Acer's Nvidia Ion Revo Goes Dual-core Atom

Acer was the first out the gate with an Nvidia Ion-based nettop, which made for a good, small, low power home theatre PC. It had HDMI, flash memory card readers, and of course the ever important GeForce 9400M, but it was a bit lacking in the CPU department.

While all Nvidia Ion platforms lean on the Intel Atom CPU, the original Acer Aspire Revo packed only a single core chip. While such a CPU choice could make sense for a netbook with its smaller thermal envelope, for a nettop we expect the beefier, dual-core Atom.

Acer seems to be making good on our expectations with its upcoming Aspire Revo 3600, which will pack the dual-core Intel Atom 330 on the Nvidia Ion chipset capable of supporting 4 GB of DDR2 RAM.

Acer won't be the only one with an Atom 330-based Nvida Ion nettop, however, as Asus revealed earlier this week its own EeeBox featuring very similar specifications.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • And the dual-core Atom's have hyperthreading, so it's like having a quad-core.

    /sarcasm


    I bet an Athlon II stuck at 800mhz speed-stepping would stomp it into the ground while using the same or less electricity.
    Reply
  • tektek
    I might be really interested in this.. space is a factor.. add performance in it.. and its a match made in heaven.. now only if the demonic price devils stay away from overpricing these things... then its a home run!
    Reply
  • tpi2007
    This is really the starting point for me in this department. Good enough cpu for most common tasks + good enough gpu for some light gaming and video decoding + small form factor + small electricity bill + silence. At an affordable price. What more could you ask for ?

    This is the perfect computer for your mom; a child's room; the kitchen, the basement, etc, especially if you have them connected to a network. That way you can use the server's dvd drive to install programs, which is the only limitation it has.
    Reply
  • hillarymakesmecry
    If this is $250 or less I'll buy one.
    Reply
  • Titanius
    This isn't new...

    http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41924&vpn=PT.SCA0X.073&manufacture=Acer&promoid=1058
    Reply
  • Great to act as file server, router, and firewall!
    Also great for skype phone.
    Reply
  • tacoslave
    if only they would include an ONBOARD dvd drive!
    Reply
  • Who voted down tacoslave? Creating a drive bay for a laptop optical drive would be brilliant, rather than some clunky piece o' crap external drive. Shame on you.
    Reply