Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Via Debuts Smallest PC Mobo Format Yet

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Via is readying a media-oriented motherboard in what could be the next popular size for small form-factor PCs: Pico-ITX. The 'Epia PX' board measures 3.9 x 2.8 inches and features a 1GHz C7 processor, along with rich audio/video I/O, albeit mostly on pin headers. Pico-ITX measures 3.9 x 2.8 inches (10 x 7.2 cm) — exactly half the surface area of Via's already small 4.7 x 4.7-inch (12 x 12cm) Nano-ITX standard, and considerably smaller than the original 6.7-inch square (17 x 17cm) mini-ITX standard."

5 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Still ATX power supply? by scsirob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is something I don't understand. This should be the ideal motherboard for a Car PC. But this board yet again insists on an ATX power supply.

    Why not design a single supply board? Preferrably wide-range input (say 8 - 28V) and be done with it? These boards don't need +/- 12V anyway, and +5V or +3.3V is already regulated down to core voltages.

    --
    To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
  2. Vapourware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    VIA have a nasty habit of announcing technology, and not shipping it. Look at the NTX format. They announced it, and for the next several years you just could not buy them retail.

    If you are building OEM devices, they may sell to you - but there are other alternatives out there for mass production besides VIA.

    And to second another poster - there are always problems with the drivers. If they were building the same quality in a more conventional marketplace (ie desktop) people would put them in the same marketspace as many of the original 'all in one' boards and avoid them in droves.

    VIA - if you are serious - show it. If not just go blow away.

  3. Still not impressed by Tainek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i have two problems with the VIA Mini Range

    1: Low Performance

    Even the 1.5 GHZ VIA Cores perform badly, only a nudge faster than a P3. there are other options, such as the pentium boards (see point 2) and an AMD socket 754 board (Why 754? , why not AMD2, even 939 just so we can use dual core!)

    2: Price
    These things cost a silly amount, here in the UK its about £90 entry for the pathetic 500mhz boards, and about £150 for a 1.5GHZ via. or you can pay £150 for a intel board, but still need to buy a proccessor

    And the nano ITX, well now those are ugly, for the cost of one of those i can get an xbox360...

    1. Re:Still not impressed by Brane2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Final nail in the EPIA coffin is "we don't give a fu**" Linux support.

      Some HW on that board has decent open source drivers and for the rest VIA doesn't care much.

      Most prominent example is unichrome driver. It has "open source" version, but it is very incomplete as poor bastard who did it had to work without VIA's support.

      They claim that you can get the datasheets etc, but in reality I have asked them several times and never got an response.

      So, with Linux you can't utilize even what meager HW you have onboard.

      VIA's answer seems to be that one should use Windoze. But those boards are not cheap as it is and with extra SW cost total prices are even higher.

      C3/C7's performance and/or power consumption is not exactly stellar, so it's hard to find compelling reason to go for even the cheapset basic M-1000, let alone pico or nano-itx.

      If one decides on using Linux, one can find much better, more economic and cheaper alternatives on other platforms.

  4. Re:Lets go Retro! by vidarh · · Score: 3, Interesting
    You mean like this?

    That was using a MiniITX board.