Zotac has been packing fully capable pcs in tiny packages for years now, and this time they’ve outdone themselves  making VD01 series nettops.   This series ditches more well known solutions from Intel and AMD for one from chip maker VIA.   The exact chip is the Nano X2 U4025 CPU with its Chrome9 media processor.

Inside is room for a 2.5-inch HDD and a single DDR3 slot, but Zotac also makes a version that has pre-populated those slots  with a 320GB disk and 2GB RAM called the Plus model.   Connections on the case consist of USB 3.0, 2.0, eSATA, Ethernet and HDMI ports while inside are both Bluetooth 3.0 and 802.11n radios. There’s even an IR receiver and bundled remote to make this truly living room friendly.

You can check out the full PR after the break.

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Intel’s next-gen Cedar Trail processors  have finally arrived, but not exactly as expected. The Cedar Trail family is arriving in two waves, with Intel first rolling out the nettop-oriented Atom D2500 and D2700 models, while the N2600 and N2800 nettop chips are expected later on.

The new chips use a  32nm process technology (there are the first 32nm Atoms), the 1.86 GHz D2500 and 2.13 GHz D2700 feature two x86 cores, 4 threads, a built-in DDR3 memory controller, 1MB of L2 cache, DirectX 10.1-supporting integrated graphics, and a TDP of 10W. The Atom D2500 costs $42, while the Atom D2700 is priced at $52 (prices are for 1,000-unit tray quantities).

The Cedar Trail platform is capable of 1080p playback, and features Blu-ray 2.0 support, as well as the Intel Wireless Display, PC Synch and Fast Boot technologies.

Measuring in at just 127x127mm the ZBOX nano is tiny, it’s quite chubby at 45mm tall.  However, like its predecessor, the Nano is based on AMD’s Brazos platform, but this time Zotac includes tha latest E-450 APUs as an option, with a bit more GPU oomph than the original E-350.  Having said that, Zotac says the AMD E-350 will be the only choice for early adopters and the E-450 version will only show up later.

Despite it’s tiny size, the Nano has a full set of features including USB 3.0, eSATA, WLAN, and Bluetooth 3.0.  Internally there’s room for a single SO-DIMM and a 2.5-inch drive. A remote control is also bundled that works with Windows MCE and for some reason Zotac is also supplying an additional IR receiver that connects via USB.

In Japan it already retails for 27,500 Yen (S$433) and the Plus model which comes with 2GB of DDR3 RAM and a 320GB hard drive is even pricier at 35,000 Yen (S$550).  We still don’t know the US price, but we can guess the Nano will be a tad pricier than the AD-02.

More here.

AMD just recently introduced the new E-450 Fusion processor which has a fastr CPU and better graphics performance than last year’s E-350 chip and already PC maker MSI is already offering a new nettop in France featuring the new chip.

The new MSI Wind Box DC100 is currently available in France for 329 Euros and features the AMD Fusion E-450 1.65 GHz  processor, 6 USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI output, 802.11b/g WiFi, an SD card reader, and Gigabit Ethernet. It features 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive.

via blogeee

Fudzilla reports that the AMD E-450 processor will bring more powerful graphics and a slightly higher CPU clock speed to the table, while keeping the same 18W TDP.  The E-350 is a 1.6 GHz dual core chip that uses Radeon HD 6310 graphics. The new AMD E-450 will be a 1.65 GHz dual core processor with faster Radeon HD 6320 graphics. Both chips are capable of handling DirectX 11 graphics and 1080p HD video playback.

The new chip will also feature Turbo Core technology which can overclock a single core while underclocking the other to improve performance on tasks that don’t really take advantage of multi-threading anyway without greatly sacrificing battery life. The GPU clock speed will also jump from 508 MHz to 600 MHz when Turbo Core kicks in.

The AMD E-series processors are designed to be energy efficient chips, offering decent battery life and low power consumption. So don’t expect to see these processors in bleeding edge computers anytime soon. Instead, the new chips will likely continue to show up in budget laptops with 11 to 15 inch displays.

There’s no word on the release date for the new AMD E-450.