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Pico-ITX, Because Size Matters
An anonymous reader writes "It's not every day that a new form factor comes out, especially not one that is 10cm x 7.2cm. Despite its size, Pico-ITX is the hottest new thing in the rapidly changing small form factor market. It is considerably smaller than Mini-ITX (17cm x 17cm) which has proven itself to be quite versatile and though some sacrifices had to be made to shrink the platform, Pico-ITX is surprisingly complete. The system was tested with Feather Linux but the PX10000 has the power to run Windows XP or Ubuntu if you want to add on a hard drive."
So it might be practical in embedded applications where the size matters (that thing is so small, incredible). But for those things, having a fan is big downer! Fan means: can break down, means: will break down, means: maintenance costs! Will there be a fanless version?
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Add a radio card, an outdoor enclosure, and an antenna, and this might make a good access point that has a little more horsepower than your average AP.
I wonder if Mikrotik will run on it? I think it should...
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It's not every day that a new form factor comes out, especially not one that is 10cm x 7.2cm.
Just as a basis of comparison, a typical full-height PCI card measures 15.5cm[*] x 9.5cm (not counting the external dangly bits or the actual PCI connector), making this entire motherboard half the area of most graphics cards.
Or to put it another way, a laptop HDD measures 10cm x 7cm, making this MB just a hair bigger (Too close to call coincidence, I suspect Via chose the size based on that exact match).
Not bad, as long as you need no expansion capability.
*) They can actually get longer than that, I have an ancient one measuring 19cm long, but a quick glance at my box-o-obsolete-PC-parts shows 15.5 as the most common size for full-height cards).
I think I would try Gumstix for non-speed critical apps.
Except, this board doesn't just target the non-speed-critical market.
The Via C7 certainly doesn't compete with the latest offerings from Intel or AMD, but it does perform quite well for anything short of modern FPS games or hard-core number crunching.
I have personally used it (the CPU, not that exact MB) as both a Linux fileserver and as an XP machine. For Linux, it works like a dream... Low heat, low power requirements, more than enough horsepower. For XP, it feels a little sluggish if you bog it down with a large number of tasks, but for web-surfing while listening to music, or even watching a DVD (almost almost all of VIA's MBs have hardware MPEG2 decoding, the newer ones support harware MPEG4 as well), it just does its thing without a problem.
Also, don't overlook the benefit of using an x86-based CPU in a more-or-less PC-oriented form... We may all make fun of Intel's historical choice of that particular architecture, but everything supports it. As cool as we may consider a Gumstix, it pretty much locks you into using their expansion boards and their software (or their build tools).
If there's a way to add TV tuner capability to it (I guess it would have to be via USB), I was thinking ultra-small MythTV box. It's certainly powerful enough for SD content, and I like the MPEG2/4 hardware decoding.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
This would make an excellent MythTV frontend.. Flash-based OS or Net-Boot. Small size, VGA or DVI output.
The 1GHz VIA C7 would not handle HD decoding on its own.. it's not fast enough.
But, the Unichrome features an MPEG2 decoder which offloads the CPU so that even the C7 could handle HD playback.
The question is: Is the version of the Unichrome GPU in this thing HD capable? Unfortunately, most of the Unichrome GPUs are limited to 1024x1024, which is obviously not going to cut it for HD.
Why are these things always mentioned as possible solutions for a silent PC? They are NOT PC's. PC's are powerfull and can handle a ton of storage and are easily expanded. These things are not.
No I do NOT question the usefullness of these things for certain tasks, but if you want a full PC that is 100% silent, might I offer a different solition instead? It too involves size.
Make your case big. The simplest way to prevent noise from inside a PC reaching your ears is to use thick walls, and to force the sound to take the long way out. An even simpler solution is to use the layout of your house to put even more distance between you and the PC. My own PC is standing on the balcony, the wires going through the wall. Outside it sits in a thick wooden casing, with it basically having a small case at the bottom that sucks air in from the front and back and up into the main casing were I have put the PC itself (in my own layout) and then a similar case up above that blows the air out. The two fan cases force the air around several walls to break up the soundwaves.
Result, soundless operation, I already picked quiet fans and the sound walls hide even their small amount of noise coupled with tremenedous cooling with no sacrifice on the components used for the PC itself. Regular Core 2 Duo, regular memory, and far too many HD's to hold all my porn eh business data.
While this mini-boards occasionally tempt me, I always end up with the simple fact that they just don't have the raw power I would need. Take using it as a movie player, how the hell are these things supposed to do highdef? That can bring a fullsize system to its knees? As for who would want to use a desktop with less then 2 gigs of memory, do you like pain? (2 gigs is a bit of overkill perhaps for linux but I hate swapping. Swapping means the terrorists have won!)
So nice board, intresting and all, but IF you are thinking about wanting a silent PC, consider instead in using regular hardware but an un-regular encasing. Size indeed matters and trying to make a 2mm thin metal encasing silent is doing things the hardway. 22mm wood, with isolation that is what makes a manly PC. Leave the tiny pc's for the japanese.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
this thing STILL has those !@#% PS2 keyboard and mouse connectors -- ugh. any small motherboard that still wastes circuitry for PS2 connectors for keyboard (instead of USB keyboard and mouse) is less desirable (imho).
once you add up the costs of the REQUIRED USB Optical Drive, adding the IDE drive, its not so far to the mac mini -- which certainly has better graphics performance. if you get a used mac mini -- price should be within range.
I picked up a Mini-ITX for use as a MythTV box a few years ago. It was an EPIA Nehemiah M10000, and from the day I started using it all I had were problems. Do a search for VIA EPIA and DMA and you'll see what I mean. They released several flash updates for the BIOS, but they never seemed to fix the actual problem. Maybe they did finally figure out the issue, but if they did, they never told the user community.
The feature set was nice. Built in MPEG2 decoder, 5.1 audio, ethernet and 3D acceleration. But the constant hardware lock-ups made the machine unusable. Finally, it started rebooting more and more often, and then just died.
There are a ton of other manufacturers of SFF machines out there, my suggestion is to purchase from a company that will support you after they sell you a machine.