Zotac Almost Squeezes Kitchen Sink into New Fusion ITX Motherboard

Posted 04/29/2011 at 8:07am | by Paul Lilly

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You've heard that big things come in small packages, and after peering over the spec sheet for Zotac's new Fusion ITX Wi-Fi A-series motherboard, we have no reason to doubt the wisdom in that statement. This also happens to be Zotac's first Fusion motherboard, so perhaps the company was looking to make a statement. Mission accomplished.

Let's start with the basics. The Fusion-ITX Wi-Fi A-series mainboard features the AMD E-350 APU platform, which entails a 1.6GHz processor with integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics. Standard stuff so far.

But what isn't so vanilla is the quantity and quality of components and features Zotac managed to stuff into an ITX package. For starters, Zotac chose all solid caps, a feature typically reserved for higher end boards. Passive cooling is part of the package, and so is wireless connectivity (two Wi-Fi antennas included), though we've only begun to scratch the surface.

Still frustratingly absent on many full-sized motherboards, the Fusion ITX Wi-Fi A-series comes with a pair of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports, with the option to hook up two more (via header) for a total of four. These are flanked by four USB 2.0 ports (plus two more via header), HD audio port, S/PDIF outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, front panel audio header, serial COM header, a pair of fan headers, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, and VGA (with included DVI-to-VGA adapter).

You'll also find four SATA 6Gbps ports, an eSATA 3Gbps port, two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots with support for up to 8GB for DDR3-1066 memory, a PCI-E x4 slot, and mini PCI-E (occupied by the Wi-Fi module).

"We carefully designed our Zotac Fusion-ITX Wi-Fi A-series to integrated as many user-requested features as possible. The result is a mini-ITX platform that offers best-in-class performance, energy efficiency, features, and expansion while only relying on passive-cooling for a silent computing experience," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, Zotac International.

Like we said, mission accomplished.

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Image Credit: Zotac