VIA Intros "World's First" Quad-Core Mini-ITX Boards
VIA has reintroduced two mini-ITX boards that now support its 1.2 GHz VIA QuadCore E-Series processor.
On Thursday Taiwanese motherboard and chipset manufacturer VIA Technologies claimed "world's first" by reintroducing the VIA EPIA-M900 and VIA EPIA-M910 boards as the company's first two Mini-ITX boards to feature it's 1.2 GHz VIA QuadCore E-Series processor. VIA says they're the most power efficient x86 quad-core solutions available on the market, targeted for "immersive" HD embedded environments.
The VIA EPIA-M900, which originally launched in July 2011, measures 17 x 17-cm and now comes packed with either the QuadCore E-Series processor, or the 1.6 GHz dual core VIA Nano X2 E-Series processor. Also on board is the VIA VX900 Media System Processor (MSP) which features the VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor and supports up to 8 GB of DDR3 system memory. The rear panel I/O includes a Gigabit LAN port, HDMI port, VGA port, four USB 2.0 ports, one COM port and three audio jacks.
"An onboard PCIe x16 slot (with effective speed up to PCIe x8) and one PCI slot is accompanied with pin headers providing one dual channel 24-bit LVDS support (including backlight control), an additional three COM ports, a further four USB 2.0 ports and one USB device port, LPC support, 2 Digital I/O, SPDIF out and an SMBus header," VIA said on Thursday.
As for the VIA EPIA-M910, it launched just two weeks ago. It's a bit meatier than the previous M100 board, now supporting the 1.2 GHz VIA QuadCore E-Series processor in addition to the 1.6 GHz VIA Nano X2 dual core processor and the fanless 1.0 GHz VIA Eden X2 dual core processor, depending on your budget. The rear I/O panel is packed with dual Gigabit LAN ports, PS/2 support, one HDMI port, a VGA port, two RS-232 5v/12v selectable COM ports, four USB 2.0 ports and audio jacks.
"On board pin headers provide 2 x 24-bit LVDS support (including backlight control), two SATA ports, an additional six COM ports, a further four USB ports, Digital I/O, and a PCIe x4 slot. The VIA EPIA-M910 is available with support for either ATX or DC-in power supplies," VIA said.
VIA also stated that the QuadCore E-Series processor features a highly optimized, energy efficient multi-core architecture that delivers a thermal design power (TDP) of only 27.5W. It's also natively 64-bit compatible and comes with numerous performance features including Adaptive Overclocking.
"The VIA QuadCore E-Series processor delivers world class performance in the industry's leading power efficient package,"VIA said. "The high performance of the VIA QuadCore E-Series processor makes it the perfect platform for the creation of next generation digital signage displays and embedded projects."
Actual availability and pricing is unknown, so stay tuned.
Sign me up for fifty of them.
What I want is a cheap ARM board with RAID 5 capabilities. That way I can build an inexpensive and low power using NAS. The Atom uses too much electricity and so does this. The prebuilt NAS with an ARM CPU use less energy but are way overpriced.
I say they are overpriced since the prebuilt NAS with ARM cost less than the Atom models. Yet I can build an Atom NAS for less than a prebuilt ARM NAS. Therefore being able to build your own ARM NAS should be far cheaper than the prebuilt model. Plus have 2GB+ RAM as that seems to be a huge performance hit in the cheaper prebuilt NAS that only have 256MB or 512MB.
Atom processors take a Max of 10W, and substantially less when at idle. A low power HDD takes 3-5W idle and between 10-25W when in use (35-50W on spin-up). If your CPU takes less (approximate 1/2) the power of your HDD, and costs 67 cents per month if under a full load 24/7 (365d/y*24hr/d*10W/hr/1000W/kW=87.6W/yr /12mo=7.3kW/Mo*9.3cents/kW=67cents/mo) and you are worried about the cost of operation, then you have issues my friend. Obviously the costs will vary depending on location, but 9.3 cents is the national average, but we are still talking well under $1/mo to run your processor at full tilt for a whole month. Used 8 hours a day we are talking closer to 22 cents a month. Sure, if you are running a server farm of 1000 of these puppies, plus business rate for power which is much higher, then we are talking some serious cash... but as a home user you are being silly.
As for the article; It's good to hear Via is still in the mix. They were the best low power company for a very long time, and I would love to see them come out with some ground-breaking stuff again!
It all adds up right? /sarcasm
In short i do not see VIA coming into the desktop market and actually being successful anytime soon due to lack of performance even for a Word processing / Web surfing computer.
A dual core 1.2Ghz typical cellphone CPU is not match for a true desktop CPU... but of course, those are hard to plug into a phone and the battery is kind of large. Hey, that would be a COOL project, find one of those OLD huge Motorola Portable phones, use a desktop CPU like the AMD X4 A-series chip, Windows7 and cellular software...
that is what VIA should do but most likely wont because they are dumb and really cannot see that most people don't upgrade their systems when using a VIA chipset also it is always to slow for any real good upgrades thus a 10/100/1000 Mbps network chip supporting 1 or 2 ports on it will be enough for a NAS which their boards seem good for. Now if they were to remove the PCI slot and add in more SATA ports i think they will have a better board then this but that is me as i use VIA boards for home NAS builds and hard drives are cheap but VIA boards cost as much as a 1~2TB hard drive does thus having more SATA slots and no PCI support will be good.
lol new Cedar Trail Atoms have a 3.5W TDP now...though apparently their video decoding drivers are a bit broken...