I'm thinking of getting the ASRock ION 330 (without the Bluray version) and using as my main rig since my more powerful rig is like almost 10x the wattage and producing great amount of heat that is driving my room up to 30c during the summertime. Another cool thing is that I can move this little sucker around the house and use it as an entertaining unit for the TV. Anyone own one of these? From what I've read so far it's pretty decent. I'm planning on getting a 30gb SSD and installing Ubuntu on it. I'm also wondering if anyone who's been using Ubuntu would recommend 32bit or 64bit for this system? Any good Ubuntu sites?
Ugh! I guessed I might have to hold out on that. There's already a ASRock Core 100HT series that will be coming out. The specs look pretty impressive! USB 3! Hopefully it's around $600. http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overview.asp?Model=Core 100HT <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9JImyMNHbFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9JImyMNHbFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
I got one of the first few that came out last year, for around 330. I installed ubuntu on it but never really liked it, used XBMC live to stream my hd content, but I installed windows 7 and I'm happy, it runs well, quiet, and looks good. Feel like it was built right. Now that XBMC is starting to support DXVA in windows, the ion is starting to shine.
Interesting. I've taken a look at Ubuntu with XBMC and their installation for the Asrock and it's damn complicated if you want to get it perfectly right. The only reason I didn't want to install Windows 7 because it might be too sluggish for this little thing but it'll make my life easy as hell with the installations and drivers.
It runs Windows 7 nicely, even in aero mode. I tried installing XBMC in ubuntu but gave up. I'm really happy with windows 7 and XBMC i can play all my 1080p content smoothly
Ok, totally bad idea installing Ubuntu 10.04. Can't even figure out how to install a freaking video driver after going to like 100 tutorial sites. It's like they all have a different ways of installing a simple driver. How are Flash HD contents on YouTube running with the Asrock Ion 330? Couldn't get Ubuntu to run 720 properly. Oh well, I'm going to install Windows 7 64bit.
With flash 10.1 youtube hd videos in 720 play smooth at fullscreen, but personally for me 1080 videos stutter a bit at full screen but play fine in the smaller window. with the right codecs, this thing is awesome, I'm sure you'll be happy with windows.
