Zotac Shows New Board for Home Theater PCs

When it comes to building tiny home theater PCs it’s hard to beat the Mini-ITX form factor of motherboards. Zotac has been one of the go-to manufacturers for Mini-ITX boards regardless of whether you’re looking for an Intel Atom, Intel Core, or AMD ION solution. Their newest offering, targeted squarely at the HTPC market, is the ZOTAC D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme.

As the name indicates it’s based upon Intel’s D2700 Atom processor. The D2700 is a dual-core, hyperthreaded, 2.13 GHz processor. The video grunt work is handled by an oboard NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 sporting 512MB of DDR3 memory. This board is called the WiFi Supreme for a reason though. It packs 802.11N WiFi with dual antennas, and it also includes Bluetooth 2.0, along with a standard 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet jack. With all of those options you won’t have any trouble connecting it to your network. The NVIDIA GT 520 graphics processor supports hardware accelerated video decoding, so watching Blu-ray, even 3D Blu-ray, won’t be a problem. For connecting to your TV or monitor it has pretty much every option imaginable. It offers HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, and VGA (with an included adapter).

For expandability the D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme offers 2 SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 6 USB 2.0 ports, and even a PCI Express x16 slot that would be handy for an internal TV tuner card. We can’t really think of anything that we would want from a board like this that the D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme doesn’t offer. While we’re sure it will handle live and recorded TV, Blu-ray, and pretty much any other local media you might have on your network, the Atom processor still makes us wonder how it will stand up to HD Netflix streams. Hopefully we can get our hands on one soon for a full review to let you know! See the press release below for full details.

Press Release:

New ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme combines the latest energy-efficient CPU and GPU for superior energy-efficiency and stunning high-definition video

 

Jan. 11, 2012 – ZOTAC® International, a leading innovator and a channel manufacturer, today launches the ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme – a next-generation mini-ITX platform for DIY home theater PC users. The ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme combines the latest energy-efficient Intel® Atom™ processor with world-class NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics processing for superior energy-efficiency and stunning high-definition video playback.

 

The latest generation Intel® Atom™ D2700 CedarTrail processor with dual cores and Intel® HyperThreading™ technology enables the ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme to deliver snappy multitasking responsiveness for everyday computing tasks. The NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 520 graphics processor equips the ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme with hardware-accelerated Blu-ray 3D playback capabilities and HDMI 1.4a technology for the ultimate 3D high-definition experience.

 

“ZOTAC® platforms have been quite popular among home theater PC users. “The ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme succeeds our award-winning IONITX series with upgrades to smoothly playback stereoscopic 3D content, output lossless audio formats and embrace Microsoft® DirectX® 11 technology while maintaining the compact mini-ITX form factor,” said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC® International.

 

Expansion is plentiful with the ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme platform, including two DDR3 DIMM slots, a PCI Express x16 (single-lane) expansion slot, two SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports and two USB 3.0 ports. Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 networking technologies round out the platform for lightning-fast network connectivity wired or wirelessly.

 

It’s time to play with the ZOTAC® D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme.

 

General details

• New ZOTAC® Next-Generation DIY home theater PC platforms
• ZOTAC D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme
• Intel® Atom™ D2700 (2.13 GHz, dual-core)
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 520 (512MB DDR3)
• 2 x DDR3-1066 DIMM slots
• Support up to 4GB memory
• Dual-link DVI, DisplayPort & HDMI outputs
• 1 PCI Express x16 (single-lane) expansion, 1 mSATA slot
• 2 SATA 3.0 Gb/s
• 2 USB 3.0 ports (back panel), 6 USB 2.0 ports (4 on back panel, 2 via pin headers)
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Hardware accelerated Blu-ray 3D playback
• Dolby® TrueHD & DTS-HD™ MA bitstream capable (HDMI) & 8-channel HD audio
• Microsoft® DirectX® 11 technology
• Onboard 802.11n WiFi & Bluetooth 3.0
• Mini-ITX form factor

Specifications:

Product Name	D2700-ITX WiFi Supreme
Chipset	Intel® NM10 Express
South Bridge	N/A (single-chip)
GPU	NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 520 w/512MB DDR3
CPU	Intel® Atom™ D2700 (2.13 GHz, dual-core)
System Bus	N/A
Memory support	2 x DDR3-1066 DIMM
Memory capacity	Up to 4GB
Expansion	PCI Express x16 (single-lane) mini-PCI Express (occupied by WiFi card) mSATA
SATA	2 SATA 3.0 Gb/s mSATA (shared with one SATA port)
Display outputs	Dual-link DVI, HDMI & DisplayPort
WiFi	802.11n & Bluetooth 3.0
Ethernet	10/100/1000Mbps
USB	2 USB 3.0 ports (back panel) 6 USB 2.0 ports (4 on back panel, 2 via pin headers)
Audio	8-channel high-definition audio HDMI audio output (lossless bit stream ready)
DirectX® support	DirectX® 11
Other hardware features	NVIDIA® CUDA technology, NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD, hardware-accelerated Blu-ray playback
Windows® 7 capability	Certified for Windows® 7 premium®

 

Source: Zotac – Press Release – Product Sheet (pdf)

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