ASUS Gives HTPCs the Atom, the ION and USB 3.0

Home-Theater personal computers have become a very widespread means of enabling high-quality multimedia at home, thanks to their ability to fit into any environment and, of course, their compactness. Knowing this, various hardware makers periodically unleash HTPC-aimed motherboards and, more importantly, video cards. ASUS, on the other hand, appears to be looking for a so-called all-in-one solution. As such, it put together a fairly interesting mini-ITX platform that somehow merges the benefits of three of the most popular technological releases of the past several months.

The product goes by the name of ASUS AT5IONT-I and is a small form factor mainboard equipped with an integrated Intel Atom D525 dual-core central processing unit. This CPU has a clock frequency of 1.8 GHz. The other major asset of the platform is the NVIDIA ION graphics processing unit, which has 512MB of dedicated memory and supports CUDA technology, plus DVI with maximum resolution up to 1920 x 1200 x 32 Bppx (refresh rate of 60Hz) and HDMI with max resolution of up to 1920 x 1080 x 32 Bppx 60Hz.

The compact board features a pair of SATA 3.0 Gbps connectors, for storage devices, as well as two DDR3-800 So-DIMM slots. A PCI Express x4 slot is also present, as is Gigabit Ethernet and eSATA connectivity. Furthermore, the board comes with WiFi 802.11n on board, 5.1 channel audio and the Express Gate instant-on OS, which makes booting the Windows operating system no longer absolutely necessary. Finally, ASUS threw in a pair of USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 connectors, as well as a passive cooler with three heatpipes.

European retailers are already listing the ASUS AT5IONT-I with a price tag of 141 Euro. Should they be interested in buying one, interested consumers can drop by the official product page to consult the complete list of features.