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VIA Epia SP 13000 Review
Nehemiah writes "Epiacenter.com just published a review on the brand-new VIA Epia SP 13000 mini-itx mainboard.
It's the first VIA Epia board with the CN400 chipset and, together with the new epiOS Linux distribution that is announced in the review, it seems to have a very good performance during MPEG2/MPEG4 playback."
Umm, the Mac G4 Cube was plagued with problems including cracked plastic casing, static electric problems with the power switch, heat related issues, etc. Technically Apple has a pretty horrible track record when it comes to making tiny cube computers. How do you know the Mac Mini won't be a dud after 6 months? It's brand new.
Now, with that in mind, I'd buy one too if I had to choose between a Via Epia system and a Mac Mini these days. My diskless Via Epia system with 256MB of RAM was about $350 a year ago (with the case included) so the Mac Mini isn't too far off pricewise considering it has a hard drive and software worth much more than $200.
Or, more to the point what the hell is it anyway?
If it is what I think it is, which is a distro that is taylored toward EPIA, why make a whole distro and not just a tarball of linux drivers and tools?
>Why aren't we seeing 1 GHz+ fanless systems in the
>Mini-ITX form factor?
That's a very good question. I've been on a quest for some years now, for a system that can be mounted in a shallow 19" rack form factor, that has no fan whatsoever but enough power to run audio applications. I can't even find good compromises, although I make do with my Antec Sonata, Zalman coolers, etc.
Shuttles are *way* too noisy, which was upsetting because they were recommended to me on the basis of them being very quiet, so I bought one, yuck.
Dell desktop machines are surprisingly quiet, I've discovered.
The Antec Sonata case is still not quiet enough to be called "silent" but it's pretty good. The hardest part of putting my system together has been finding a fanless 1.5v AGP video card. ASUS PxPN00 boards have no fan on the bridge chip, which is nice. Seagate SATA drives with the SNXXXX model numbers are pretty quiet, especially in the Antec case.
But as far as Mini-ITX, except for the 533 C3 boards, they all have fans.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Well well well, once again another craptacular story submission wafts through the submission process. Thanks, Timothy! You really go the extra mile towards making slashdot more and more crap.
First, here is a link for the VIA EPIA SP line. Notice how the link is descriptive of the content linked to? This is what we the thinking people of the internet refer to as "proper" use of links. The link text should have included "review on the brandnew" (sic) which should have had a couple of additional spaces, one after brand, and one after new, before the link.
Finally, the story submission itself is devoid of content and linked to a site that everyone involved should have known would go down quicker than a crackwhore on your payday. If you're going to link to a site that's going to crater, please give us some information in the story itself.
Nehemiah, I know you were all excited that you had something to submit to slashdot, but couldn't you have taken a little bit of time to work on your story submission? I won't even bother chastising Timothy, who it has long since become clear is not willing to put out any effort at all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not designed with longevity in mind? What are you talking about? I'm still running the cheapest piece of crap I could find four years ago. An entire system (minus the video card, I reused my Voodoo3 2000) for only 200 bucks and it still works. My mother still has her fully working PC from back in 1997, without problems (although she's upgrading this month because she wants something a bit faster).
And anything newer than that, how do you know it won't last? For that matter, do you not realize that most of the components are identical? Apple doesn't usually make their own hardware, they buy it, and they buy it from the same people the PC manufacturers buy it from.
Stop spreading stupidity.
How does one tell what voltage an AGP card is? What do you expect of the AGP card in terms of speed? Radeon 9200 cards seem to be available in fanless form. I have an ATI branded 9500 which has a fan that is practically inaudible, to me at least.
I do agree Shuttles are pretty noisy. They went to the trouble to using a heat pipe system and then attach a noisy fan to the exhaust end of the heat pipe and call it "quiet", while I can easily hear it ten feet away.
I think the Mac mini is pretty quiet, maybe not quiet enough for audio use though.
Maybe your next best bet is to assemble a hush box to put a computer into.
I talked to an Epia owner about FreeBSD-compatibility, and he mentioned that the dual LAN models he had were having some problems with FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x. I can't remember the exact Epia models, but he mentioned that both of the interfaces were different models of VIA RHINE II. The problem apparently was that the other interface choked and hanged under very little stress.
It looks like the new Epias still have similar NICs; can anyone shed any light on this issue?
I've got a new 1Ghz VIA in place right now, only fan is a teeny one that makes less noise than the drives, etc.
Sure, dust is a consideration over time, but even without the fan too much dust tends to impair the heatsinks' dissipation rate as well...
I have installed Linux on a dozen Mini-ITX boards during the past two years. I love the low power consumption, and the low price.
But, by just about any standard (MPEG playback, video performance, processor speed, form factor size), the Mac Mini beats the Mini-ITX hands down. Okay, I put nicer hard drives in the Mini-ITX boxes than I get in the Mac Mini.
After using both systems as desktop PCs, I can say that the Mac Mini feels like a Ferrari, while the Mini-ITX boxes feel like a Ford Focus. Apart from the fact I actually *like* the Gnome desktop better than OS X, I can still use the Mini to run all of my favorite Unix apps. And, unlike the VIA Mini-ITX boards, where there's a ton of hardware that I can't get to work right (CLE-266 chipset with MPEG decoding), everything on the Mac Mini JUST WORKS.
I don't know. I'm thinking my days running Mini-ITX boxes is over. The Mac Mini has really won my heart, and I can't see why anyone wouldn't consider it for their small form-factor computing needs.
I'm a bit tempted by the promise of a Linux distro tailor-made for the EPIAs, but I kind of have a distro (OS X) tailor made for my current-favorite SFF box.
The Epia SP is okay, but it isn't exactly a big step up from its precedessors. The Epia DP is a far more interesting beast - dual processors extends the potential uses of these boards much further than a clock speed or chipset upgrade.
I'll also believe them when I see them: despite much fanfare, the Nano-ITX boards are still largely vapourware.