Inno3D ION
2. The mainboard
The Inno3D ION motherboard has the typical dimensions of the miniATX category. As you can see in the picture below, a big passive heatsink covers the ION chipset in order to keep it cool. Nvidia's ION platform produces some extra heat as it is widely known.
The I/O panel offers 6x USB ports, 1x e-SATA port, 1x PS/2 keyboard port, 2 Digital S/PDIF outputs (1 optical, 1 coaxial), HDMI-DVI/D-VGA outputs, 1x GBit LAN solution, HD Audio Port (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in), 1x WiFi antenna connector and 1x DC power jack.
Not much to say about the e bottom side of the board as you can see below:
The motherboard can accept up to 8GB/667/800MHz of memory, installed to the dual 240 pin DDR2 DIMM slots - enough to cover all your daily needs. A power jack is also available on the motherboard and allows you to power power up your SATA devices. And yes, this motherboard comes with a built-in power supply unit as we will see later:.
On the other side there are three SATA 2 connectors on board as well as a mini PCI-e WiFi module with a pre-installed cable for an external antenna, which is bundled with the Inno3D ION product. The Wifi module has been designed by AzureWave AR5891 (Atheros AR928x) and conforms to the 802.11b/g/n specifications. Keep in mind that you can also Wifi 802.11n by using another external antenna.
As we mentioned earlier, the Inno3D ION 'iChiLL edition' is different than a standard ION platform. As you can see in the two pictures below, the standard ION mainboard lacks a 24pin power adapter, an external PCI slot, it has a single SATA slot and a two smaller heatsinks: