C2N7A-I. Quite a complex model number, but that’s ASUS for you.

Anyway, there’s been a lot of buzz lately about NVIDIA Ion and Intel Atom-based small-form-factor PCs. I have personally tested out some Atom-based netbooks and nettops (Acer Aspire One, Asus Eeetop, Toshiba NB200) and honestly, the performance is not too hot. They are really intended for some web browsing and e-mail, and the occasional YouTube video.

The answer to that seems to be ASUS’ C2N7A-I. It combines an Intel Celeron 220 processor with NVIDIA’s ION chipset and GeForce graphics. Since the Celeron 220 is essentially a Core 2 solo with reduced cache and clock speed, it should totally pwn offer much greater performance than the Atom 330 + ION combo.

I haven’t tested this myself, but I recently built a SFF ITX desktop to use as an HTPC. I found the ASUS ITX-220 board at SwiftGamers for under $80. It includes the Celeron 220 with an Intel 945G chipset. So far I’m quite happy with the system; the real weak point with the ITX-220 is the lack of HDMI or DVI out (this is not an issue with the ION based C2N7A-I). It runs Ubuntu 9.04, Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.5 quite happily and can handle 720p H.264 video smoothly.

With that experience, I expect the C2N7A-I to be quite a good performer for an ITX-based PC. Now to find one for sale somewhere…

via Yersys Technology Blog: Asus C2N7A-I spotted, pairs Celeron 220 with NVIDIA Ion chipset.