Compact All-Rounders: VIA's Eden Mini ITX Format Boards

CPU Load: MPEG-4 Playback With AC3

This benchmark provided a difficult test for all candidates: not only is the test video (Terminator) of higher resolution (720x384 rather than 576x312), but we used a version with a high quality AC3 soundtrack.

It was not possible to play our test MPEG-4/AC3 video smoothly either with DivX or fddshow.

VIA EPIA / C3

The small C3 processor system was also unable to play our MPEG-4/AC3 video smoothly.

VIA EPIA-M 9000

The top model was able to play our AC3 test video smoothly with both the current DivX codec and fddshow. The latter program used less CPU processing time. MPEG decoding in hardware and the increased memory bandwidth would seem to help considerably.

Patrick Schmid
Editor-in-Chief (2005-2006)

Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.