Posted 10/29/09 at 12:00:28 PM by Paul Lilly

More Ion-powered nettops are on the way, including three new models from Asus subsidiary ASRock. All three up the ante over the company's previous nettops with RAID support, eSATA, MCE remote (not on the lower end model), and a few other odds and ends. Blu-ray even makes a cameo in the higher-end unit.

The three new machines consist of the Ion 330Pro, 330HT, and 330HT-BD. Each one comes spec'd with an Intel Atom 330 dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, up to 4GB of DDR2-800 memory, Nvidia's Ion graphics, up to 1.5TB of total hard drive space, DVD or Blu-ray drive, 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit LAN, 802.11b/g/n WiFi (330Pro excluded), and the usual assortment of ports (HDMI, USB).

No word yet on price or a release date, nor is there any mention of what OS the machines will use (we're guessing Windows 7).

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Posted 09/16/09 at 08:29:29 AM by Paul Lilly

Some sources are saying that, at least internally, Intel is talking about shipping one million Lynnfield processors for desktops by the end of 2009. Should Intel meet its goal, it would put the pressure on motherboard makers to keep up.

Asus and Gigabyte are each on pace to ship 400,000 P55-based mobos by the end of the year, leaving 200,000 units for other manufacturers to pick up the slack. MSI, ECS, and ASRock are expected to ship around that many mobos, but all it takes is for one manufacturer to miss its goal for there to be more CPUs than there are mobos.

Asus looks to be the most active for the rest of the year. According to company VP Joe Hsieh, Asus' expects to ship between 5.5 to 6 million motherboards in the third quarter, 6 million in the fourth, and 22 million total. Going forward, Asus says P55-based boards will account for 10 percent of all shipments.

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Posted 06/17/09 at 02:45:34 PM by Paul Lilly

ASRock, a subsidiary of Asus which made a name for itself offering hybrid AGP/PCI-E motherboards in the socket 939 days without a performance penalty, plans to release a netbook built around Nvidia's Ion platform. Or as ASRock wants to call it, a Multibook.

The 12.1-inch Multibook G22 will come with Intel's dual-core Atom 330 processor (1.60GHz), 2GB of DDR2-667 memory, Nvidia Ion graphics, 320GB hard drive (with support for up to 500GB), a 10-in-1 card reader, 1.3MP webcam, DVD burner, 3 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, and a bunch of other connections.

At 3.3 pounds sans battery and over an inch thick, it might be tough to classify the G22 as a netbook, which seems to be just fine with ASRock.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 04/29/09 at 09:34:06 AM by Paul Lilly

Two new nettops based on Nvidia's Ion platform have been unveiled in Taipei this week, one by ASRock and the other by Pegatron Technology. ASRock's Ion 330 trades in the oft-used single-core Atom processor for a dual-core variant, the Atom 330 CPU (1.6GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 533MHz frontside bus). Not much else is known about the PC, other than it comes with an integrated DVD optical drive.

Taking up a slimmer form factor, Pegatron's Cape 7 comes encased in white plastic and has four USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, HDMI port, 3.5mm audio jack, and a power connector for an external power brick. It doesn't come with an optical drive, nor are there any details regarding the processor.

While these are some of the first dual-core Atom 330 based nettops to be spotted in the wild, they won't be the last. According to web rumblings, Nvidia expects around 40 Ion platforms to show up on the markt by the end of the year, some of which are bound to come with dual-core Atoms.

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Posted 11/14/08 at 01:20:56 PM by Paul Lilly

Power users have long dreamed of the day when hitting their PC's power button would result in an instantaneous boot. Technologies like SplashTop's Instant-On Linux-based OS have brought this concept closer to reality, but unlike the Instant-On OS, which works on a flash chip embedded on select motherboards giving users quick access to basic online tasks, Asrock's new Instant Boot feature promises super speedy boot times into Windows to the tune of just 3-4 seconds and has posted a video to prove it.

Impossible? Well, yes, but Asrock's creative approach puts a unique spin on shutting down and turning on your system. After installing the Instant Boot application on a compatible Asrock motherboard, shutting down your PC triggers a shutdown and reboot process that ultimately puts your system in a Hibernate or Standby state. The next time you hit the power button, you'll be up and running in as little as 3 seconds.

The obvious question is why not just put your system in Standby or Hibernate in the first place, and according to Asrock, Instant Boot's advantages include a less cluttered OS from a clean boot with no "accumulated garbage data," nor will you lose any data during a power outage. Whether or not Instant Boot becomes an instant hit is yet to be determined, but kudos to Asrock for thinking outside of the box.

Hit the jump and tell us what you think of this new technology.

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