ASUS AT3N7A-I ITX nVidia ION Intel Atom Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
948 words · ~4 min read
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So, this is a pretty cool product. Today, we're going to be having a look at a very, very small motherboard. This
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is an ASUS AT3N7A-I.
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And what it is is, well, why don't we just start by reading off the front of
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the box. It is Windows 7 ready. It features the Intel Atom processor, and
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it has the NVIDIA ION chipset. So, that means that it has full HD 1080p support,
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which is accelerated by the ION chipset because the Atom is not powerful enough
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for that. It also features Bluetooth. something about perfectly suit your
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digital lifestyle. And let's see, this features ah it has the ion 330. So this
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is the dual core uh atom. Sorry, ion 330. It is the dual core atom, which is
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the one that it seems most people are more interested in. So the first thing
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we find inside is a motherboard user guide with the ion support DVD rev
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whatever uh DVD inside. Uh don't use that. Download the latest drivers and
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utilities off asuse.com. Here is the IO
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shield and there's a funny label here. So that's the Bluetooth uh logo right
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there. So we'll see exactly how they've gone and implemented Bluetooth on this
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particular motherboard. It includes two SATA cables and that is pretty much it.
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Now this is one tiny board. I love ITX
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boards. I think they're just hilarious, you know, cuz they're so small and yet
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they feature, you know, really most of the same functionality of a larger PC.
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Okay, so here's what we've got. Why don't we actually start with just the
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basic feature set? So, we've got support
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for DDR2 RAM. Okay. And you can support
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I believe it's up to I better make sure
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before I say anything stupid, but I believe it should support up to 4 gigs
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of RAM. Okay. Don't quote me on that one. I think it's up to 4 gigs of RAM.
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Okay. And then we've got a couple of fan headers uh spread out around the board.
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We've got one, two, three, including the one that the little tiny CPU fan is
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attached to. So, you can see this probably doesn't give off a whole lot of heat. Our power connectors are in their
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ideal locations with the four pin up at the top left. You definitely don't need
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an 8 pin for this guy and then with a 24
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pin over over here on the right hand edge. In terms of SATA connectors, now
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this is something I'm a little bit disappointed in. It's only three SATA
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connectors. So, they're using one of the SATA um one of the SATA connections from
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the chipset for ESATA, but I'd really like to see more ITX boards with between
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four and six connectors because otherwise they'd be great for use as
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like a home server or as a storage server because they don't use up a whole
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lot of power and they're plenty fast enough for just storing data on them.
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You've got one PCI slot, so that allows you to add whatever it is you need one
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of. And you have one USB header here. So, that would be for your front USB on
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your case or for a card reader or for whatever else. Okay. One one little
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little niggle I've got here is I hate little tiny fans. I would have rather
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they put a bigger heat sink on it or put like a wider heat sink on it so that
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they could put a larger fan because these little fans tend to be the first
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thing that dies on anything that they're attached to. So, let's have a look at
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the back of the board. So, you got kind of a black brown sort of PCB. You can
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see almost all of the traces lead back to that chipset right there, which is
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the Atom and the Wait, what? Hold on a
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minute. Just a moment. Huh. No, I think
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the Atom's actually here. I believe that's actually the North Bridge,
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although I'm just guessing right now. So, why don't we just move on? Yeah,
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there we go. Okay, so let's have a look at the IO on the back. So, we start with
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a standard PS2 keyboard port. Then we have eight USB ports. And given that
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something like this would typically be deployed in somewhere where you're uh
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you're not going to be plugging in a whole lot to the front. You're just
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going to put it somewhere, tuck it away, lots of USB ports is very optimal. We've
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got an HDMI port. Then we have two digital audio ports which makes it very
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well suited for something like uh like a home theater sort of box where all
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you're really doing is playing back media. You got VGA just to complete the
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uh the output options. Right there you have one ESATA. This is your Bluetooth
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adapter, which I believe is probably just plugged into Okay, it wouldn't
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surprise me if this is just something that's plugged into like a USB port or
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something. Or maybe it's Oh, you know what? I bet it's running off what would
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have been your other USB header. Okay, so then we've got gigabit Ethernet and
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7.1 audio. Thank you for checking out my quick unboxing of the AT3N7A-I.