A Closer Look

ASRock further protects the ION 330HT-BD with plastic film on all metal sides. The chassis construction is excellent and should be well suited for placement within your home theater.


The entire front of the chassis is made of plastic with a piano finish. I am sad to see the omission of any front connectivity. This is the second ITX bases chassis we have seen, that lacks such a feature. Considering that one is bound to connect a USB drive or external hard drive to the HTPC from time to time, this does not make any sense to the end user.

ASRock has stuffed all the connectors in the rear of the HTPC. They went all out here with:

• Analog audio
• SPDIF audio
• 6x USB 2.0
• Gigabit Ethernet
• HDMI
• VGA
• eSATA

Nothing out of the ordinary here - mostly. First off, the ION 330HT-BD features WiFi, but the antenna is built into the device, so there is nothing visible from the outside. Secondly, there is an eSATAp port. This combines the usual benefits of eSATA and adds an integrated power connection. This means that you may connect flash drives or external components directly to the PC without the need for a power supply. Pretty cool feature - if you can get your hands on one of these drives.


To gain access to the interior, simply remove the two screws holding the top cover in place. As you can see, the BD-ROM covers most of the mainboard. That shows the compact dimensions of the ION 330HT-BD very nicely. It may be thicker and bulkier than the Zotac MAG ION, but has a very similar footprint and brings an optical drive along for the ride. You can easily pull out the drives after removing a few screws. There are no warranty seals or other warnings anywhere, so it seems that you are free to dig into the HTPC.


The metal tray holds a Sony BC-5500S, which is actually not only a BluRay-ROM, but also a DVD-R/W unit. Buying the drive by itself will set you back at least 135 €, so the ION 330HT-BD by itself clocks in at around 270 €. The hard drive is a Seagate Momentus SATA II drive with 320 GB.


The mainboard utilizes a blue PCB and does feature a proprietary power plug to power two SATA devices right in-between the two red connectors. This is necessary as the electronic to convert the power has also been placed directly on the mainboard instead of any expansion slots. Another interesting IC is the Nuvoton NCT6775F, which is a "Super I/O for Desktop 6 Server" according to the Nuvoton website

ASRock has placed two aluminum heatsinks on the board. One covers the Atom 330 dual-core, while the other dissipates heat for the NVIDA ION chipset. The latter one is bigger and requires a larger heatsink. I am a bit worried about the two fans as both are very small and such units tend to be noisy.


Two Elixir DDR2 memory modules add up to 2 GB of RAM. I would have liked to see a single 2GB stick instead, so that one slot would remain free for further expandability, but considering the fact that one is even able to reach the modules without having to void the warranty or break open the case in an unnatural manner is a big plus. The Atheros b/g/n wireless card is plugged into the one PCI-E slot found on the board. That should leave you with the option to place an SSD in there instead.