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VIA announces Pico-ITX
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 26th January 2007
"Honey, I shrunk the mobo..." - VIA's new Epia PX is nothing if not tiny.
The Epia PX is an all-new form factor which VIA dubs "Pico ITX." Overall, the board measures a whopping 3.9" x 2.8" - not much larger than a business card, and smaller than many packs of gum. But what's amazing about it isn't just its small size, but what's crammed into that size - a full 1GHz C7 processor. The system has enough horsepower to run Vista comfortably, which was the demo from CES.
Paired up with the processor will be one of two (possibly either, depending on model?) bridge chips - either the CX700M or the VX700. Each of these chips is a fully integrated northbridge and southbridge, and both contain HD video and audio out. The CX700M also has a video in, making it a nice choice for smaller HTPC-type setups. The VX700 loses that, but has considerably more USB capacity.
Oddly enough, the board lacks any visible connectors besides an ethernet port and a VGA port. The rest of the connectors are provided entirely through pin-outs on the board, allowing you to route ports to where you'll want them with cabling. Cooling is handled passively by a single plate which lays over the entire board.
It's being rumoured that the board will retail for around $250, which seems a fair price for everything you get in that small of a package. Of course, we'll know a lot more once VIA begins posting it - for now, there's no official word on either price or availability.
Have you got a thought on the miniscule motherboard? Let us hear it in our forums.
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Comments (41)Stats: 0.036 seconds
Quote from MS site:
Just the Memory is the Bottleneck.
Where are the memory slots? :|
I had the same thought. You could fit that one in case the size of a radio.
Can anyone say DIN slot PC!!!
What ethernet does it support? 1Gb? If it does follow my idea above with an internally fitted network storage box hooked up to the main rig and the pico itx :D
Home made vista-esque sideshow but better!
Or better yet, skip the case and just mount the whole thing on the back of an LCD or LCD stand.
You can see on the larger pictures:
<a href="http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/via_epiapx_1.jpg">larger pic</a>
there is something on the underside of the board.
might have to look at running one of these of a CF to IDE adapter if possible for a very small solid state video player.
holly crab!!!! i WANT one!!!!!! i love big computers but this thing rocks the house!!!!!
http://mini-itx.com/2007/01/26/more-epia-px-pictures
This has sooooooo much modding potential.
Seriously thinking of getting one.
I know, battery, pico, SSD, backpack.
Or, I wonder how much free space there is inside my stereo...
I really like this board but by the time you build a complete system it grows quite a bit, especially for a media center since you'd want at least one 3.5" hard drive for storage (well, that's what I'd use because of capacity & cost).
Searching the linked Linux devices though I found this: (link), now that's exactly what I'd buy if I could get it at a reasonable price and from a Canadian (because I'm in Canada) distributer. Slap in a core 2 duo, 2GB ram, and a 7600gt or 8600 when those come out and :D
I've been looking at small form factor boards with great interest since I discovered the T-amp amplifier... I'm dying to get a couple & build a serious HDD-based, networked micro system (since I'm currently sharing my small living area with a full racked seperates system as my only noise-maker).
This looks absolutely ideal... I'm in lust.
They already have DIN slot PCs with Mini-ITX (not even Pico-ITX). You could probably fit the whole headunit, amp and all in a DIN enclosure with that thing!!!.
DIN?
most cars can fit doube DIN now man! my focus has double DIN size radio though at the moment the OEM radio is in the cupboard and a DIN sized sony is in its place..... the cover to cover the second DIN sized gap is abit unsightly.
now imagine some how gutting the OEM radio, fitting a quality amp circuit and this little thing with a 2.5inch Solid State drive and a 4-5 inch TFT
if you can some how hide a USB dongle somewhere..... you can get a wireless track ball for your own kinda iDrive lol!
Maybe its built in. You can see the IDE pins clear on Mini ITX website. Shame no SATA
You Tube Vid here
Had same thought - MythTV frontend
Processor: VIA C7 1.0GHz
Memory: 1 DDR2 533 SODIMM socket, up to 1GB
VGA: Integrated VIA UniChrome Pro II 3D/2D AGP graphics, with MPEG-2/4 and WMV9 decoding acceleration
IDE: 1 UltraDMA connector
SATA: 1 SATA connector
LAN: 1 VIA VT6106S 10/100 ethernet
Audio: VIA VT1708A Hi-Definition Audio Codec
I/O: 4 USB 2.0, 1 COM, 1 PS2, 1 LVDS/DVI, 1 multimedia for TV/out, 1 audio for line-out/line-in, mic-in, optical-in, and 7.1 channel output, RJ-45 LAN, VGA
So, yeah, it's a single so-dimm slot, presumably on the bottom of the board.
I bought a Via 13000 board in the past thinking I could use it for an HTPC but it was seriously underpowered.
DVD playback etc was a nightmare.
It has MPEG acceleration but only if your software supports it, which hardly anything did.
MythTV, Mediaportal etc didn't. :(
I'd like to get one of these for my carPC I intend on building.
I drive a Ford and as mentioned earlier, it's about triple-din size so plently of room.
But if I were to use some software like centrafuse, would it be powerful enough?
That's my concern. :s
Try this De Dego XYZ Computing
http://www.mini-box.com/4GB-DOM
on there and one of these
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f?sc=8&category=13
and have about 10 sets of those.... CLUSTER RAMA BABY!!! :P