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Sneak Preview of VIA's next-gen mini-ITX mobo

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the its-so-adorable dept.

An anonymous reader writes "VIA will preview its next-generation mini-ITX board for the consumer electronics market at next week's Computex 2004 in Taipei. The EPIA SP features a new graphics and memory controller hub (GMCH) supporting faster front-side bus (FSB), memory, and southbridge interconnect speeds. It also features a C3 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, integrated PadLock Hardware Security Suite, and MPEG-4 acceleration. Oh, and like the current top-end MII 12000 VIA board, the whole board probably draws under 20watts running flat out."

15 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. For anyone interested... by Mz6 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    These boards make for a great use in the car. I have used several of these boards to create a carputer for movies, music, and navigation inside my car.

    I have one myself and I love it :)

    --
    Hmmm.
    1. Re:For anyone interested... by legoburner · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Screw cars... think supercomputing cluster. VIA have been talking about a dual CPU mini-itx board with 2ghz (esther core) processors for a while now. I'll leave finding info about them up to you (mini-itx.com and via's site for starters)

      You can get 1U cases which let you put in 2 mini-itx boards (there are quite a few if you [g|fr]oogle.

      Here are some specs for a rack full of them...
      336GHz total power. 84GB RAM, up to 22.5 TB HDD space, total power usage < 15kW (60W per machine).

      Costs:
      fixed:
      42U rack: $150
      Cables/Power supplies: ~$100

      per-unit:
      case: $200
      mobo (guess): $200
      ram (512GB*2): $120
      HDD (300GB): $250

      ttl per machine: 200+2(200)+2(120)+2(250)=$1340
      42 machines=$56280
      + rack bits=$56530

      in GBP=30584 (I am British)

      that's a spicy-a meat-a-ball.. still 22TB and 336Ghz cluster... hmmmm... Might get 5fps on Doom 3!

      15kW/h
      To be extra geeky... cost per day to run in London, England (electricity only, excluding air conditioning)...
      15kW/h per hour * 24 = 360kW/h per day
      * 8p per unit + VAT = 2880 + 504
      = GBP 33.84 per day
      = GBP 12351.60 per year.... ouch, that's a new rack every 3 years if you leave it turned off though

      Damn I cant wait for the 2ghz dual cpu mini-itx boards... and a bunch of rich, obscure relatives to pass on and give me money >:)

      And since this is slashdot... cue the 50 posts to correct and nit pick this post since it contains (bad) maths.

      --
      Warhammer forums
  2. Still waiting for the nano-itx.. by Amgine007 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Nano-ITX board that they announced last year still seems to be the coolest thing around in terms of potential for off-the-shelf, single board computer projects.

    I mean, it's only 4.7 inches by 4.7 inches! Of course I've never seen a price, but sell this thing in the $100 range and I'll take 3...

    1. Re:Still waiting for the nano-itx.. by jdray · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember spotting a computer, probably a link off of LinuxDevices, that was the size of a credit card. It was mostly SMT solder-down components with a mini-PCI-like card connector at one end that was used to connect to a daughtercard full of ports and whatnot. I went looking for it yesterday, but couln't find it. Any ideas? I wanted to imagine a Beowulf cluster of them, but needed a visual reference for aid.

      --
      The Spoon
      Updated 6/28/2011
  3. DRM? by Atario · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The latest C3 processor features an integrated AES encryption engine and two random number generators that work with the PadLock ACE software to perform user authentication, DRM, or other security operations in the background
    [Cue orchestra]: DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!
    --
    "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
  4. C3 isn't that cool. by Lord+Graga · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I've had a clean installation of Win98 on a C3 machine, and it crashes programs occasionally. Getting sound to work on the southbridge (VIA Eden 5000 mobo') is also hard, in Windows. I linux, there's no "neutral" kernel modules for the machine either. It's pissing me off.

    I guess they have fixed some problems on this new one though...

  5. PVR? by dostert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has anyone tried setting up a nice small PVR with any of these? If you put like a Hauppauge 250 or another hardware encoding card in this, is there enough power for recording and watching TV at the same time? How about VIA's graphics? I assume I wouldn't be able to play FarCry... but will it be adequate to display DVDs on a non HDTV?

  6. still waiting for nano-itx motherboards.. by dcstimm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    its been like 8 months since they were announced but no one seems to have them!!

    --
    keanmarine.com
  7. microatx still better by xlyz · · Score: 3, Interesting


    unless you need a real compact design, microatx + mobile processor can deliver same low consumption and more power and expansion possibility

    look for an Athlon Northwood to undervolt and it will be d*mn cheaper as well

  8. Only one catch.. by Anonymous+Meoward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I must agree with other posters: the VIA boards are most definitely the shit. And the older ones, like the V-8000A, are a steal. I currently have Fedora Core v1 + XMMS on mine; to make a long story short, lots of fun..

    HOWEVER, do note that some VIA processors will advertise themselves as "686-compliant", when in fact their instruction set is missing 1 vital MMX instruction (SSE, I think). So do make sure your binaries are built for the 586. You'll thank me in the morning.

    --
    --- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
  9. Cool, but... by Kjella · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...I really missed DVI or some other HDTV res output. I mean, what I want to use it for is a home theater kind of setup (with network disks, of course)... The Nanode + an LCD TV... now that would be cool.

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  10. Re:hard to find... but not that hard... by darrylo · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If you only want to create a low-power firewall, take a look at the Soekris boxes, which are designed to run FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. Some models have three (3) lan ports, as well as (optional) PCMCIA slots (for wireless LAN applications). Most versions boot from compact flash (or a microdrive), but there's a version that supports a 2.5" IDE laptop drive (however, note that the optional case for the IDE drive version supposedly has poor ventilation, and so the drive supposedly runs hot -- see the mailing list below). The processors are a tad slow (100-266MHz 486-class processors), but they're generally more than enough for firewall/access point purposes.

    There's a mailing list:

    http://cinematic.forko.com/pipermail/soekris-tech/

    There's also, "m0n0wall", a FreeBSD-based firewall originally designed for the soekris boards:

    http://www.m0n0.ch/wall/

    I'm in the process of upgrading my home firewall to soekris/m0n0wall, although I plan on using an EPIA VIA M 10000 board for an home fileserver.

  11. Re:hard to find... but not that hard... by anthonyrcalgary · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Right, but I'd prefer the new one as it has SATA on board. It's also a bit faster, more memory bandwidth, etc. I'd be using it to host dynamic content and as a file server as well. When they get a dual NIC version of the new one, I'll be able to build the server I want with no PCI cards, which is what I'd prefer to do. I'm not going to replace my aging system now when I can wait a little bit longer and get a system that does everything I want without any upgrades.

    --
    When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
  12. Mini boards by LesPaul75 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As much as I dislike Via, I gotta admit that these mini boards are a home run -- the best thing to happen to PCs in a long time. I'm looking forward to Intel and/or AMD jumping on the bandwagon. And soon after that I hope to see even smaller stuff becoming popular, possibly even system-on-chip designs. How sweet would that be? Yeah, I know you can buy a single-chip system now, but I want one that's just (or almost) as powerful as my home PC. Integrated graphics, gigs of RAM, all running at several GHz. Forget laptops... put the whole thing in a PDA. :)

  13. Low Power PCs by tacocat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have two of the EPIA 533 fanless machines. One is my mail/web server for the internet, the other is my NFS/web server for my home use. These things are awesome at only a measured 32W power consumption with everything running (hard drive included). This 32W is using old 3.5 inch hard drives and a case fan. I expect to have done better if I went with the 2.5 inch lower power hard drives and external power supply.

    But what I find really amazing about all of this is that I got these little low power boxes and they are doing as much as many people dedicate on a 140W+ machine. There's really no need for that. If you find 533MHz too slow, then move up to a higher machine. But I was going for the silent/fanless models.

    I can't claim to have the fastest set up in the world, but for 99.9% of you with a home mail/web server, you really don't need to run it on that big of a box. And for 32W of power, it makes for a cool summer.

    In time, I think people will realize that the benefit of having a 3.2GHz mail server isn't that great. Sure, there might be exceptions and I might not survive a slashdot effect, but not many of us will.