Zotac's Cedar Trail ZBOX ID80 Uses Discrete GPU

Intel announced its 32nm Atom platform for netbooks/nettops at the end of last year. Codenamed Cedar Trail the new Atom doesn't really change CPU performance all that much but includes a new GPU block from Imagination Technologies. The PowerVR SGX 545 comes with all Cedar Trail Atom CPUs by default, however it looks like due to driver issues the integrated graphics on the very first Cedar Trail systems will be disabled.

Zotac's ZBOX ID80 is the first Cedar Trail nettop we've seen announced and it ships with Cedar Trail graphics disabled. In its stead Zotac is using a GeForce GT 520M from NVIDIA. I'm hearing that fixed drivers for Cedar Trail, enabling integrated graphics, will be available sometime in February although that will really only matter for new systems as the DVI/HDMI outputs on the ID80 are directly wired to the onboard 520M.

The ID80 uses an updated version of Zotac's ZBOX chassis (no word on the changes yet) with support for two DDR3-1066 SO-DIMMs and a single 2.5" 3Gbps SSD/HDD. The ID80 Plus is the same platform but it comes equipped with 2GB of DDR3 and a 320GB 5400RPM hard drive.