Asus Adds Dual Core EeeBox

I must admit I like the Eee Box. I haven’t had a chance to get my hands on one though but from what I’ve seen and heard, it’s a nice little system. Asus is addressing concerns over its media capability by upgrading it to the Intel Atom 330, a dual-core 1.6ghz processor. It will also be equipped with Windows Vista, the first to do so in the Eee line. Another important improvement is the addition of an ATI Radeon 4350 discrete GPU with 256mb of RAM. This will allow it to run Vista as well as accelerate HD media. Previously, the Eee Box was equipped with the Intel GMA 950 IGP, which is considered too weak for modern computing. In addition to the GPU, the new Eee Box also gets HDMI connectivity. Lastly, it comes with 1gb DDR2 stock and up to 320gb of HDD space. The improvements make this little system ideal as a media server. The Eee Box still lacks an optical drive though, meaning you’ll have to either use an external USB one or download media content off the internet or over LAN. The faster GPU should allow it to play Blu-ray movies with the appropriate external drive. There are no details regarding the price of this little system as of yet. Of course, you could always build your own dual core Atom 330 media system for under $500.

Source: The Register