Back just a few years ago, Intel revolutionized the HTPC market with the Intel Atom platform.  Suddenly users could have a full HTPC with extremely low power consumption in an insanely small form factor the size of the Nintendo Wii or even smaller! The only thing holding the Atom nettops from taking over everywhere was the limited performance. However, if you wanted more performance, you had to resort back to a bulky form factor, even with a microATX motherboard. Even a Shuttle small form-factor PC is too big for many home theater setups.With the dawn of the Intel Core i series processors from 2010, Intel has greatly reduced the power consumption of their performance worthy CPUs. ASRock has taken notice of the low power Core i3 CPUs and realized that they would make a great HTPC platform. In order to solve the bulky HTPC form-factor problem, ASRock has taken die shrinks to a whole new level for their HTPC lineup.