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Via Debuts Smallest PC Mobo Format Yet
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."
Nothing to see here, move along. Too small to see, keep moving. Come on! Keep moving!
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Via seems to have a problem delivering what they promise - at least in any reasonable amount of time. Anyone remember the Nano-ITX boards? What did that take, 2 years or so before you could buy one?
If this isn't released to OEMs only I'd be surprised if mere mortals such as you and I will be able to purchase this anytime before 2009. Seriously.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
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
But their drivers are utter crap. I've owned a couple micro-ITXes and none of them ran well, either Linux or Windows. Via just says things like, "well, try not to DMA much." Or quietly push out a bugfix bios three years late. They claim that many of their drivers are open source and then steadfastly refuse to release source. Fiona, just because you promise to release source in 4 months, that doesn't mean you can claim they're open source today. And really, given Via's abysmal past performance at opening source (no a shim plus a binary blob is NOT open), I wouldn't hold my breath.
I'll never buy Via again, no matter how small they make their boards. It's a crying shame because, really, their hardware is just gorgeous.
So what's next, Femto-ZTX? Eventually, they're gonna run out of prefixes.
And what's worse, your computer will be small enough to swallow, while the power supply will require a forklift to move it around.
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.
This thing is only portable if you carry a really long extension cord.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I see video, I see IO, but I don't see RAM, how do I put ram on that thing.
No seriously... I couldn't see it in the article as spec'ed on board and I certainly couldn't see a socket for it?? So where is it?? Did I miss something obvious? (I will admit its only 9am and I am running low on coffee today)
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You know, I love the format and ruggedness of my CF-M34, but the performance kind of sucks. Since all I really want is the case, perhaps this is a solution - albeit one requiring a bit of hardware hacking.
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
They must have worked with Apple on this one.
This is cool - when things get this small it will only be a matter of time before we start seeing PCs that look like C64's or Atari 600XLs i.e. size of a thick keyboard with a few ports at the back. Stick on MAME and have a seriously fun little toy.
Heck, why not just stick on an Atari 800 & C64 emulators too. You could even go really mad and well, use it as a PC with Open Office etc.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
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...
When are these going to go away? Nobody I know uses a CRT any more. Why not include a DVI connector on the back instead? For that matter, why do all graphics cards and many low-end LCD screens employ these old VGA interfaces?
But their drivers are utter crap.
Actually, their hardware is crap too, when pushed.
I had to stop buying Via too after all three of my Via-based boxes glitched in different ways. The worst problem was terminal bus lockups on doing anything even mildly intensive with 2D graphics. And no, they were all different models of motherboard, so it's not just one rogue product.
I get the impression that Via hardware designers simply don't understand adhering to bus specs and defensive design. Their hardware is cute and advanced in their low-power niche, but really flakey.
Sorry Via, but in the Linux world we don't treat bus lockups and the need to reboot our machines as normal.
Because the iPod is a portable music player and the other things are x86 computers. They have said that the only portable music player which can play Fairplay music is the iPod. Just because you can use these things as portable music players, it is not their intended use, and they would not deal well with it.
The point is that these devices are not comparable to an iPod. They're a different class of device.
The motherboard's size really isn't the constraining factor in mini systems.
The reason people use micro-ATX systems is because they can still use (at least one of) their regular PCI cards in it. Without that, you could just as well load up any really tiny, oddball embedded system that has video-outs.
The size of a PCI card, perpendicular to a motherboard, will continue to constrain the minimum case size. Until some company gets the bright idea to bring risers back from the dead.
I can't help but wonder why 1U and 2U rack server designs haven't been repurposed into cheap, consumer-level DVRs.
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I've had zero problems with my M10000, running it on Linux using the standard open source drivers, which incidentally VIA helped by releasing source for.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak