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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."
>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.
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.