Via Debuts Smallest PC Mobo Format Yet 159
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."
So small... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It plays Fairplay (Score:5, Funny)
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-matthew
Re:It plays Fairplay (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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That may be true for now, but with general-purpose computers rapidly nearing the size of emdedded computers of only 5-6 years ago, how long will that distinction hold? It seems like the limiting factor to the size of these devices in the future will be screens, tactile interfaces, and physical storage mechanisms (assuming that flash-based devices don't have a marked increase in capacity relatively soon).
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Yeah, that's a great vision and everything. The point that I was responding to was a bit different though.
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ROKR? (Score:2)
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Aha! Good point. That's the one example of Apple allowing such a thing, is it not? I don't think it worked out too well for Motorola, either.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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If these eventually get to the point where they are priced reasonably I could see getting one and sticking it in a cdrom bay, would make for a nice small internal server.
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Unless you plan on using a big-tower and build a Beowolf cluster of these ;-)
Actually... I was just thinking that maybe 10 of these together would be the size of my laptop. And my laptop bag has the extra space. And that since they've got mini-pci slots, they get wireless networking, and I would only need to supply power. And these can't take much of that. I usually plug my laptop in, anyway. But then, I would have a 10x1GHz superlaptop. For the price of two laptops (not counting the original).
Re:Still ATX power supply? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still ATX power supply? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly.
Lookout for pico PSUs if you want something small.
This one is DC-DC and takes up barely more space than the atx connector itself.
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f?sc=8&
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Re:Still ATX power supply? (Score:4, Informative)
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http://www.mini-box.com/PicoPSU-120-WI-32V [mini-box.com]
The picoPSU-120-WI-32 is the smallest snap-in 12-32V ATX dc-dc power supply. The picoPSU is compatible with an entire range of mini-itx motherboards as well as regular boards. The picoPSU-1200-WI-32 provides a cool, silent 120 Watts peak of power for small PC designs
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Via hw is excellent (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Via hw is excellent (Score:5, Informative)
I wish they did. For a high-tech project, we decided on embedding VIA Mini-ITX motherboards. The one we picked (pressured for lowest COGS) had a C3 and a VT8235 south bridge. We ran into very weird USB and PCI communication problems, and spent almost a man year in total on trying to fix our software. It turns out that the south bridge is the problem. On the VIA Arena forums, this turned out to be a known problem (google for "VT8235 lockup"), mostly apparent when generating heavy network traffic. The "driver fixes" for Windows turn out just to throttle the network traffic.
Officially, our VIA representative still hasn't acknowlegded this problem, and we were ready to switch to a different, more "industrial" mobo. We still picked a VIA one though (with a C7 and a 8237) because frankly, their prices are hard to beat.
If you are considering a VIA mobo for an embedded application, make sure you test, test, test and don't automatically blame the SW guys when you find something weird. Don't let the fact that this is "consumer electronics" fool you. We figured that this meant cheap, well-tested, large series hardware with ppm failure rates. Apparently, that's not always the case.
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and
We still picked a VIA one though (with a C7 and a 8237) because frankly, their prices are hard to beat.
Are mutually exclusive in my book, unless you are talking about a large volume of machines (~50+ something well beyond one or two).
Personally, I've been interested in getting a small computer for years, but I can't justify the price/performance + my time factor, so I just havn't bothered. W
8235? (Score:2)
Bus lockups galore with Via (Score:2, Interesting)
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
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I must be doing something wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Next stop... (Score:3, Funny)
And what's worse, your computer will be small enough to swallow, while the power supply will require a forklift to move it around.
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I don't hate the foo. I PITX the foo.
Vapourware (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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After the Nano debacle, and getting burned on a crappy VIA Unichrome Pro (claims of HDTV support on the box, but the MPEG2 decoder only supports up to 1024x1024) I don't think I'll be buying anything from VIA in the near future.
I really hope... (Score:2)
RAM?? (Score:2, Interesting)
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The 256k of cache ought to be enough for anybody.
KFG
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is what is reported on mini-itx.com
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Where does the ram go? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Perhaps mounted underside?
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vaporware (Score:2)
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http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.83/.
Sounds like a (winding) upgrade path (Score:3, Informative)
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Pico-ITX? Oblig SNL skit. (Score:3, Funny)
Lets go Retro! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Lets go Retro! (Score:4, Interesting)
That was using a MiniITX board.
Cybernet zero-footprint PC's been around for ages. (Score:2)
Still not impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:Still not impressed (Score:5, Informative)
May not be quite the same thing, but you can get a Jetway 1.5GHz C7D (http://linitx.com/product_info.php?cPath=12_138&
It's no speed demon, takes just over twice as long to encode an ogg as my 2GHz P4 for example, and even with the openchrome drivers under Linux, window redraws etc are dog slow. Plays video fine though, and 3D graphics appear to work.
It's pretty usable as a desktop - gnome, openoffice all work OK, and the only really noticable thing is when you draw a window you get a trail as mentioned above.
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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 onboa
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They claim that you can get the datasheets etc, but in reality I have asked them several times and never got an response.
Did you ask them by email? I have found it much more effective to telephone hardware vendors when asking for datasheets. If an email goes to the wrong person it's likely to get dropped on the floor. It's harder to do that to somebody who is at the other end of the phone seeking a response.
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I think the price is a good thing though, it keeps the price-shoppers away from this garbage.
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Suppose you'd like to set up a personal server at home, which hosts a personal webpage and email, runs some p2p client, and acts as a file server(ftp/nfs/samba) etc. How much performance do you realy need? A sub-500mhz box would suffice. I would think someone to actually underclock it just to save on power.
One advantage of C7 is its low power consumption. If you run your personal server 24/7, the saving on you
Why the analog video output? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why the analog video output? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know of many people who still use CRT. I still use CRT. CRT is where it's at as far as peformance, versaltility, sharpness, and clarity. On my old sony 20seII s, I can do 720p or 1080p if I wanted, and these are 10+ year old monitors. LCDs are stuck at a set resolution. Many plasma TVs do come stock with VGA connectors. For 20 inches and above CRTs actually seem to cost more. While "old" it's more than adquate for it's purpose, unless you are talking LCD which does benifit from a digital signal.
Aside from that, you are probally right, a DVI port can at least be adapted to VGA. If you are going to have one port, might as well be DVI.
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Same thing with the DVI. The box this mobo is most likely to sit in probably only require the MOST BASIC graphics. Any cheap VGA will do a good job for the purpose.
p.s. this has nothing to do with choosing LCD or CRT. There're cheap LCD monitors out there with only a VGA connector.
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Plus, LCDs are hideously expensive if you don't have a well-paying job (hello, students!). For example, I need lots of screen real estate, so 1280x1024 aren't enough. 1440x1050 and up are generally what I like to work with. Since it's hard to get a TFT that has that native resolution my only choice would be to get one with 1600x1200, which means I have to fork over about 400 eurobucks for a low-end model. On the CRT side (wher
LCDs are especially good for students (Score:2)
Probably there is no air conditioning to deal with the heat given off by a CRT.
If you are unlucky, you keep tripping a circuit breaker t
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Not every student lives in a dormitory; in fact, over here in North Germany I'd say that the minority does (when excluding state-spon
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Not every student lives in a dormitory; in fact, over here in North Germany I'd say that the minority does (when excluding state-spons
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Why do people keep perpetuating this myth ?
samsung [dealtime.co.uk]
MultiSync [dealtime.co.uk]
Viewsonic [specialtech.co.uk]
You get an optimum resolution on CRT as well, doesn't mean you are "stuck" with it.
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Why do people keep perpetuating this myth ?
samsung
MultiSync
Viewsonic
You get an optimum resolution on CRT as well, doesn't mean you are "stuck" with it.
I should have been more clear. While CRTs do have an optimum resultion, they have a greater range of useable clear resolutions. They even have a greater range of good enough resolutions. LCDs on the otherhand, going away from optimium results in a dithering effect, as in those sharp clear as day L shaped pixles.
As
VGA (Score:2)
Not that it really matters to this motherboard's mark
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People are likely to run the box headless as a personal server anyway. When they need to hook up a monitor, they tend to find any monitor they can easily find, without disrupting their main desktop. This monitor is most possibly a old VGA, sitting quietly in the garage.
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People are likely to run the box headless as a personal server anyway. When they need to hook up a monitor, they tend to find any monitor they can easily find, without disrupting their main desktop. This monitor is most possibly a old VGA, sitting quietly in the garage.
On this I must disagree with. A headless server might go as small as microATX, something "this" small plus drives would = shoe box sized. Unless you really want 2.5 inch drives
Overkill... (Score:4, Insightful)
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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Stick to low-power components, such as in this device, and you don't have any problem at all. I'm just talking about standardizing on the form factor, not using current rackmounts as DVRs.
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if you put a couple Xeons in there, you'll need some seriously loud fans.
Or you could use an airflow device without moving parts. I can't be certain since I haven't seen one in operation, but intuitively they ought to be quieter.
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I'm just talking about standardizing on the form factor, not using current rackmounts as DVRs.
Well, you said "I can't help but wonder why 1U and 2U rack server designs haven't been repurposed into cheap, consumer-level DVRs", and I kind of assumed that meant the design (which includes, and is driven almost entirely by, the cooling system). If you don't count the cooling system and you don't count the cpu or mainboard when you talk about repurposing rack server designs then I guess you're talking about just the empty shell. In that case, we don't use them for DVRs because they'd be ugly and would be
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Dude, you can buy ALL MANNER of PCI risers. I have a ton of short risers, including one that goes the "wrong" way so you can fit two cards into side by side slots. I also have a four-slot riser that has these little tiny boards that connect to the select lines (or whatever PCI has) in the three slots it doesn't plug into direct
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What, like these [mini-box.com]? Risers never went away. (Though frankly I'm more interested in Expresscard as an expansion form factor in mini-pcs.)
Finally you can tell Microsoft where to stick it (Score:2)
Re:Finally you can tell Microsoft where to stick i (Score:2)
Devil is in the details (Score:2)
They're just moving the problem to somewhere else.
Tom
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Yes, and? That's a perfectly reasonable way to do things. The VGA port has to be on the board for noise reasons, but everything else can be moved, and should be.
Are you suggesting they just eliminate the ports? Maybe they could give you a composite video and a USB2 port and you could do everything with that.
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Tom
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Don't give me connectors I don't want (Score:2)
Why? If I don't need a serial port, why should the motherboard require me to have one? Give me the pin headers for the serial/parallel/kb/mouse/usb/firewire, and let me decide which connectors I want to use space on, and where I want those connectors to be for my design. Maybe I only need a keyboard connector while the cover is off, to initially configure the device, then I deploy it to run without a keyboard, driving a display such as a status board for flights
Absurdly overpriced, buy an old laptop (Score:2)
Fanless Performance? (Score:2)
These mobos support 1GHz CPUs, but they're Via C7. So what's the performance of these new mobos actually running, say, Linux (no X or desktop) and a streamplayer like madplay or even MythTV clients? Compared to their Pentium competitors, or even uCLinux
HDTV (Score:2)
- The VIA CPUs are much too slow to do software decoding of HDTV material
- Their integrated video has MPEG2 decoding capability, but with a ton of caveats
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Where? I see "including support for HDTV out (via DVI/LVDS and S-video)"
Now it seems to be poorly worded, but the indicator is that there's ports for DVI/LVDS, and S-Video. The former would get you HDTV out, the S-Video would still be available for legacy.
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Yeah, there. Rather than "including support for HDTV out (via DVI/LVDS) and S-video", they claimed "including support for HDTV out (via DVI/LVDS and S-video)". It's not just poorly worded, it's incorrectly worded.
expansion? (Score:2)
Via's History (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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Do they mean that it will have hardware to encode and decode to offload from the main cpu? Of course not.
Sorry, marketing buzzword alarm went off.
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Add in encode, and mpeg4 encode/decode and I'm in.
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Neither that nor this via system can decode any reasonably compressed video. The capabilities of these small systems hasn't improved much over the last 6 years.
Hell, the only difference between that board you linked to and one I worked on in 2001 is that it's called "Freescale" now instead of Motorola, the bridges are built into the CPU, the board is bigger, and it's RoHS compliant. (It's way cheaper now too, but who's checking?)
If they can't bump the CPU speed, they should at least start putting a beef
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