ASRock NetTop packs a punch!

On the bench today we have an ASRock NetTop, I have the ION 330 BD model.

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Intel^® Atom™ 330 (Dual-Core CPU)

NVIDIA^® ION™ graphics processor

BD combo

After disappointing results with a Zotac ION motherboard I had high hopes for this little machine and I have to say it seems to be spot on. I gave it a fairly quick grilling running Windows 7 RTM with My Movies 3.0 PR11, PowerDVD9 Build 2201 with the Shark007 Seven Codec pack.

Supports 1080P video playback and it played my Blu-ray rips and MKV’s in Windows 7 Media Center / PowerDVD 9 without even breaking a sweat, the CPU usage always remained low around 10% peaking at maybe 17%

ASRock NetTop next to an Acer One NetBook.

This unit is not fan less but is pretty quiet and would be ideal for bedroom usage. Sporting Digital Optical (SPDIF), Analog audio jacks x3, Gigabit NIC, USB 2.0 X6, HDMI, VGA.

You can see just how small the NetTop is when compared to the diNovo Mini keyboard from Logitech.

I need to do some more testing but at first look this little NetTop is the small form factor Media Center PC we have been waiting for, overall I’m very impressed with it so far.