Value
You can grab the AT3IONT-I Deluxe for $189.99; which when you consider what you are getting is not a bad price at all. For under $200 you get a CPU and a PSU in addition to the Bluetooth module, IR receiver and other more common Asus features. Now you are not getting a massive power house in terms of computing power, but you are getting a system that is more than capable for the market it is aimed at.
Support
Asus’ support has been improving over the last few years, but still has a little ways to go. Their website still has the occasional hic-up. In fact as I was writing this article I was unable to reach the product pages for motherboards several times. On the other side of this coin, Asus has always been very good in supporting their products with driver and BIOS updates for performance and to help resolve issues. So really Asus support is a mixed bag. On the one hand they are great with follow up drivers and BIOSes, but on the other their direct support can be frustrating.
Conclusion
The Asus AT3IONT-I Deluxe is an interesting product. It is clearly aimed at the entry level and home theater PC builders, but it can offer a little more than just basic multi-media performance. We even found that it could play a few older games at decent resolutions. Its power consumption is good enough that it can be run all the time in the capacity of a DVR [with scheduled programs] but you are limited by the single PCIe slot. This means that many of the peripherals you might need would have to be USB based. Still the fact that you have very little you need to add to the AT3IONT-I to get things going is an impressive item in its favor. If you are looking to build an HD HTPC, or to setup a small and lightweight desktop for moderate production work [Office etc] then this is a very good choice for you. In fact, we have plans to put this in our lab as the new HTPC system inside the new Lian Li PC-Q08B… It should be interesting to say the very least.
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