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Via Debuts Mini-ITX 2.0
DeviceGuru writes "Via Technologies has launched the second generation of its signature mini-motherboard standard. Mini-ITX 2.0, an evolutionary update to the seven-year-old 170×170mm form-factor, introduces new and emerging buses and interfaces such as PCI Express, SATA, Gig-E, and HD A/V, while preserving backwards-compatibility with the original standard. Mini-ITX has been a popular form-factor for a range of space-constrained hobbyist and commercial applications."
I have one at home not because I'm "space-constrained" - but because it really nice and small Linux server which does everything I nee from it.
Thanks to fanless design, loudest part of the rig is hard drive. That, along with minimalistic power consumption, makes it very suitable for always-on system. I use it for back-ups and some performance-oriented development and it is just bliss.
The only downside of buying Mini-ITX, is that it's very hard to find suitable components as well as good case. Selection isn't very wide and prices often bite.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I want to build a simple media centre and always on server for my house, I think a via board running at 1.5Ghz should do the job, viewing and recording SD tv, playing movies, serving files maybe mpd and stuff. Does anyone have a reason why this is a bad idea?
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
Are they all 3D renderings?
meh, excuse me... I just found it amusing... "VIA Debuts Mini-ITX 2.0"... and its just some 30 minute 3D model...
Back on topic though, looks pretty kickass, if only it came with more PCIe slots, even just one more would do... 6.75"x6.75"... 3 of them could fit in the space your average keybaord takes (minus PSU)
I've used three boards of this form factor in my HTPC, from the original 800MHz Epia board up to a borad with HDMI and a dual-core socket M CPU. From an analog capture card, a hardware mpeg encoder, to a digital cable card. All in the same case with the same PCI riser card.
It's great that the new standard is backwards compatible, but the main thing they changed is the PCI interface, and that's a change for the worse since I'm not aware of any capture cards that have PCI-E. In fact in most of the situations you'd use a Mini-ITX board you would not need the bandwidth of 16x PCI-E, and you WOULD want the ubiquity of PCI.
Now, if they'd ship a risercard that turns the PCI-E back into PCI..
I'm a bit nostalgic too. I missed the old turbo button from the clone war days, so I spliced together a few case wires and velcroed my leaf blower in there.
Go directly to VIA's website.
Seriously, there's no ads on deviceguru's page so what's the fucking point?
There's a redirect at http://www.deviceguru.com/2008/06/19/via-debuts-mini-itx-20/ but then nothing appears? WTF?
This was announced on the 5th of this month, and already been featured on some news sites.
Asides from that I like that we're getting an easy option for hdmi-out - it's one of the things that have been holding me back from using this in my sitting room :)
What is the point in shipping it with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse port. Complete waste of time. The space would be far more usefully be taken up with some more USB ports.
Also how about some BIOS serial redirection on these things, so you don't have to plug in a monitor to configure these babies.
Great, maybe in a couple of years you can actually order and receive one. Still pretty much impossible to get any of their nano or pico products, and even the original mini stuff is scarce. VIA has a history of 'annoucements' and trade show demos, but actual product delivery seems to be problematic -- at least here in the states.
John Soward...University of Kentucky
aehm VIA launched it some 2 weeks ago on Computex guys!
this is oooooooooooooooold! who is doublechecking the new in these days?
Additionally this really looks more conceptual then already printing boards (no flashing links on via's website about this new format). The specs list min. 4 usb ports and 1 gig ethernet. So I see no guarantee that if it is actually fabbed that there will be PS/2 ports available.
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
Slashdotted. Anyone have a mirror?
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister.
Yeah seriously, if the link says http://blah.blah/ without a colon and "8080", it should be on port 80. There are lots of corporate firewalls that block 8080 because of proxying. The article should at least say it's a redirect.
Amazing. At first I was wondering if the 45-degree offset component would allow good airflow, thinking it is the processor, but it is not.
After downloading the Image Kit I noticed that the processor is actually the little tiny component with "nano" stamped on it near the top right side of the board.
Kriston
here :)
an evolutionary update
For definitions of Evolution that include 10,000 hours of Creation and Design...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
The small form factor is all very well, but the previous generation of boards simply didn't do what they claimed to. HDTV and H.264 decoding in hardware are supposed to work, but are unsupported, for example.
When you look at the high cost of these boards and the special cases and PSUs for them, combined with terrible performance (both CPU and components like gigabit ethernet or SATA) I can't see why anyone would want one. You can build a faster, cheaper and just as low power system using a cheap underclocked and undervolted Sempron and mATX mobo, with only a slightly larger (and much cheaper) case.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DG45FC/index.htm
Intel chipset, HDMI, suppomodern core2 processors.
Or if that's not your thing there's always the atom based version
http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/D945GCLF/index.htm
*.sig
Well, it's a good question, actually. While VIA has long touted their support for Linux and open source, Real World results have often lagged behind. For example, various Linux drivers they have released have been one or more of buggy, closed source, and tied to forks of popular open-source projects. So, while Linux does actually run on all boards I have tried, not all hardware is _fully_ supported in practice.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I'm kid of curious why Via is't pushing their pico-ITX form factor much, instead putting more steam behind nano-ITX. It is substantially smaller - about the size of a deck of playing cards and (as I understand it) doesn't need nearly as much heat dissipation or power as the nano-ITX.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Why trust 'em for firewalls, fileservers, ANYthing except kiosks?
Unless you're resetting it all the time ( scrubbing the RAM ), or powering if off after each use ( IOW, if you're using it for infrastructure ) you *cannot* trust it.
They knew about this problem years ago, but don't give a damn.
Go with blades: THEY are trustworthy.
This is because VIA's technology is encumbered by the patents and trade secrets of the companies they acquired.
S3, now owned by VIA, own several patents and trade secret IP in the video processors now known as VIA Unichrome. These are things like Savage, ProSavage, ViRGE, Vision, Aura, etc.
A similar situation exists with the sound hardware with trade secret IP owned by IC Ensemble, also acquired by VIA.
It's not as easy as it sounds.
Sometimes this trade secret IP uses technology licensed from other companies. VIA does not have the right nor the ability to ethically release this information to the public.
Kriston