EPIA - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

VIA EPIA is a series of mini-ITX

Mini-ITX

Mini-ITX is a 17 x 17 cm low-power motherboard form factor developed by VIA Technologies in 2001. Mini-ITX is slightly smaller than microATX. Mini-ITX boards can often be passively cooled due to their low power consumption architecture, which makes them useful for home theater PC systems,...

, nano-ITX

Nano-ITX

Nano-ITX is a computer motherboard form factor first proposed by VIA Technologies at CeBIT in March 2003 , and implemented in late 2005. Nano-ITX boards measure 120 × 120 mm , and are fully integrated, very low power consumption motherboards with many uses, but targeted at smart digital...

and pico-ITX

Pico-ITX

Pico-ITX is a PC motherboard form factor announced by VIA Technologies in January 2007 and demonstrated later the same year at CeBIT. The formfactor was transferred over to SFF-SIG in 2008. The Pico-ITX form factor specifications call for the board to be 10 × 7.2 cm , which is half the area...

motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

s with integrated VIA processor

Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...

s. They feature a small size and low power consumption, so are particularly popular in the embedded market.

VIA EPIA motherboards come in several flavours: Nano-ITX

Nano-ITX

versions, based on the VIA CoreFusion

VIA CoreFusion

VIA CoreFusion is a single package integration of low-powered VIA x86 processors and Northbridges with integrated graphics.The CoreFusion platform is available in three configurations, named Mark, Luke and John.- External links :*...

processor series, and Mini-ITX

Mini-ITX

form factor featuring VIA CPUs and Northbridge

Northbridge (computing)

The northbridge has historically been one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a PC motherboard, the other being the southbridge. Increasingly these functions have migrated to the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. For Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion...

s in separate packaging. They were originally built for industrial applications but now have a wide range of applications in the consumer market such as carputer

Carputer

Carputer is the predominant term used to describe a category of mobile computer designed or modified to specifically be installed and run in automobiles...

s, firewalls, HTPCs, and Small File server

Server (computing)

In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...

s to name a few..

Model Name Definitions

The VIA EPIA motherboards have the following designators for easier identification:

Code	Definition
A	Configured without TV-out
E	Fanless configuration
G	RoHS-compliant
L	Configured with Gigabit Gigabit Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet is a term describing various technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second , as defined by the IEEE 802.3-2008 standard. It came into use beginning in 1999, gradually supplanting Fast Ethernet in wired local networks where it performed... LAN (where this is optional)
T	With TPM Trusted Platform Module In computing, Trusted Platform Module is both the name of a published specification detailing a secure cryptoprocessor that can store cryptographic keys that protect information, as well as the general name of implementations of that specification, often called the "TPM chip" or "TPM Security...

Criticism

Although VIA EPIA motherboards are very efficient in terms of space, they are sometimes criticized for being too expensive for the processing power that they provide. It has been commented that other manufacturers, such as PCChips and ASUS

ASUS

ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated is a multinational computer technology and consumer electronics product manufacturer headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Its product range includes motherboards, desktops, laptops, monitors, tablet PCs, servers and mobile phones...

, provide more affordable solutions based on the same technologies, namely VIA's low-power processors.http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20061115152127&pid=42

Via has failed to provide support for some features it sells EPIA boards based on. For example, although the chipsets support hardware H.264 decoding, no driver for Windows is available. In fact, only an outdated version of mplayer

MPlayer

MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...

on Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

supports this feature.

External links

VIA EPIA motherboards
Epiacenter Mini-ITX Reviews, Support Forums, FAQ, etc.
VIA EPIA EN12000E: Today's most efficient CPU & mainboard
VIA EPIA ME6000 Mini ITX Review

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.