VIA Launches First Ever Dual Core Pico-ITX Motherboard
It's the industry's first Pico-ITX board with dual core processing, claims VIA.
Wednesday VIA Technologies revealed an "industry first" with the launch of its new 64-bit dual-core VIA EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX board. It features a 1 GHz VIA Eden X2 CPU along with the VIA VX900H Media System Processor, all crammed on a board measuring just 10cm x 7.2cm.
According to VIA, the new board supports up to 4 GB of DDR3 memory, HD audio, HDMI (1080p), VGA and single-channel 24-bit LVDS display connectivity. There's even a high performance hardware HD video decoder via the latest VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine.
"The VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 engine provides advanced filtering and cutting edge post-processing to perform ultra smooth decoding of H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV9, and HDCP for Blu-ray content protection providing smooth playback of the most demanding multimedia titles at resolutions up to 1080p without incurring a heavy CPU load," VIA said Wednesday. "The VIA EPIA-P900 features the VIA Vinyl VT2021, a 10 channel HD audio codec, delivering outstanding sound quality and support for Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Content Protection."
As for other features, the EPIA-P900 provides on-board pin headers that support an additional five USB 2.0 ports, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, LVDS, 4 pairs of DIO and two UART ports. The rear I/O includes one HDMI port, one VGA port, 2 USB 2.0 ports and 1 GigaLAN port.
"The VIA Pico-ITX allows embedded system design to pack unprecedented levels of performance into even smaller form factors," said Epan Wu Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "The new VIA EPIA-P900 opens up exciting new possibilities for innovation in ultra compact embedded designs."
VIA did not offer actual pricing or availability, so stay tuned.
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I want!
Wait, is this X86 (well X64) compatible? VIA has a license to make X86 chips right?
If so this could be very useful to me.
EDIT : It seems it is X86. All the drivers on their website are for Windows 7 and XP.
Compare this guy to ENIAC... rooms filled with equipment, compared to this little 10x7 cm card.
The hard drive would be bigger than the computer itself lol!
Well that's pretty awesome. Hook up a wireless keyboard/mouse and you have a crazy small HTPC.
Integrated wireless would really seal this as being an amazing product.
Dear Santa.....
i want one, even if i can't think of any use i'd have for it.
The board is so small that ethernet and USB connectors look like gigangtc buildings in the photo lol!
Don't waste your money. The chipsets that VIA is making don't have DX10, let alone 11. The processors are weak compared to even Atom's, and all of their hardware video acceleration features aren't worth a wet fart since you need to have VLC media player with a bunch of bungware codec packs installed in order to take advantage of it. Windows Media Player 11 on Windows 7 only partially supports their hardware acceleration, and even then, almost 75% of the CPU usage is taken up when playing just a 720p video (VLC gets it down to about 30%, which is not even close to ideal). Their stuff is just crap. I bought a few different boards, including one with the same chipset but a higher CPU, and they're just a waste of money. If you want something better, get an AMD embedded board instead - at least you can get something with a modern APU with a DX11 GPU. Even Atom boards will run Aero properly too - VIA's drivers for Aero STILL TO THIS DAY don't work properly without getting graphical glitches.
I actually like it. Would like to see Toms do an article on its performance. If it is under 100 USD, I may consider buying many...
Keep in mind that VIA has a really bad habit of announcing stuff, and then not delivering it for a very long time. They announced their new chipset October of last year, and it's still not available on a single motherboard.
They're a really strange company. Not that their stuff doesn't work, I have one and it's brutally slow, but works fine. It's just they take so long to release stuff.
Ah SWEEET!!! iWant!!!! Pico-ITX rocks for fun things! If it's like $50, I'm so getting it!
ummm where do i insert the ram?
ummm where do i insert the ram?
Don't see the RAM slot on the right side?
Wow, nevermind. Current single core boards like that cost $230... not worth it. Still, such a fun little board
Don't waste your money. The chipsets that VIA is making don't have DX10, let alone 11. The processors are weak compared to even Atom's, and all of their hardware video acceleration features aren't worth a wet fart since you need to have VLC media player with a bunch of bungware codec packs installed in order to take advantage of it. Windows Media Player 11 on Windows 7 only partially supports their hardware acceleration, and even then, almost 75% of the CPU usage is taken up when playing just a 720p video (VLC gets it down to about 30%, which is not even close to ideal). Their stuff is just crap. I bought a few different boards, including one with the same chipset but a higher CPU, and they're just a waste of money. If you want something better, get an AMD embedded board instead - at least you can get something with a modern APU with a DX11 GPU. Even Atom boards will run Aero properly too - VIA's drivers for Aero STILL TO THIS DAY don't work properly without getting graphical glitches.
dont use aero? as far as im aware, its only there for pretty, correct me if im wrong.
Interesante... ahora necesito una Pico ITX gabinete.
release it soon, and no more than $100, it will be interesting.
power supply? dvd drive? storage??????
power supply? dvd drive? storage??????
Yes. The first one you need. The other two would be optional.
Actually Via CPU's crush Atom's, awhile back Tom's did a review on them. Via's been making ultra small / low power CPU's longer then either Intel or AMD, its the niche they targeted back when the other two were duking it out over desktop / server space. Funny thing is, most Via CPU's aren't even used in consumer devices, their used in ATM's, Point of Sale devices (cash registers), Internet Kiosks, Multimedia advertising boards, medical devices and industrial applications. Their CPU's are designed to run anywhere from freezing cold to scorching hot desert heat. It's an interesting technology, not the absolute fastest nor cheapest, but perfect for when you need a light low powered device that never ~ever~ dies to run in environmentally unfriendly conditions.
If its cheap it would be awesome for the base of a TV chip/mobo, to use as a dedicated TV unit for surfing the net and displaying streaming media on your tv.
I had a mini-ITX board that I loved (before I fried because of all the heat) this sounds like it would be awesome. If it was $150 or less I would buy it.
Don't see the RAM slot on the right side?
ahhh nevermind i was looking for desktop ram slot. lol
I thought Eden CPU is a fan-less design?
Heck, the HDMI port is nearly 1/10 of the length of that board!
Actually, the RAM is on the underside of the board. That thing on the right is a PCIe connector.
moar pictures !
sexy !
There needs to be a form factor that fits in an Altoids tin.
Seems like this thing would be perfect for a Media server/HTPC if you ran Linux on it.
Don't waste your money. The chipsets that VIA is making don't have DX10, let alone 11 blah blah blah wont play crysis blah blah. blah blah I don't like VLC media player. I wanna run that resource hog Windows Media Player 11 on Windows 7 and even then, almost 75% of the CPU usage is taken up when playing just a 720p video (VLC gets it down to about 30%, which is not even close to ideal). Their stuff is just crap for me because I am afraid of Linux. I bought a few different boards, including one with the same chipset but a higher CPU, and they're just a waste of money. If you want something better, get an AMD embedded board instead - at least you can get something with a modern APU with a DX11 GPU so you can play crysis. Even Atom boards will run Aero properly too - VIA's drivers for Aero STILL TO THIS DAY don't work properly without getting graphical glitches.
LOL, Linux fanboys... I doubt that this hardware will be properly supported for your OS.