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.

My head hurts, again.

[gklinger]

Let me get this straight. We've got ATX, Extended ATX, FlexATX, WATX, Mini ATX, microATX and now Nano-ITX? How is anyone suppose to keep this straight? What a pain in the atx. I will say this, these boards are getting pretty small. The article gave the dimensions as 3.7 inches by 5.9 inches by 6.3 inches. Nanode must have invented a debigulator.

Heat?

[hermeshome.se]

Anyone know how they plan to cool the CPU? Passive or active cooling? I am not an expert on VIAs CPUs at all. Hopefully they wont be as bad as AMDs first 1GHz...

And are there any cases ready to deliver, that support this new "standard"?

Re:useless to me

[pla]

useless to me. No PCI, PCMCIA, or ISA slots? Seems like just a toy.

With built-in IDE, USB, sound, ethernet, and video, what do you need a PCI slot for? And considering the trend micro-ATX boards took, you can expect to see dual or quad ethernet and SCSI support within a few months.

Yes, I realize devices other than those three exist, but if you need them, you've probably missed the point of such a small board... Low power, passive cooling, quiet, small and portable... Loading it up with other toys (such as throwing in a high-end (and hot, and power-sucking) video card for gaming) kinda removes most of the advantages. If you want a "real" high-end desktop-class machine, you still need to get a standard ATX board.

And if you really need some expansion capabilities, you always have USB - You can get just about anything in a USB form these days.

Re:IPv6

[Migrant Programmer]

Please explain to me why my fridge needs a publicly addressable IP.

Cost?

[nurb432]

Didnt see it mentioned how much these things will be.

If they are more then 100 bucks or so, they wont be too useful for the 'embedded market' they are trying to enter. ( plus they are still a tad too big and power hungry for that.. )

Re:useless to me

[Pike65]

As long as someone has the brains to slap two ethernet ports in it it'd make a handy firewall/router in a convenient itty bitty size. The box I have currently doing routing is an old IBM PC Server and it's so big I have to keep all my stuff away from it in case it undergoes gravitational collapse . . .

Re:Portable Beowulf cluster? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on the nature of the problem, the 1024 chickens may prove to be a more viable solution. Not to mention, the added redundancy. You lose that ox and you're up shit creek. But thme chickens, there's plenty to go around, even if you eat one every week!
Plus, with chickens, you get eggs for free...

Re:Linux support

[The Famous Brett Wat]

Indeed. I'm wondering whether VIA is going to pull their finger out and actually offer some active support to the development of XFree86 drivers, for example. I've had VIA EPIA (Mini-ITX) systems for quite some time now, but it's only in the last month or so that native video chipset support has become available for them in XFree86. Presumably VIA funds the development of their own Windows drivers -- is it too much to ask that they aid in the development of X drivers just by releasing some programming specs? I like VIA's stuff a lot, but their all-too-common policy of "details on how to actually use this stuff are a closely guarded and valuable trade secret" ticks me off.

Re:Ironic Advertising

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

You do realize that many people find the dead space left from the ad more anoying then the ad itself. Ad blockers are for people who are really crazed, for most it's just pop ups that bother them. Normal ads are fine, aside from the ocasional super flashy one. And sometimes you might find them useful. Also I prefer to still have ads make websites money. I don't want to have to start paying to visit every website out there because everyone has ad blockers so sites need new money streams.

Re:useless to me

[Phrogger]

>With built-in IDE, USB, sound, ethernet, and video, what do you need a PCI slot for? And considering the trend micro-ATX boards took, you can expect to see dual or quad ethernet and SCSI support within a few months.

I'd need a PCI slot for a Hauppauge PVR-350 card for a MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org). Small size, no fan, this board would be great otherwise for building a PVR.

Re:My head hurts, again.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

There was a quote to the effect of:

Standards are great! You can pick any one you want!

The prospect of smaller computers with an interchangeable form factor is interesting. I doubt power users will want an ITX board based system as their main system, but there's a lot of power to be harnessed for experiments.