New Nano-ITX Boards Shown At Cebit

Subartik writes "The new nano-itx boards from Via have been shown at the CeBit show in Germany. It looks like it will be a suitable platform for all kinds of small form factor devices. See VIA embedded and Linux Devices for the specs and pictures" An anonymous reader points to PC World articles about the Nano-ITX board itself as well as the first system which will include it.

Pictures

[JPriest]

Mini-ITX has some pictures here [mini-itx.com]

Re:Perfect size for a media center?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a perfect prebuilt system [mini-itx.com] for a media centre as well.

Re:useless to me

[markclong]

It does seem to have a mini-pci slot on the bottom according to this [mini-itx.com]. This could make for one cool car computer for DVDs, mp3s, and GPS navigation. Low power consumption, low heat dissapation, and good performance for audio and DVDs.

Re:Pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the same people that built a computer inside a Windows XP box [mini-itx.com] a while back.

Re:Heat?

[hermeshome.se]

I'm sorry, RTFA!

"None of these processors require a cooling fan, which means that the PC can be substantially quieter than other computers based on processors requiring cooling fans."

Bah.

Re:Heat?

[Illissius]

Passive, that's the entire point. Their 1GHz CPU consumes 7W. (Yes. Seven. Which happens to be the same as Transmeta's Efficeon.) By comparison, Intel's current ~3GHz P4s consume around 70-80W, and their new (Prescott core) P4s over 100W.

Pictures

[molafson]

Here's some pictures and specs [mini-itx.com] from the Nano-ITX PC that Mini-ITX.com is selling.

Re:Heat?

[Anonymous Coward]

and the 533 MHz Eden chip only use about 2 Watts... too bad they don't make laptops with this chip (at least i don't think they do)

Re:notice the AES hardware encryption...

[Anonymous Coward]

the chip has a standard x86 instruction set as far as i can tell... all the mini-itx boards load up linux fine anyway

Re:Heat?

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

The thing consumes 2.5Watts. For comparison, a 3.2GHz P4 consumes approximately 100W, a current Itanium-2 approximately 150W, and a Pentium-M "centrino" 1.4Ghz chip: 28W. So, to answer your question, hell, you could attach a single flattened penny to this thing and it would keep it from overheating :)

Re:My head hurts, again.

[gooberguy]

Nano-ITX is 12cm x 12cm. Oh, and you forgot to list Mini-ITX. :)

Re:No DVI :(

[sprprsnmn]

It doesn't need DVI as it has 2 LVDS ports on the board itself.

Do you really need Linux?

[^BR]

Because if any free Unix (sue me SCO!) will do OpenBSD [openbsd.org] already supports that [deadly.org] (since 3.4, and way faster support coming in 3.5).

Re:Still Mini-ITX form factor

[sprprsnmn]

Standard Mini-Itx (Eden, Nehemiah, etc) are 17cm x 17cm. This board is 12cm x 12cm, which is roughly half the size.

Re:Price for MythTV compatabile/fast enough system

[amix]

Dude! Why don't you just read the specs ?

It's got an MPEG2/MPEG4 chip, okay ?!

Q1: Yes

All C3 "Nehemiah" CPUs starting at 1GHz can do this. I assume, since I do not use MythTV. I use the C3 on a full-fledged server and used it for KDE/Desktop work for months. I had no problems replaying standard MPEG2/MPEG4. The EPIA boards have an MPEG2 decoder, the new ones will have MPEG4 in addition. The new CPU will be faster then the one I use.

Q2: Yes. Many people use a TV card with MPEG2 encoder on their EPIA systems

Q3: Noiseless if you cool it passive

Q4: No, people have done it with the even larger EPIAs

Q5: That depends on your skills and desired features. The Nano-ITX board *might* cost around USD200-250 at introduction. Got this from a sales-guy at a Mini-ITX shop I know.

Re:Price for MythTV compatabile/fast enough system

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wanted to correct you on a fact that I've seen a lot of people get wrong.

You mention that "The EPIA boards have an MPEG2 decoder, the new ones will have MPEG4 in addition."

The EPIA boards (and quite a few other gfx chipsets: ati, nvidia etc ..) do NOT have a mpeg2 decoder onboard !!

What they have is "integrated hardware based MPEG-4/2 acceleration" -- taken from http://mini-itx.com/news/nanode/

Which, simple means that the card has 2 features a viable:

some sort of fast copy acceration (aka fast bitblt)
some sort of hardware scaling (like the Xv extension for X)

I haven't looked into whats diffrent with there new boards that adds MPEG4 acceration. New hardware features ? or just some MPEG4 codecs that use the acceration features ?

VIA support Open Source weakly

[The Famous Brett Wat]

Just in case anyone takes the AC above too seriously, here are a bunch of more-informative links.

On hunting around, I found the EPIA Linux Howto [viaarena.com], which is a January 2004 publication (apparently), and fairly nifty. In the chapter on video support [viaarena.com], the editor interjects with a clarifying comment about hardware MPEG support, stating, "The source code is available to large OEM customers under NDA/licensing agreements. It is not available to end-users." Strike one for open source.

The video drivers for EPIA-M boards can be downloaded from their CLE266 Linux [viaarena.com]page. There is a note about source code at the bottom of this page. They say the following about full source code access: "Users need to sign Binary License Agreement (BLA) and Source Code Addendum (SCABLA) to obtain the source. Typically, only requests from companies developing product for sale will be approved." Strike two for open source.

But there's a more limited source release available, apparently, and for that you need to go to the VIA Open Source Developer's Data Request Form [viaarena.com]. Here you will be warmly greeted with the following notice, accompanied by a honking great form full of mandatory personal information fields.

VIA want to make available code and other resources to appropriate open source developers. In order to be accepted into the programme and have downloads made available, requests must be made via this form.

Once the form is complete, has been submitted and reviewed, your application may be approved. If successful you will receive an e-mail to the address specified by you on this form. This mail must be responded to otherwise your access will not be enabled.

VIA's open source support is weak at best. Maybe there are good reasons why they are obliged to put obstacles in the way of everything, rather than just providing the damn code, but their pitch as given leaves me pretty cold. I like their stuff, but I'm sick of half-baked software support.