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http://www.via.com.tw/en/initi...

Not sure if their implementation is better, but VIA seems to have something different and hardware-based.

If it's truly good, maybe it could be licensed and added to all future Intel, AMD and ARM CPUs?

Via calls their integrated Trusted Computing hardware "Padlock"
http://www.via.com.tw/en/downloads/whitepapers/initiatives/padlock/VIAPadLockSecurityEngine.pdf

Well there is always more than one way to skin the kitty as I always say and I used a couple of Via boxes for low power servers for an SMB that needed their data encrypted, having AES hardware accelerated made them have decent performance without heating up the closet I had to put them in.

Don't look at the C7 though friend, its too old and they have MUCH better models out. Instead check out their Pico-ITX embedded as you can get a nano dual core based unit for around $200-$250, has lower power, better support for crypto, fanless, and they are built like tanks. My buddy that does carputers has used some and says they are top notch, really take a beating and run well. Hell I just spent 3 minutes in Google and found one ready to go for $160 so its really not any more expensive than the E350 and the Nano dual core has AES support baked in. Look up "Via Padlock" if you want to know more about it but if you need low power crypto that would be the way to go.

But it just goes to show what I was saying was correct, with X86 there are a dozen ways to do the same task so its simply a matter of finding the right tool for the job. E350 won't do it? Here is a Via that will without blowing the power budget. Money no object? They have Intel CULV that just sip power but those bitches are expensive with a capital E so if you are on a budget it wouldn't be the first choice. But as you can see here on this overview that if crypto is a major requirement the Via has it covered, hell it says it can get 12.8 Gbps throughput encode/decode which would be more than plenty and at roughly the same power budget as the E350, and I can tell ya it makes for a great low power server box with crypto.

This is why I don't get people trying to fit ARM into every project, it reminds me of those guys that tried to make everything with VB. ARM works best with helper DSPs in the PMP/handheld space, once you start needing any kind of real IPC ARM quickly runs into a wall. As you can see there are just so many different X86 chips out there somebody will have one that will cut the mustard without giving up performance. i don't even want to know how hard you'd have to slam a Pi to get it to do a crypto dashcam, poor little thing would probably melt. You could take that Zotac box, slap a stripped down Linux or Windows install and there ya go, hell it even has an SD card slot so you could take the data out of the unit without taking it out the trunk, easy peasy.

Like you I have been using VIA for my home server needs for a few years. The Artigo A1000 actually. Until the RasPi was announced and all of a sudden the little black box died.

When I consider my RasPi stable enough to run as an rTorrent/web server I'll be using even less power and be even happier.

Well, you can get the CPU separately - but it *only* comes in a BGA package. So, it does not fit into a socket, it can only be soldered directly to the motherboard.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/

Atom CPUs are the same way - below a certain price point, it is pointless to waste the parts cost for a socket. (Rough cost for the CPU is probably $25, a socket would cost ~$10).

I'm not too familiar with the performance of the VIA chips , but some of their Nano processors claim to have a 100mW idle power usage

This is a nanochip.

Here's the artigo page: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/artigo/

There is a third party. VIA

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/

Maybe something like this solves your problem? With a low-power PSU (on VIA too), you will get a low-power PC with a lot of flexibility

Why can't the CPU contain a register which holds a random number which is updated with every clock cycle?

Some do have something like that, although it's only about 800kbps instead of 4 bytes per cycle.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/ProductSeries.jsp?serialNo=6

http://linux.via.com.tw/

Get your latest Linux drivers there. I went there to get better drivers for the two VIA systems I own that rely on Chrome drivers, and the newer drivers worked great.

S3's product site is here: http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/

I actually find the work done at The Unichrome Project and at the OpenChrome project incredibly helpful and can't recommend the work done there enough. 'Unichrome' is the name of a series of IGPs released by Via that they put on their motherboards. At one time (I don't know if it's still there) Via had driver source code on their website that would have the effects I mentioned earlier. Funny, no? Better drivers from reverse-engineers than from the company. Tells you that the company is crap.

50% more power my foot.

The Intel Atom at 1.6Ghz is a 2-4 watt processor.

While they hide it in the details of their press release a bit, the VIA Nano processor running at 1Ghz is the 8 Watt processor I believe you're referring to while the 1.8Ghz processor tips the scales at around 25 Watts.

My Via C7 with Padlock does hardware AES and SHA-1/SHA-512.
I've got the AES working under 2.6.28(.4), but haven't seen the SHA working properly yet. I'm thinking that this would show massive speed improvements with TrueCrypt.

What do you think?

I'm waiting for the day when it is common to see completely passively cooled desktop computers, with solid state hard disks, no moving parts, sipping just a few watts of power without emitting a single sound.

One of the folks at the LUG I went to tonight had one of these with him:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/artigo/

It does have one small fan, but it's pretty close. He had a standard laptop HDD in it, but you could easily substitute solid state. The whole thing is the size of a 5.25" optical drive. And how much power does it use? Well, when I looked at it (he brought a Kill-A-Watt with him) it was using 11 watts running a *buntu. He said that it topped out at 13 watts.

Awesome.

Uh, yeah they do. The HP Mininote 2133 is one example. I run my MythTV box on a Mini ITX EPIA MII motherboard. The video chipsets do MPEG2 and H.264 offloading, so they handle the job quite nicely with a dedicated tuner card, just don't expect to be doing any transcoding on the lowly C3's and C7's. The Via Nano supposedly can compete very well against the Atom, since Intel saddled all their designs with a massive northbridge.

• Speed: 1.6 GHz
• FSB: 800 MHz
• Process: 65 nm
• Idle Power: 100 mW

Pretty decent specs for mini-notebooks and such.

This KT400 (Soyo Dragon Ultra) has been running excellently since I moved over to Linux (various distros, currently Gentoo), but XP used to really mess up. I once got flamed for saying that Via/AMD/ATI was the problem, but that could just be because of crappy drivers. Never did get a decent driver for my Radeon.

However, I just got a Via Artigo and have done about 30 hours straight of compilation on it. No lockups, no problems at all. I also did about 20 hours on this KT400 (with Athlon XP 2600+ in) and that hasn't had any problems either.

Updating gcc, emerging system then world takes quite a while ...

that's doubtful. all three of those solutions are about half the price of the cheapest Atom netbook. perhaps an Atom 330 w/ a generic mini-ITX motherboard would be cheaper than the C7 + EPIA, but a VIA C3 CPU/motherboard combo starts at around $60. and general-purpose processing power isn't what VIA processors aim towards. if you buy a VIA processor, it's going to be for:

• its ridiculously fast encryption capabilities due to VIA's Padlock Security Engine. in AES benchmarks the VIA CoreFusion Luke (based off of the 1 GHz Nehemiah C3 core) performs 13x faster than a 2.4 GHz P4--while using almost 1/7th the amount of power (TDP of 10W versus 67.6W). meanwhile, the 1.2 GHz C3 performs 6x faster than the 3 GHz P4.
• low power consumption->low heat output->longer battery life and less noise. using a 16 stage fully-pipelined superscalar architecture w/ a specialized 128-bit vector FPU (2 in the VIA Nano), SWAR/SIMD instruction sets, out-of-order execution & advanced branch prediction, and on-die encryption & twin RNGs, VIA processors achieve the highest per-Watt performance of just about any processor on the market.
• their multimedia-specific design. VIA embedded processors are exceptionally well suited to multimedia applications when paired with VIA's robust digital media IGP chipsets. not only do they possess on-die Floating Point "media" units, but by offloading processor-intensive tasks like video encoding/decoding and audio processing to off-die coprocessors, VIA embedded systems handle multimedia applications extremely efficiently. because of hardware-accelerated video processing, VIA systems can often match the performance of systems with twice their clock speed.
• hacker-friendly open hardware. features like LVDS connectors, LPC interface, pico-ITX form-factor, Linux support, etc. make VIA embedded solutions perfect for building set-top boxes, embedded devices, and personal hacking projects.

it's simply silly to try to compare Intel Atom netbooks with VIA embedded systems that are designed specifically for embedded multimedia applications. a netbook doesn't come with dual monitor support, TV out, S/PDIF, MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration, a video capture interface, HDTV encoding, video de-blocking, etc. if you build a VIA set-top box, you're obviously not going to use it for gaming or to run Windows Vista. but as a set-top box, VIA solutions are more than adequate. so any additional processing power is just meaningless dicksizing with no real world benefits.

besides, the C7's successor--the VIA Nano--wipes the floor with the Intel Atom in multimedia encoding (LAME mp3 audio encoding, Windows Media Encoder video encoding, DivX movie encoding, Vista Movie Maker, TMPG VOB to WMV, etc.), HD video playback (1080p), and even in general-purpose computing performance.

that's doubtful. all three of those solutions are about half the price of the cheapest Atom netbook. perhaps an Atom 330 w/ a generic mini-ITX motherboard would be cheaper than the C7 + EPIA, but a VIA C3 CPU/motherboard combo starts at around $60. and general-purpose processing power isn't what VIA processors aim towards. if you buy a VIA processor, it's going to be for:

• its ridiculously fast encryption capabilities due to VIA's Padlock Security Engine. in AES benchmarks the VIA CoreFusion Luke (based off of the 1 GHz Nehemiah C3 core) performs 13x faster than a 2.4 GHz P4--while using almost 1/7th the amount of power (TDP of 10W versus 67.6W). meanwhile, the 1.2 GHz C3 performs 6x faster than the 3 GHz P4.
• low power consumption->low heat output->longer battery life and less noise. using a 16 stage fully-pipelined superscalar architecture w/ a specialized 128-bit vector FPU (2 in the VIA Nano), SWAR/SIMD instruction sets, out-of-order execution & advanced branch prediction, and on-die encryption & twin RNGs, VIA processors achieve the highest per-Watt performance of just about any processor on the market.
• their multimedia-specific design. VIA embedded processors are exceptionally well suited to multimedia applications when paired with VIA's robust digital media IGP chipsets. not only do they possess on-die Floating Point "media" units, but by offloading processor-intensive tasks like video encoding/decoding and audio processing to off-die coprocessors, VIA embedded systems handle multimedia applications extremely efficiently. because of hardware-accelerated video processing, VIA systems can often match the performance of systems with twice their clock speed.
• hacker-friendly open hardware. features like LVDS connectors, LPC interface, pico-ITX form-factor, Linux support, etc. make VIA embedded solutions perfect for building set-top boxes, embedded devices, and personal hacking projects.

it's simply silly to try to compare Intel Atom netbooks with VIA embedded systems that are designed specifically for embedded multimedia applications. a netbook doesn't come with dual monitor support, TV out, S/PDIF, MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration, a video capture interface, HDTV encoding, video de-blocking, etc. if you build a VIA set-top box, you're obviously not going to use it for gaming or to run Windows Vista. but as a set-top box, VIA solutions are more than adequate. so any additional processing power is just meaningless dicksizing with no real world benefits.

besides, the C7's successor--the VIA Nano--wipes the floor with the Intel Atom in multimedia encoding (LAME mp3 audio encoding, Windows Media Encoder video encoding, DivX movie encoding, Vista Movie Maker, TMPG VOB to WMV, etc.), HD video playback (1080p), and even in general-purpose computing performance.

that's doubtful. all three of those solutions are about half the price of the cheapest Atom netbook. perhaps an Atom 330 w/ a generic mini-ITX motherboard would be cheaper than the C7 + EPIA, but a VIA C3 CPU/motherboard combo starts at around $60. and general-purpose processing power isn't what VIA processors aim towards. if you buy a VIA processor, it's going to be for:

• its ridiculously fast encryption capabilities due to VIA's Padlock Security Engine. in AES benchmarks the VIA CoreFusion Luke (based off of the 1 GHz Nehemiah C3 core) performs 13x faster than a 2.4 GHz P4--while using almost 1/7th the amount of power (TDP of 10W versus 67.6W). meanwhile, the 1.2 GHz C3 performs 6x faster than the 3 GHz P4.
• low power consumption->low heat output->longer battery life and less noise. using a 16 stage fully-pipelined superscalar architecture w/ a specialized 128-bit vector FPU (2 in the VIA Nano), SWAR/SIMD instruction sets, out-of-order execution & advanced branch prediction, and on-die encryption & twin RNGs, VIA processors achieve the highest per-Watt performance of just about any processor on the market.
• their multimedia-specific design. VIA embedded processors are exceptionally well suited to multimedia applications when paired with VIA's robust digital media IGP chipsets. not only do they possess on-die Floating Point "media" units, but by offloading processor-intensive tasks like video encoding/decoding and audio processing to off-die coprocessors, VIA embedded systems handle multimedia applications extremely efficiently. because of hardware-accelerated video processing, VIA systems can often match the performance of systems with twice their clock speed.
• hacker-friendly open hardware. features like LVDS connectors, LPC interface, pico-ITX form-factor, Linux support, etc. make VIA embedded solutions perfect for building set-top boxes, embedded devices, and personal hacking projects.

it's simply silly to try to compare Intel Atom netbooks with VIA embedded systems that are designed specifically for embedded multimedia applications. a netbook doesn't come with dual monitor support, TV out, S/PDIF, MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration, a video capture interface, HDTV encoding, video de-blocking, etc. if you build a VIA set-top box, you're obviously not going to use it for gaming or to run Windows Vista. but as a set-top box, VIA solutions are more than adequate. so any additional processing power is just meaningless dicksizing with no real world benefits.

besides, the C7's successor--the VIA Nano--wipes the floor with the Intel Atom in multimedia encoding (LAME mp3 audio encoding, Windows Media Encoder video encoding, DivX movie encoding, Vista Movie Maker, TMPG VOB to WMV, etc.), HD video playback (1080p), and even in general-purpose computing performance.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:

• built-in HDTV encoder
• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
• up to 1080i playback
• dual monitor support
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
• PiP support

alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:

• hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding
• video de-blocking
• adaptive de-interlacing
• integrated VIA Vinyl HD Audio
• VIA UniChrome Pro / Chromotion CE
• full HDTV support up to 1080i/720p
• integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support

lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:

• processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
• max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
• VIA UniChrome Pro
• MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
• MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
• Dual Independent Display Support
• display resolution: 1920 x 1440
• alpha blending
• scaling
• video capture port
• PiP support

oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.

A bunch of months ago now VIA quietly released an accelerated driver for their Chrome9 video chipset (not open source, but a big step in the right direction) - now I can run Compiz mostly trouble free.

http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action

The epia's are good, but they are more expensive and use much more power. This one says under 13 watts while the BeagleBoard claims about 2 watts. Even with more memory 2 watts won't be as much as the epia and the epia is probably quoted without the memory anyway.

VIA actually bought Centaur that had patents on x86 manufacturing. But intel sued VIA and VIA reciprocated in what amounted to be a long and protracted litigation. Eventually they settled after a judge ordered them to do so (as I suspect that it was too much of a technical mess for most judges to wade through).

I actually wondered what VIA would be able to do without being able to produce a pin compatible x86 processor. But that would be answered with the very unique mini-itx line of boards which is different than what AMD did by using their own socket design.

According to them, it's quantum-effect based:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/padlock/hardware.jsp

in short, it's a set of free running oscillators, where the exact frequency of each is affected by thermal noise. the instabilities generate an easy to detect "beating", turned into bits and accumulated in hardware registers.

there's very little 'source code for the chip' to read and validate; but there are several tools to statistically verify random distributions.

(this one looks nice: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/toolkit/rng/index.html. i'll try to get some time to test it on my via mainboards...)

I'd say it's rather far from a tie when you consider more than simply power consuption.

As the story points out Intel is restraining board designers from using desirable technology on the Atom platform. No PCI Express, no DVI, no second memory slot. Theory is "Intel appears to fear Atom will cannibalize its Celeron sales". Perhaps. I'll bet VIA is more than willing to cannibalize those sales if Intel is going to let them.

The reference board in this review is nice. There are two ethernet phys, one of which must be gigabit. Compact Flash, mini-PCI and PCI Express. Damn. I like that board. That is the perfect board for the small, quiet home server.

You may wish to consider these then, all the benefits of the low power Mini-ITX boards in a Micro-ATX size costing in some cases less than a third of the price.

Via PC2500E: http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/empowered/pc2500_mainboard/index.jsp

Via MM3500: http://www.megabuy.com.au/redirect.php?action=url&goto=www.via-mm.com%2Fproduct%2FVIA%2520Diamond%2520MM3500.jsp

Both are DDR2 with SATA & PATA, the later having PCI-E support.

--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister.

Go directly to VIA's website.

Seriously, there's no ads on deviceguru's page so what's the fucking point?

For a while I've been thinking about something similar on a personal scale.
Take a mainboard like this one (Via NAS 7800-15LST):
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=610
It's got 12 SATA connectors and two times GBit ethernet. Of course you'd need PATA to SATA connectors on each hard drive, at around 10 dollar each.
So, at around 1000 dollars already, as someone pointed out earlier, it's probably more economical to just buy a big new fast HD with lower power draw.
You'd still need at least 8 of these boards and probably some casing, PSUs and cables which makes the bill more likely above 2000 dollars.
Regarding the power draw... I think that shouldn't be too bad if used for backup, since the disks can be kept spun down most of the time.
While not economical for a business, for home use it might be a different situation. Especially if, like me, you don't have any real backup at all.
Put the mainboard with all your old HDs in your cellar, run ZFS on it, and voila, no worries about dying hard disks.
Only problem is you can't buy the mainboard as an end user. Oh well. Just wipe and donate them already ;-)

Have you looked at the VIA NAS 7800?

I don't know if it honestly saturates the dual GbE ports, but it does have either 4 or 8 SATA ports, and a compact flash socket for good measure. Unfortunately it has a Integrated VIA UniChromeâ Pro graphics with 2D/3D and MPEG-2 video accelerators, a serial console would be far more useful.

Even more unfortunately I can only find it on sale as part of a development kit for 300GBP, which is rather expensive.

Mind you it has occurred to me recently that even if it could saturate a bonded GbE link, that only comes to 250MB/s, which is somewhat less than the 300MB/s of a SATA-II interface. In which case a SATA port multiplier would solve the issue of limited SATA ports nicely.

Try the processor's page or the white paper. These mainly compare Nano with the C7, so you only need to find comparisons between the C7 and other processors.

Try the processor's page or the white paper. These mainly compare Nano with the C7, so you only need to find comparisons between the C7 and other processors.

Perhaps I am confused. Why exactly do you want a rack-mounted server for this? Why not just use an old PC, most people have scads of these things sitting around. Better yet, use something like the VIA NAS 7800 and throw it in a nice small quiet case. Compared to some crappy old 1U server, you'll save hundreds of dollars a year in electricity costs alone if the thing is on 24x7.

But how does a product released in 2007 (from your link) supersede an announcement made on April 8, 2008?

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this, I'm just curious.

Remember to write VIA through http://via.com.tw/ and say thank you for choosing to embark on a FOSS strategy.

They go out of their way to encourage the growth of an ecosystem in which their products can compete. Not too long ago I hadn't heard of any PC/laptop processors besides AMD/Intel, but thanks to VIA's encouragement of the Ultra-mobile PC market (or 'netbooks' as Intel likes to call them) they have suddenly become a player.

VIA created the nanobook reference design for mini-laptops that use their low-cost, low-power chips. Already the CloudBook has come out based on that design, and in other countries various similar laptops have been released from different distributors. Now they're stimulating essential linux development, which will continue to increase the value of their low-cost platform. This has "win" written all over it; we're all going to come out ahead thanks to their strategy.

They've timed this to fairly well coincide with a new processor design that promises better performance than what they've had to date. Hopefully not just drivers but optimizations for their CPU will take off in maturity alongside the growth of their deployed footprint.