[ajaffarali]

Have an option of either picking up the Zotac Ion 2 based system or making a Geforce 9300 with Core 2 CPU for an xbmc system. Which one would you guys recommend. Also should I do Linux or windows?

[ion_man]

There are both valid alternatives (although personally I don't like the Zbox, there are better ION systems), it all depends on the purpose of your build.
What do you want to do with it?

[poofyhairguy]

ION2 uses less power, Core 2 system will be able to watch hulu and Netflix outside of XBMC.

It depends on what your priorities are. Windows 7 or Linux is fine. If its XP, then Linux over XP (by a lot).

[ajaffarali]

It will purely be used for Xbmc, mostly streaming movies from the network. I guess it's a better idea do go for core2 system as that will be more powerful than the ion box for future expansion.

[MrCrispy]

If the cost is about the same, I'd prefer the 9300 system because it has enough power to handle future tasks as well.

[prae5]

I'd take the ion based system.

[Geeba]

I have the ION2 Jetway and it has more than enough grunt, combined with an SSD and 4gb of RAM it is extremely responsive... the CPU has the lowest windows score at 3.5... graphics and memory are between 4.9 and 5.3... SSD is 7.4

Its hypertreaded to and shows as 4 cores... HD playback with latest XBMC builds hits about 9% on the CPU.

I know these aren't real world but give you some kind of indication of the power it has... my biggest problem is Audio and remote control...