Three Slim Atom/Ion 2-Based Nettop PCs Compared

By Don Woligroski
published

We put Giada’s Slim-N20, Jetway’s Mini-TOP, and Zotac’s ZBOX to the test. Does Intel's Atom D500-series offer smooth performance in these nettops when it's paired with Nvidia’s ION 2 graphics, or does the platform fall short of entertainment excellence?

Networking Benchmarks

All of these nettops come equipped with gigabit Ethernet controllers and WiFi capabilities, so let’s see how much bandwidth we can squeeze out of them. Remember, more bandwidth is better.

Here, gigabit performance is similar, likely as a result of a bottleneck not associated with the networking throughput. But the two Atom nettops with antennas integrated in their cases suffer from relatively low performance, especially the Giada Slim-N20

Unlike bandwidth, when it comes to latency, less is better. In this case, the ASRock Core 100HT-BD leads the LAN benchmarks with the Atom-equipped nettops close behind. For wireless performance, these products are all in the same playing field, except the Giada Slim-N20, an option that is somewhat less responsive here.

Don Woligroski
26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • reprotected
    Nettops fail.
    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... it may be a good mac mini hackentosch...
    Reply
  • hmp_goose
    Retest the N20's playback with a RAM drive for the temp files; I suspect the drive system is the issue . . .
    Reply
  • dEAne
    Overall it is good. The benchmark is fair enough - And it is presentable too.
    Reply
  • cushgod
    SHould test results with a SSD complared to a "mechanical" HDD to see how much that can help an Atom move along :)
    Reply
  • fullcircle_bflo
    So if I wanted a computer simply to stream internet videos to a television via HDMI(such as Hulu or CBS website), would any of these be a good candidate?
    Reply
  • kriminal
    ^^ guess so.. fullcircle
    Reply
  • mchuf
    For $150 - $200, you can buy a used Pentium D or C2D pc off of craigslist. Add a $50 HD5450 gpu and a $40 wireless KB/M combo and your all set. That would be a more capable box than one of these things and at a lower price (even if you upgrade to Win 7 HP). Hell, even a used Mac Mini (old model) might be a more cost effective solution. Unless you're extremely tight for space, I don't see the appeal for an overpriced "net" device.
    Reply
  • nonameworks
    ^^ Only if you ignore the cost of electricity
    Reply
  • tipoo
    Zino HD review, please! At close to the cost of many of these nettops, it blows them away in performance and is almost as small and consumes almost as little power.
    Reply