VIA Intros "World's First" Quad-Core Mini-ITX Boards

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VIA has reintroduced two mini-ITX boards that now support its 1.2 GHz VIA QuadCore E-Series processor.

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Kevin Parrish
Kevin Parrish
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.

17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • memadmax
    NICE.
    Sign me up for fifty of them.
    Reply
  • coreym72
    Keep designing boards smaller and smaller and I look forward to assembling my own tablet just like a PC. OS installed from a bootable flash card (WIM Image) or any OS even a hackintosh. Apple may have a head start but I’m not one to be glued to a company where all the apps are purchased from.
    Reply
  • maxinexus
    VIA was never a good performer but hey what do you expect from miniITX
    Reply
  • velocityg4
    They may be the worlds first embedded CPU mini-ITX board. But for a couple years now you've been able to plop a quad core Intel or AMD CPU into mini-ITX boards.

    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.
    Reply
  • freggo
    Why no USB 3.0 support on a brand new product ?
    Reply
  • artk2219
    Honestly what I would like to see are some good VIA reviews since we see Brazos and Atom reviews fairly often but there isn't much information in regards to where VIA stacks up in all of this. Graphics wise I know their chips are absolutely terrible, but I remember when Brazos was released I saw something with the VIA x2 more than holding its own in a preliminary review, well holding its own on the CPU side at least.
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    Would make a decent low-power home server rig. Not really a great deal of mainstream use however due to the lack of processing horsepower. Still, when used for the correct purposes, these products could be very useful.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    velocityg4The 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.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!
    Reply
  • gilbertfh
    caedenvAtom 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
    Reply
  • yumri4
    if VIA jumps back with a good CPU design with their unique processing design which allows you to go on in a instruction without having to wait for all the other cores to finish then yeah VIA will be a good low end system board choice again but i do not see them measuring up to Intel and/or AMD anytime soon but on the end of price they are cheaper to build with thus might be put into some of the thinner and cheaper mobile devices and/or embedded systems like a ATM and stuff like that where high performance isn't really an issue just reliability.
    Reply