Last week the new S3 Graphics Chrome 400 Series was introduced and it includes some pretty neat features. Of course I have to say that I've never actually seen anyone outside of a CeBIT or Computex VIA booth use an S3 graphics solution. Additionally I don't think it's even all that easy to obtain an S3 card here in Europe. However I've always felt that S3 cards offered quite a good combination of features and low power-consumption. I've also occasionally recommended considering an S3 card to people who weren't satisfied with the graphics solution on their EPIA motherboards. Anyway, the newly announced 400 series comes with DirectX 10.1 support and high-definition video-acceleration. So if the price (and power-consumption) of Chrome 400 cards is right they might be a good addition to some HTPC Mini-ITX setups, don't you think?
Anyway, you can read the complete press-release below...
At the much discussed Isaiah introduction last week the attending media also got a tour through the Centaur Technology offices and labs. HardOCP.com has written up a nice article with lots of photos to look at. Centaur's approach to designing, testing and producing processors is really quite different to what everyone else is doing!
"Centaur is a small company of less than 100 folks stuck away in Central Texas happily designing, building, and testing their processors. No matter what lies ahead for the CN processor, you have to admire the hands on, no nonsense, low budget approach that Centaur is employing in the development of their products. Centaur has taken semiconductor design down off its pedestal and placed it where we can admire it in all its complexity. Which doesn’t seem all that complex after you have Elizabeth build you a CPU to take home with you. And would not seem that low budget if we had to pay all those millions of dollars for the equipment needed to do it."
I wish that for once I could make it to the USA for such an occasion!
Posted by TheEagleCD on Monday, January 28 @ 17:45:00 CET
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A closer look at VIA's Isaiah
As previously inidcated I spent most of what should have been a study-evening on reading up on VIA's recently announced new processor architecture 'Isaiah'. First of all I was of course interested in the differences and advances compared to the C7 'Esther' core that we've been dealing with in the past years. Secondly I spent some time thinking about what Isaiah might mean for the *-ITX market.
Let's start off with a short video [cheesy music warning!] with Centaur Technology's Glenn Henry (Centaur is the US-based processor design company behind VIA's recent processors) which serves as a good introduction to the Isaiah architecture:
You can read more information by clicking on "read more"...
VIA Unveils Next-Generation Isaiah x86 Processor Architecture
Editor's Note: Thanks to everyone for submitting links to the various news reports about VIA's Isaiah announcement. We're still evaluating all the information, going through the white-paper, looking at the presentation-slides that VIA made available and then we're coming back with a more detailed look at Isaiah and what it means for the *-ITX market. So stay tuned for an update in the coming hours and for now we're leaving you with VIA's press-release to drool over...
New architecture provides substantial increases in performance and functionality with leading power efficiency to enable next generation “Small is Beautiful” computing devices
Austin, Texas, US, 24 January 2008 – VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of x86 silicon and platform technologies, today announced details of the VIA Isaiah Architecture, a new x86 processor architecture that will deliver significant boosts to the functionality and performance of desktop, mobile and ultra mobile PCs while minimizing power requirements, saving on battery life and enabling ultra compact system designs.
Designed from the ground up by the company’s US-based processor design subsidiary, Centaur Technology Inc., the VIA Isaiah Architecture combines all the latest advances in x86 processor technology, including a 64-bit superscalar speculative out-of-order microarchitecture, high-performance multimedia computation, and a new virtual machine architecture. The first generation of Isaiah-based products will be pin-compatible with the VIA C7 processor family, enabling a smooth transition for system builders and providing them with an easy upgrade path for current designs.
The first processors implementing the VIA Isaiah Architecture will use proven 65 nanometer technology for greater power efficiency, which, combined with new enhanced power and thermal management capabilities, will ensure the best performance per watt on the market and help drive the rapidly emerging categories of green, silent and small form factor desktop PCs and home media centers, and ultra thin and light notebooks and mini-notes.
It's been quite some time since we've been able to report that a new VIA EPIA motherboard is hitting the streets. So it was a real pleasure to see that the CN896 based EPIA SN boards that were first demoed at ESC San Jose in April 2007 are now becoming available. The EPIA SN10000EG which comes with a fanless 1GHz processor is reported to be "in stock" over at Logic Supply. At $247 it certainly sits in the upper price-range of the EPIA lineup however you're not allowed to forget that this is the first EPIA board that comes with the VIA Chrome9 HC integrated graphics which finally allows for full Vista support on the EPIA platform. Also the board comes with a PCIe x16 slot which enables users to upgrade the graphics solution with something more potent.
The EPIA SN18000G which comes with a fan-cooled 1.8GHz C7 processor is expected to arrive at the end of the month. It will cost $268 and personally I'd definitely go for this solution due to the significant difference in processing power!
Interestingly Logic Supply has added the following warning to the product description of the EPIA SN motherboards:
"This mainboard has a CF slot and Mini PCI slot on the bottom of the board making it incompatible with many of our enclosures unless certain modifications are made. Please contact a technical sales associate for more information."
I hope that Logic Supply publishes a list of the enclosures that are known to work with the EPIA SN motherboards in order to avoid customer confusion.
Advansus, a joint-venture company of ASUS and Advantech, announced a tiny wireless Nano-ITX barebone system for any space-limited and frequent network access applications. The NTC100-LX800 accommodates one AMD Geode LX800 @0.9W Nano-ITX motherboard which is capable of running high-quality multimedia streams up to 500 MHz clock rate. The compact system measures 170 mm x 155mm x 42mm, which square size is smaller than a Mini-ITX form factor.
Posted by TheEagleCD on Sunday, January 20 @ 03:55:00 CET
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Ripple-Mini PC @ €90 (aka ''How low can you go?'')
I guess by now we've all gotten used to computers below $300 and we're starting to see more sub-$200 systems such as the Shuttle kPC which we mentioned last week. Now gizmodo.com stumbled across the Ripple-Mini PC which is set to become available in South Korea for the equivalent of $132 or €90. €90?! I've had weekends where I spent more money on beers and gin-tonics than what that setup costs! Now for that price you can't expect a Core 2 Duo solution but I'd say for many people the Ripple-Mini PC could be more than adequate. It's built around Intel's D201GLY Mini-ITX board (which uses a Celeron M215 @ 1.33GHz), comes with 1GB of RAM and a relatively neat white enclosure. The one thing which isn't mentioned is the hard-drive capacity and an optical-drive so I'm assuming that we're talking about a barebone solution here which does make the deal a bit less interesting. However as the gizmodo.com article correctly puts it:
"We just cannot get over the price of this machine. Sure, it may be far off from an 8-core super beast, but given the spec, it is firmly in Everex's gPC territory. Given the price, it is firmly in a class of its own. We know the currency conversion rates mean even if it did come to US shores, (don't count on it), it would be priced a lot higher, but the tech per dollar bang would still be very impressive. Gosh, those lucky Koreans get all the cheap technology goodness."
The biggest disadvantage compared to the Shuttle kPC may well be that North-American and European customers might not get their hands on the Ripple-Mini PC anytime soon.
Posted by TheEagleCD on Saturday, January 19 @ 06:25:00 CET
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Advansus announces a Fanless & Wireless Nano-ITX barebone system
While this press-release actually went out about a month ago I still find the announcement quite interesting and thought you might want to read about it. Per the title of the announcement Advansus introduced a barebone system based on their ALX800-LCN Geode LX Nano-ITX board which we first saw during Computex 2006. These days Advansus is aiming the NTC100-LX800 at "frequent network access applications" even though I'm not quite sure what exactly they're thinking of. Just like I mentioned the other day with VIA's NAB 7500 board I think that we're going to be seeing more of those targeted products, especially when it comes to network- and server-applications. As always you can find the complete press-release below:
CES 2008: MTube, the smallest 1GHz x86 system on the planet
As previously mentioned Sascha took quite a lot of videos at CES 2008 and Lunch @ Piero's and we're going to be posting them here on the frontpage over the coming days. Today we're looking at the MTube (which we talked about here) which claims to be the smallest 1GHz x86 system on the planet. In the video below you get to see the MTube demo-setup at Lunch @ Piero's where they show different usage-scenarios. With regards to availability the MTube is said to hit the streets in Taiwan later this year.
Posted by TheEagleCD on Friday, January 18 @ 15:35:00 CET
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Advansus Rolls Out Modular Designed Mini-ITX Open Frame Panel Computer
January 11, 2008, Taipei, Taiwan Advansus, a joint-venture company of ASUS and Advantech, introduced a Mini-ITX Modular Open Frame Panel Computer, the FPM610 series. The FPM610 is an Open Frame Panel Computer equipped with a 15" color TFT display, and accommodates a variety of Mini-ITX system options, ranging from the Intel® Core™2 Duo to the Celeron® M 600 MHz processor. The FPM610 unit makes it easier and faster to do custom system development with flexible Mini-ITX board choices, multiple displays & audio streams, powered COM ports and one built-in power supply.
Rich Multimedia & I/O
Advansus currently offers four versions of the FPM610 Open Frame Panel Computer which incorporate an Intel® 945GME, 915GME, 910GMLE or 852GM mini-ITX motherboard. All versions of the FPM610 support both LVDS and DVI dual view displays, 5.1-CH audio with an additional 5 Watt audio amplifier, and one fast Gigabit Ethernet controller with an RJ-45 LAN port. Two powered serial ports are able to support external low-power devices with 5V/12V output. One CompactFlash slot takes any type I/II media card for memory or storage requirements. The ready-for-market FPM610 share a common ATX I/O shield, and provide customers the perfect platforms for digital signage, KIOSK, POS and other multimedia demanding applications.
Earlier today I received VIA's latest press-release where the company introduces their NAB 7500 product. "NAB" stands Network Appliance Board and VIA has previously produced NAB products but without really mentioning them in the public. As you can see from the full press-release below the NAB 7500 comes with lots of high-end features and I'm sure it's going to find its niche in the market. Looking at the board made me think about the potential of more specialized and targeted Mini-ITX boards in general. For example I could imagine a sub-$100 board aimed at the home-server market. Such a board would likely come with GigaBit Ethernet, 802.11n wifi, >4 S-ATA ports, a CompactFlash reader but no audio-ports and maybe not even a display-output. I certainly think such a product could be an interesting base for home-server-appliances which could be offered by the likes of Logic Supply and others. Anyway, enough talk, let's move on to the press-release:
The VIA NAB 7500 is an industrial grade network appliance board for next generation network security appliances.
Taipei, Taiwan, 17 January 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of embedded silicon and platform technologies, today announced the VIA NAB 7500 embedded board for advanced network security solutions. Building on VIA’s strength in bringing to market power-efficient, highly targeted platforms, the VIA NAB 7500 brings VIA’s expertise to the network appliance sector.
Designed to address the needs of today’s modern network security systems, the feature-packed VIA NAB 7500 is a highly integrated Network Appliance Board for network security or gateway applications, including Firewall, VPN, UTM, Anti-Virus and Intrusion Prevention System products. Other network applications include Proxy Server, Quality of Service and Load Balancer products.
While one could call CES 2008 a real UMPC- and HDTV-fest there were also some interesting announcements for the Mini-ITX crowd. Personally the one I found to be most interesting is AOpen's commitment to small form-factor which are built around their Mini-ITX motherboards. Since AOpen introduced the "Mini PC" back in 2005 (as an answer to Apple's Mac mini one might add) the company has been quite a significant player in the SFF market. However in 2007 they seemed to go a bit quiet on the SFF front and it's good to hear that now they're again coming up with new products for this market. As Charlie Demerjian from The INQ puts it in his story:
"AOpen is refocusing in 2008 on small form factor products (SFF). It had a variety of cases, mounts and mobos to offer just about anything you need, Intel, AMD or Via in a mini box."
Their product-lineup for 2008 certainly looks interesting and I do like those wooden enclosures. It's also good to see that AOpen is offering setups built around all three major chip-players (AMD, Intel and VIA that is) because that gives customers a lot of choice. Now I do wish that their standard enclosures receive an updated design, I never found them to be particularly attractive.
Posted by TheEagleCD on Tuesday, January 15 @ 03:00:12 CET
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CES: Interview with the Zonbu CEO
While I spent most of my weekend glued to the desk and working on a university assignment Sascha was busy copying and editing the videos which he took at CES and Lunch @ Piero's last week. So we have a supply of cool videos and we're going to post them over the coming days.
We're going to start off this week with an interview with Zonbu CEO's Gregoire Gentil in which he gives a 3min presentation of the company's products... Enjoy!
Posted by TheEagleCD on Monday, January 14 @ 03:45:00 CET
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Pico-ITX based Johnny 5 Robot!
Now I don't know about you but ever since I was a little kid I've been fascinated by robots. While I've often sworn to finally start working on some kind of robotics project myself I simply haven't found the time to do anything. Plus looking at what other people are doing I'm thinking that I couldn't keep up with them anyway. I mean, just look at this project here called Johnny 5. It uses a VIA EPIA PX1000G Pico-ITX motherboard at its brain and the things that robot can do is simply amazing. Just look at the short video (cheesy music warning!) and then follow the links below. Isn't it amazing for how many cool applications you can use full-blown x86 computing platforms these days? And that's just the beginning, I'm convinced once Mobile-ITX hits the market we're going to find those tiny motherboards all over the place!
Pretty damn cool, don't you think?!
You can find the page with a second video here and Tyberius, the guy behind this project, also posted an extensive entry about his project in this forum-thread.
Mini-Box.com introduces the picoPSU-90, a D201GLY-friendly PSU
For some reason I had thought that I posted this a week ago but apparently I didn't. Anyway, the folks from Mini-Box.com gave me a heads-up about the latest addition to their picoPSU portfolio. The picoPSU-90 is a 90 watt version and therefore Mini-Box.com now offers a full range of picoPSUs going from 60W up to 120W. Other than that the picoPSU-90 comes with the following features:
"1) D201GLY, D201GLY2 and D201GLY12-T friendly: It has a 12V-ATX 4 pin power connector specifically designed for popular Intel mini-itx board.
2) Configurable cable harness: The hard drive ATA / PATA cable can be replaced with a mutitude of wire length / connectors configs.
3) Small very small, 100% quiet and very green (up to 96% efficiency)
4) Current mode BUCK design with low EMI / RFI.
5) Works with all VIA C3 / C7 motherboards, low power Core Duo, Core Solo and Celerons (D102GLY family)
6) All ceramic and organic polymer capacitors, made in Japan.
7) Sub $20 PSU in qty > 500pcs, long life design (+5 years availability)"
At a price of $39.95 for the DC-DC board and $49.95 for the complete power-kit (which includes the AC-DC converter) this is certainly a very affordable power-solution. You can find the complete picoPSU-90 page here.
P.S. On a personal note: This is my 900th news-story here on EPIACENTER! :-)
Posted by TheEagleCD on Saturday, January 12 @ 15:25:13 CET
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Shuttle introduces Mini-ITX based kPC
It's quite amazing to look at the number of sub-$400, sub-$300 and lately sub-$200 computer systems that we've seen in the recent months. Call me crazy but I certainly believe that all of these products are indirect results of the quest for low-cost computing-devices which was initially popularized by the One Laptop per Child project. Now after seeing the Zonbu, the much-discussed WalMart PC and the Cloudbook a very big player by the name of Shuttle has decided to join the show.
Shuttle's $199 offer goes by the name of "kPC" (don't ask me what it stands for but I think that calls for another "bad product naming" day) and will be based around a Mini-ITX board. According to this news.com story:
"It'll have an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. What it won't have: an optical drive or a PCI Express slot. Despite that, it's a pretty good-looking box, and comes in red, blue, white, and black, each with a different icon stamped on the front."
Apparently Shuttle will also provide a $99 barebones version that can be customized with components such as a Core 2 Duo processor and more RAM, however no information about the cost of such a "high-end" version has been made available. According to techreport.com the kPC's design process hasn't been finished and Shuttle is still pondering whether to include things such as a PCI-Express slot and a 5.25" drive-bay. Personally I assume that we're going to see the final designs at CeBIT in Hannover at the beginning of March and systems will probably start appearing in the distribution channel shortly afterwards. But that's just an educated guess.
What do you make of systems such as the kPC? Would you trade your current setup with it? Or use it as a second or third system in the house? Or maybe for your parents and grand-parents?
Posted by TheEagleCD on Friday, January 11 @ 03:50:00 CET
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As previously mentioned Sascha took quite a lot of videos at CES 2008 and Lunch @ Piero's and we're going to be posting them here on the frontpage over the coming days. Today we're looking at the MTube (which we talked about 
It's quite amazing to look at the number of sub-$400, sub-$300 and lately sub-$200 computer systems that we've seen in the recent months. Call me crazy but I certainly believe that all of these products are indirect results of the quest for low-cost computing-devices which was initially popularized by the 
