Performance

Before we dive into the performance benchmarks, I had to come up with a reasonable set of tests to highlight the main selling points of such a system. Due to the growing variation of ITX systems, it is interesting to see how each of them performs in regards to power consumption, CPU utilization, gaming and noise level.

Power Consumption

The power level during standby is very low, just as expected. In Idle the unit is extremely efficient only drawing slightly over 14W. Media Players like the Patriot Box Office Core draw a solid 11W, so a mere 3W more for a full blown system is a good upgrade.


Under load the NT-A3500 also tops our charts, making it the most efficient Nettop to date. Seems like Foxconn is learning by doing, as the NT-330I draws more power.

CPU Utilizaton & Temperatures

The new Fusion setup is able to easily push 1080p content (Step into Liquid WMV HD 1080p Trailer) to you HDTV. There is plenty of power left, as only 21% of the CPU are used. So you should be able to do a bit of multitasking with lightweight applications. Usually we also show you some temperature numbers here, but I was unable to locate s sensor within the NT-A3500. None of the software applications I have tried, showed anything and there was no info in the BIOS either.

3DMark06

The AMD Radeon HD 6310 seems to best the last generation ION platfoms, but the GT216 of the ION 2 setup still takes the crown. Nevertheless, you should be able to do some casual gaming on the NT-A3500.

PCMark 7

Noise Level

In terms of noise, Foxconn has chosen equal dimensions of the NT-330I along with the same thermal setup, but has managed to quieten things down considerably. While I am sure, one could induce a scenario to get the fan spinning at full force and thus making the NT-A3500 as loud as the ION variant, none of the applications in this review resulted in such.