Testing

Test Rig

CPU: Onboard AMD Turion
GPU: Onboard ATI HD 4200
RAM: Corsair Dominator 4GB 1600MHZ
HDD: Maxtor DiamondMax 21 80GB
OS: Windos 7 x64

Methodology

While usually we wouldn’t do any synthetic motherboard testing as in reality, everything with the same chipset is about the same. However, since this one is designed to be part of an HTPC, it’s important to know that it can handle basic video and system tasks.

With that in mind I ran it through several synthetic benchmarks and a couple of basic gameplay tests to see if it was playable. The tests run were:

PCMark Vantage
Sisoft Sandra
SuperPi Mod 1.5

I also tried a couple of games to see if they were playable.

Results

PCmark Vantage

For this test I was able to use some results we had from our previously reviewed Sapphire Mini PC.

While the memory is certainly a lot more powerful and plentiful than that found in the tiny Sapphire mini PC, it’s good to see the Zotac ITX with Turion CPU beat out the Atom based mini.

Super Pi Mod 1.5

1M: 49.530 seconds
32M: 44 mins and 46.934 seconds

Sandra

For this benchmark I ran the CPU arithmetic and video GPU performance tests.

CPU Arithmatic

Aggregate Arithmatic: 9.52 GOPS
Drhystone ALU: 105. GIPS
Whetstons: 8.65 GLOPS

GPU

Aggregate Shader: 2.69 MPix/s
Native Float Shaders: 7.48 MPix/s
Emulated Double Shaders: 986Pix/s

Minecraft

Minecraft testing went very well indeed. For such a small form factor with onboard graphics and a built in CPU, it had no trouble rendering the world at reasonable settings. Admittedly this is not the toughest of games to run by any stretch, but the draw distance can occasionally cause issues. However, this setup had no such qualms, and once the little bit of stutter as the world builds finished up, everything else ran very smoothly.

HD Video

Full 1080p video was a breeze for the onboard 4200 chip, easily rendering it with the audio with a hint of stuttering.

Cost

The Zotac M880G board will run you between £160 and £180 depending on where you shop which does seem like quite a lot. However, a small board like this, with USB 3.0, HDMI, built in CPU and dual wireless connectivity; not bad really.