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."

Comments

But but but...

[cyberjock1980]

All my ex girlfriends told me size DIDN'T matter. Of course, they'd dump me the same day... So this is news because size really does matter now?
I'm in trouble cause i'm not 10cm x 10cm.

Re:But but but...

[rhyder128k]

We've got a great new system that, while using no pills or pumps can take you all the way up to AT or even ATX in some case. Go on, do it for you gal!

pirce & why not fanless?

[pimpimpim]

I like this kind of stuff, but after comparing what building a system with this material would cost me, a mac mini would be way cheaper, and with the core duo in it, a heck of a lot faster as well.

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?

Re:pirce & why not fanless?

[SuperQ]

I setup a net4801 in a colo rack to route traffic for 20 vlans via 802.1q to a 48 port switch. Durring testing I was able to push 45Mbit of traffic through the system. I've got a couple of net5501's on order.. mostly I wanted more ram/CPU so I could try pushing BGP feeds to the soekris.

Add a radio card

[transporter_ii]

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...

If size REALLY matters..

[superid]

... then I think I would try Gumstix for non-speed critical apps.

While we're at it

[TodMinuit]

Add a 500GB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800, 5.1 channel speaker system, and use it as your gaming machine!

Re:Units

[Hatta]

If you can't convert mm to cm in your head, you should have your caregiver (who I assume typed your post and dressed you this morning) do it for you.

Pretty small, but...

[Bombula]

I'm no expert and I know this thing is tiny, but aren't laptop motherboards already pretty small? The motherboards in some of those tiny Sony Vaios must not be much bigger than this thing, and thinner too - and they've been around for a few years now.

For comparison...

[pla]

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).

Wow...

[MrNaz]

Where Are They Now? Episode 205:

The 1.0GHz VIA C7 processor is not as powerful as something like a Core 2 Duo

Captain Obvious, the washed up superhero, now works writing hardware reviews.

drop the legacy ports; minimal IO configuration

[johnrpenner]

| Despite the size, the specifications make it clear that the ITX motherboard
| has a full range of connections, including DVI, VGA, ethernet, four USB ports,
| two PS/2 connections and more.

we do not want a 'full range' of connectors -- because anything that wastes circuitry
for PS2 connections on a pico size board is a dodo (imo).

we DO NOT WANT: IDE, PS/2 or VGA connectors cluttering up our motherboard.
they duplicate functions already better achieved with: SATA, USB, and DVI.
we want as few ports as possible and still be able to achieve any function.
so, what ARE the desireable ports?

-USB 2.0 (four ports)
- SATA (two ports)
- DVI (with optional VGA header)
- SODIMM Slot for RAM (two)
- ethernet (10/100/1000)
- optional 802.11g/n

that's it -- no extra ones besides that.
get the bios working so it can boot with those,
and drop the legacy cruft.

j

'Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler' (Einstein)

Re:drop the legacy ports; minimal IO configuration

[screeble]

No serial ports?

They say a lot of things but that's the stupidest thing I've heard all week. Connectivity of the "most common denominator" is lost with your collective desires, "We." IDE, PS/2 and VGA connectors are not legacy ports. They are standards that should be maintained because SATA, USB, and DVI do not duplicate and/or replace the functionality of the ports you wish to remove.

Yesterday I used a null modem and minicom to connect two systems via ttyS0. One of the boxes faces the internet and I don't want it to have IP-based login capabilities so that there is no risk of toll fraud. On many of my other servers I use PS/2 and VGA connectors with IP KVM's all the time for cheap OOB management.

I would not purchase a mobo w/o those connectors. They're a standard and NOT cruft. I'm looking at this from a server perspective though.

Still waiting for Femto-ITX

[ezdude]

I need a new mobo for this cool wrist watch I'm designing...

Re:Units

[Viadd]

Just to clarify, the areas of the form factors are:
ATX: 17.2
mini-ITX: 7.1
nano-ITX: 3.6
pico-ITX : 1.78

In microacres, of course.