuss are actually very interesting products for their market segments. However, when we heard X58 and $150 in the same sentence, our ear lobes tweaked and sly smiles developed on our faces. We were told that MSI was hard at work on delivering an X58 motherboard as close to the $150 mark as possible. </font> <p><font size="2">We thought this idea was really interesting and certainly made sense when looking at the current Intel product lineup - a lineup that currently means either means going Socket 775 and buying into the P45 chipset in the $85~$130 range or smartly bypassing the now defunct X38/X48 lineup for the X58 product along with its processor and RAM upgrade requirements. The mere mention of X58 typically means a $300 ringtone goes off in our minds. Lately, that ringtone has become softer as several boards are available in the sub $200 range including MSI&rsquo;s X58 Pro and various models from ECS, Foxconn, DFI, and Gigabyte.<br /> <br /> </font></p> <p><font size="2">Well, MSI tried their best to hit the $150 mark and might still make it if rumored price cuts on the X58 hold true in the near future. The board MSI is targeting into the entry level X58 market is the X58M and it arrives in a uATX form factor with an MSRP of $169.99. It's close to the eventual $150 price point but this motherboard is anything but entry level in many ways. The board features the X58 IOH, ICH10R with six 3Gb/s SATA ports, JMicron JMB363 for an additional 3GB/s SATA port, IDE support, and an eSATA port. Also included from the land of Crabs is the Realtek ALC 889 HD audio codec and RTL8111C Gigabyte LAN. MSI even tossed in IEEE 1394a support along with a great layout and overclocking friendly BIOS backed up by some excellent electrical components. </font></p> <p><font size="2">We are starting to see significant interest in the uATX form factor again in the higher end SFF market. In fact, the Core i7 runs cool enough and draws low enough voltage that a user can design a top performing multi-use system around this combination. We expect to see several new uATX designs when P55 hits the market later this year, if not mini-ITX designs based around it. As such, the MSI X58M joins the DFI LANParty JR X58-T3H6 and ASUS Rampage II GENE in the current X58 uATX market, with others set to join shortly. </font></p> <p><font size="2">We are providing a first look at the X58M today, with the goal of providing enough information on the board to make an informed purchasing decision before we complete our next X58 roundup. So, let&rsquo;s look at the board and initial performance results and see if we have a Mighty Mouse or Mallrat on our hands. </font></p> <p><font size="2"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3568">Read more...<!-- google_ad_section_end --></a></font></p> </span>

<span class="content"> <p><font size="2">Of all of the technologies VIA introduced over the years, I never expected a form factor to be its lasting legacy on the PC industry. The most ubiquitous of VIA&rsquo;s technologies were its chipsets which are all but gone now - used only by VIA for the most part. VIA&rsquo;s form factor however, lives on. </font></p> <p><font size="2">The form factor is ITX. Originally introduced by VIA to accompany its line of low-power microprocessors, long before Atom, ITX was designed to deliver much smaller computers than what was defined by the micro-ATX spec.&nbsp;<br /> <br /> I</font><span class="content"><font size="2">ntel was actually first to market a mini-ITX Atom based motherboard: the D945GCLF. Based on a single-core Atom 230 running at 1.6GHz, the D945GCLF is a relatively simple motherboard.<br /> </font><span class="content"><br /> <font size="2">It has a single DDR2 DIMM slot supporting up to 2GB of memory (DDR2-400 or 533 only). There&rsquo;s no support for a modern day GPU, there&rsquo;s only an old 32-bit PCI slot on the motherboard. You get two SATA and one PATA connector on board, four USB, no DVI/HDMI output (only VGA) and a standard set of three analog audio ports.<br /> </font><span class="content"><br /> <span class="content"><font size="2">As its name implies the D945GCLF uses Intel&rsquo;s 945G chipset and correspondingly slow graphics. However if you don&rsquo;t need a ton of performance, Intel&rsquo;s desktop Atom solution is quite attractive as it sells for under $70 - CPU included (it&rsquo;s soldered onto the board).<br /> </font></span></span></span></span></p> <p><font size="2">With the quiet introduction of the dual-core Atom, Intel released the D945GCLF2. Nearly identical to its single core predecessor, the D945GCLF2 uses a larger heatsink on the CPU and a smaller one on the GMCH (although it is still cooled by a fan). The board also uses a 24-pin ATX power connector instead of a 20-pin connector, adds S-Video out and a Gigabit Ethernet port (the D945GCLF only has a 10/100 port).&nbsp;<br /> </font><span class="content"><br /> <font size="2">The biggest difference is obviously the inclusion of the Atom 330 processor, which is simply two Atom 230 die on a single package - both running at 1.6GHz.<br /> </font><span class="content"><font size="2">The faster CPU raises the total price up to $80, still very affordable.<br /> </font></span><span class="content"><br /> <font size="2">The Intel desktop Atom boards both work just fine but they&rsquo;re a bit boring. They are reminiscent of Intel&rsquo;s older motherboards, before it took competition from the tweakable Taiwanese motherboards seriously. </font></span><br /> </span></p> <p><font size="2">Zotac is the first manufacturer to produce a mini-ITX motherboard based on NVIDIA&rsquo;s Ion platform. Take Intel&rsquo;s Atom processor, pair it up with NVIDIA&rsquo;s Ion chipset (which is basically a GeForce 9300 chipset) and you have the Ion platform.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562">Read more...</a></font></p> <p><font size="2"></font></p> </span>