Zotac is upping the ante when it comes to compact PCs and mini-ITX (lower-cost) motherboards by introducing a product line that combines Intel CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage) processors and Nvidia's ION platform.
Zotac's CULVION (unofficial name) offering consists of the ZBOX HD-NS22 and HD-ND21 barebones, and the ION-ITX N and ION-ITX P mini-ITX motherboards.
The ZBOX HD-NS22 ($270) and HD-ND21 ($200) are powered by the Celeron SU2300 (1.2 GHz dual-core) and Celeron 743 (1.3 GHz single-core) processors, respectively, and include ION graphics, two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, place for one 2.5-inch drive, a 6-in-1 card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, an eSATA port and DVI, HDMI outputs.
As for the ION-ITX N ($130) and ION-ITX P ($170) boards, they pack the Celeron 743 and Celeron SU2300 chips, respectively, and have ION integrated graphics, a PCI-Express x16 slot, two DDR3 DIMM slots, one eSATA and three SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio and D-Sub, DVI, plus HDMI outputs.