Zotac Announces GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi (GF9300-I-E) LGA-775 Motherboard

[btarunr]

ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi (GF9300-I-E) delivers three SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5, wake on USB support, greater range of overclocking options and enhancements to the GeForce 9300 graphics processor.

“ZOTAC was the world’s first manufacturer to provide users with high-performance mini-ITX platforms with PCI Express 2.0 x16 expansion that made no compromises for performance. Our latest ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi, GF9300-I-E, takes our award winning formula of combining performance with a small form factor and supercharges it to make the world’s fastest mini-ITX platform available,” said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International.



Whether you want to build a system that dominates performance charts or consumes minimal amounts of power, the ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi is capable of serving both requirements with new overclocking options. New overclocking options on the ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi enable voltage adjustments for CPU, chipset and memory.

The range of voltage options allow for overvolting to increase overclocking capabilities or undervolting for greater energy-efficiency. The tweaked and tuned ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi (GF9300-I-E) is designed to accommodate large heat sinks with ease for improved compatibility with high-performance heat sinks for superior cooling capabilities.

The integrated GeForce 9300 graphics processor receives enhancements that take the energy-efficient graphics processor to greater heights of performance. The performance enhancements begin with a 22-percent increase in the engine clock and followed with a 14-percent increase in shader clock for increased performance in the latest DirectX 10, DirectCompute, OpenGL 3.2 and NVIDIA CUDA games and applications.

“Tweaking graphics processors to extract every ounce performance possible is what we do best at ZOTAC. With our new GeForce 9300-ITX WiFI, we’re extending the extensive tweaking and tuning to our mini-ITX platforms,” Mr. Berger added.

The enhanced ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi receives a new dual-link DVI output that supports monitors with resolutions up to 2560x1600. With the new dual-link DVI output, users can experience extreme HD resolutions when using the integrated GeForce 9300 graphics processor.

It’s time to play with the new tweaked and tuned ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi.

General details

• New tweaked and tuned ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi (GF9300-I-E)
• Award winning ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi gets enhanced
• NVIDIA GeForce 9300 chipset
  o 16 CUDA processors
  o GPU clock: 580 MHz
  o Shader clock: 1400 MHz
• Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Extreme, Pentium, Celeron compatible
• LGA775 socket
• Up to 1333 MHz front-side bus
• PCI Express 2.0 x16 expansion
• Dual-link DVI output (up to 2560x1600)
• Enhanced overclocking options
  o CPU voltage: [-0.1-volts up to +0.3-volts]
  o Chipset voltage: [1.10-volts up to 1.25-volts]
  o Memory voltage: [1.80-volts up to 2.10-volts]
• 3 SATA 3.0 Gb/s + 1 eSATA w/RAID 0, 1, 0+1 & 5 support
• Wake-on USB support
• Polymer capacitors
• Internal S/PDIF audio output header
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Onboard 802.11b/g WiFi
• NVIDIA CUDA technology
• NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology
• Microsoft DirectX 10 with Shader Model 4.0 compatible
• OpenGL 3.2 compatible
• Mini-ITX form factor

[Roph]

Good lord. Slap an E7x00 in there and a passive 4670, 4GB memory and a nice small case and you have yourself a modern day gamecube At first I figured Zotac wouldn't be anything special seeing as they're just a Sapphire spinoff for Nvidia, but they continue to impress me.

[DaJMasta]

Really doesn't differ much from the previous ITX WiFi version. Really minor changes from what I can tell.... like in line with the board revisions of the older version.



I wonder if they'll release a broken BIOS for this one too.... since there's no floppy drive and no support for USB bios recovery.


When it does work though, it's predecessor is about as high end as mini itx gets and it does perform well. The 9300 integrated is on par with a discrete HD 2400 Pro.

[BTime]

I believe the big difference is this that this board has a few more connectors on the board. Didn't the former board only have 2 SATA ports? It's hard to see from this picture, but there might be 3 onboard USB connectors which would be fantastic.

[DaJMasta]

Originally Posted by BTime

I believe the big difference is this that this board has a few more connectors on the board. Didn't the former board only have 2 SATA ports? It's hard to see from this picture, but there might be 3 onboard USB connectors which would be fantastic.

That's right, one more SATA port. Not sure why 3x internal USB headers would be so valuable, you still get 2 on the front panel and 6 in the rear if you use the WiFi board.... which is plenty for me.

The dual link DVI they're advertising was added with an earlier board revision of the previous one. The heatsink's also a different color... maybe a little smaller too (which is probably a good thing, but the previous one ran hot if the CPU fan didn't provide much air).


Still seems only like minor incremental improvements... still a good product I suppose, but I'd like to see more.

[BTime]

3x onboard USB ports would be nice as many of our Chassis require 2x of them for the front panel hookups. An extra port would be great for the addition of an internal card reader or other such device.

[AsphyxiA]

plenty of room for random crap you may need, especially in a car pc application.

[Mussels]

did they update the GPU?

was the old one a 9300 as well, or a different model?

i havent been keeping a close enough eye on these boards

[DaJMasta]

Originally Posted by BTime

3x onboard USB ports would be nice as many of our Chassis require 2x of them for the front panel hookups. An extra port would be great for the addition of an internal card reader or other such device.

Even your Mini ITX chassis? Regardless, my original revision 01 PCB for the ITX WiFi also has 3 USB headers, though it only has 2 internal SATA II ports and does not support dual link DVI (though can hit the same resolutions through HDMI if I'm correct).


Yes, the older version had the same GPU/northbridge. Also looking through the bios you get a few differences, the CPU and memory can now be lowered in voltage, my board only offers +.3V on the CPU (no undervolt options) and only down to 1.9V on the memory. The GPU is clocked much higher in the new version though, the old version is 450/1200, so it sounds like the northbridge may have gotten a die shrink. That would explain the higher clocks and smaller heatsink without much of a layout change.

[roast]

Gotta get myself one of these!!

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by DaJMasta

Really doesn't differ much from the previous ITX WiFi version. Really minor changes from what I can tell.... like in line with the board revisions of the older version.



I wonder if they'll release a broken BIOS for this one too.... since there's no floppy drive and no support for USB bios recovery.


When it does work though, it's predecessor is about as high end as mini itx gets and it does perform well. The 9300 integrated is on par with a discrete HD 2400 Pro.

How many people are putting floppies in their Mini-ITX builds? If you require a floppy for something, such as installing RAID drivers with XP(that really the only thing I can think of), use a USB floppy.

Originally Posted by BTime

I believe the big difference is this that this board has a few more connectors on the board. Didn't the former board only have 2 SATA ports? It's hard to see from this picture, but there might be 3 onboard USB connectors which would be fantastic.

Originally Posted by DaJMasta

That's right, one more SATA port. Not sure why 3x internal USB headers would be so valuable, you still get 2 on the front panel and 6 in the rear if you use the WiFi board.... which is plenty for me.

The dual link DVI they're advertising was added with an earlier board revision of the previous one. The heatsink's also a different color... maybe a little smaller too (which is probably a good thing, but the previous one ran hot if the CPU fan didn't provide much air).


Still seems only like minor incremental improvements... still a good product I suppose, but I'd like to see more.

There are no extra SATA ports, the previous board(GF9300-G-E) had 3 also. It seems to me the two boards are identical. The difference, from what I'm reading, is the overclocked onboard GPU, and more voltage control options in the BIOS. Also, the Dual-Link DVI is new, at least sort of. It might have been on the previous boards, but the previous boards could only support up to 1920x1440. Good enough for HD content, but not for larger displays that really used Dual-Link. The model supports 2560x1600, probably achieve by increasing the DAC from 300MHz to 400MHz.

Originally Posted by Mussels

did they update the GPU?

was the old one a 9300 as well, or a different model?

i havent been keeping a close enough eye on these boards

They've been 9300s.

[Mussels]

newtekie1: he refers to floppies as a way to recover from a bad BIOS flash. re-read that part of his post in that light, and you'll see what he's getting at.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Mussels

newtekie1: he refers to floppies as a way to recover from a bad BIOS flash. re-read that part of his post in that light, and you'll see what he's getting at.

I don't read it that way.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I don't read it that way.

"I wonder if they'll release a broken BIOS for this one too.... since there's no floppy drive and no support for USB bios recovery."


How can that be read any other way?

I wonder if they'll release a broken bios for this (infers that they have for the previous boards), since theres no floppy drive and no support for USB bios recovery (the two obvious methods for bad BIOS flash recovery)

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Mussels

"I wonder if they'll release a broken BIOS for this one too.... since there's no floppy drive and no support for USB bios recovery."


How can that be read any other way?

No coffee...now it makes sense...

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

No coffee...now it makes sense...

good excuse

[DaJMasta]

It looks like the various letters used could be an indicator of the features. The original was the D-E (and it has 2 internal SATA ports, this is the version i've got). The G-E seems to have 3 SATA connectors and is really just the later board revision (probably 03 and 04)... which also, as quoted from the manual, support dual link DVI.

Support Dual link DVI,resolutions up to 2560x1600 (PCB Ver:03,04)

So coffee or not, the 9300 ITX WiFi D-E (revision 01) I've got sitting next to me with two internal SATA ports doesn't lie


Now they've reached I-E and have a faster GPU too.... I still think it's die shrink or binning for lower voltage related because mine runs pretty hot at the lower clocks....

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by DaJMasta

It looks like the various letters used could be an indicator of the features. The original was the D-E (and it has 2 internal SATA ports, this is the version i've got). The G-E seems to have 3 SATA connectors and is really just the later board revision (probably 03 and 04)... which also, as quoted from the manual, support dual link DVI.




So coffee or not, the 9300 ITX WiFi D-E (revision 01) I've got sitting next to me with two internal SATA ports doesn't lie


Now they've reached I-E and have a faster GPU too.... I still think it's die shrink or binning for lower voltage related because mine runs pretty hot at the lower clocks....

Ah, your right, I stopped reading at the 300MHz DAC line in the manual stating that the board supports displays up to 1920x1440. Of course my brain completely skipped the word "analog"...

I really shouldn't read manuals or post before my first cup of coffee...