14 DAY TRIAL // Zotac is touting its H55-ITX WiFi as the the ultimate LGA1156 mini-ITX platform. This small form-factor motherboard not only supports the computing prowess and integrated graphics of Intel's latest Core i3, i5 and i7 chips, but it also delivers high-quality audio and a PCI Express x 16 slot for end-users interested in more powerful graphics capabilities enabled by NVIDIA's CUDA and PhysX technologies.
“Since Intel announced its latest generation of Nehalem CPUs, there’s been great demand for a mini-ITX platform for the CPUs, unfortunately the power consumption and heat output of the original Intel Core i7 900 series would’ve been too high for such a small form factor,” Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International (MCO), Ltd., said. “With the latest generation of Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors, greater energy efficiency and improved thermal management, the ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi is able to deliver a mini-ITX platform capable of accommodating the new high-performance processors with no compromises.”
The ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi, when paired with the integrated graphics from the aforementioned chips, becomes a strong foundation for any home theater PC with Blu-ray capabilities. This fact is owed to the Intel Clear Video HD technology with AVC/H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2 hardware decode, which delivers clear and smooth HD video playback. The graphics processor can even decode Blu-ray picture-in-picture content thanks to the dual video decode technology, freeing up CPU processing power for other tasks. Not only that, but the xvYCC color and HD sharpness technology enhances color precision.
“Intel® Core processors with Intel® HD graphics and the ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi platform is perfect for home theater PCs no matter what type of video formats the user may watch,” Mr. Berger added. “In addition to top-notch HD video playback capabilities, Intel® Core™ processors with Intel® HD graphics and the ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi features technologies that enhance standard definition content such as enhanced DVD upscaling (8x8 polyphase), advanced de-interlacing, sharpness enhancement and noise reduction.”
Besides just the processing and video-decoding capabilities, the mini-ITX from Zotac supports the QuickPath technology. This feature enables a superior bandwidth and quicker memory access, substantially increasing the system performance. Of course, no home theater platform would be complete without high-quality audio output capabilities. The board is outfitted with 7.1-channel audio outputs and the H55-ITX WiFi can even send raw Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio tracks from high-definition Blu-ray movies to an audio receiver through the HDMI connection.
Additional specifications of the motherboard include an eSATA port and six SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, ten USB ports on the back panel (with four more via the pin header), digital optical S/PDIF output and an integrated 802.11n WiFi with dual-stream technology (wireless network traffic of up to 300Mb/s). Finally, as already mentioned, the PCI Express x 16 will allow end-users to employ an NVIDIA CUDA-based graphics card for increased graphics capabilities.
“Combining the ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi with a ZOTAC GeForce series graphics card, users can have the best performance available from the processor and graphics processor that’ll take on anything you can throw at it including the most demanding games, applications and high-definition video playback,” Mr. Berger said.
Unfortunately, the press release did not give out any information concerning the availability or the price of the product.