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‘motherboard’ Stories

VIA EPIA N700: lowest-profile Nano-ITX board yet

Chris Davies, Aug 15th 2008 Discuss [1]

VIA have taken the wraps off of another Nano-ITX board, the EPIA N700, the first with the company's VX800 unified all-in-one media system processor. With a choice of 1.5GHz VIA C7 or 500MHz VIA Eden processors, what makes the N700 so compact is that video, graphics and connectivity are all handled by the VX800 chip. Just 33 x 33m, it includes a VIA Chrome 9 graphics core and HD video processor. Read The Full Story

VIA drop motherboard chipset arm to focus on CPUs

Chris Davies, Aug 11th 2008 Discuss [0]

VIA have confirmed that they will be abandoning their chipset business, concentrating instead on their own x86 processors and integrated motherboards. The move comes, according to Richard Brown, vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, as the end-point of a long term transition to processors, prompted by the company's realisation that Intel and AMD would both corner the market in own-name chipsets and third-party offerings from VIA would be edged out. Read The Full Story

NVIDIA rumored to exit chipset business

Chris Davies, Aug 1st 2008 Discuss [0]

NVIDIA are preparing to pull out of the motherboard business, according to a report by DigiTimes. Citing "sources close to the situation", it's claimed that NVIDIA called a meeting with manufacturing partners earlier this week to examine what degree of support their ongoing chipset development would receive; the partners' response was apparently poor enough to prompt the company to cut its losses. Read The Full Story

VIA Pico-ITX EPIA P700 motherboard for low-profile installs

Chris Davies, Jun 27th 2008 Discuss [0]

VIA have done a little extra shaving and come up with their latest Pico-ITX motherboard, the EPIA P700. By replacing the traditional ports with in-line I/O header pins, there's been enough room for VIA to include an integrated power adaptor, while still keeping the whole thing down to just 10cm x 7.2cm. Accessory boards add normal ports, or you can simply wire up whichever connections you need. Read The Full Story

Centrino 2 processors arriving mid-July rather than August

Satsuki Then, Jun 23rd 2008 Discuss [0]

Centrino 2 processors were slated for August, but it might not be that long until we see the new chips in some upcoming mainstream notebooks. Intel is now anticipated the chip to be available to manufacturers as early as mid-July. Read The Full Story

PCI Express 3.0 backward compatible with earlier standard

Chris Davies, Jun 12th 2008 Discuss [0]

Owners of computer components that use the PCI Express 2.0 standard will be pleased to hear that their existing hardware will still work once motherboards switch to the PCI Express 3.0 standard. At a recent press conference discussing the interface, SIG chairman Al Yanes disclosed more details about the upcoming connector, which has previously been quoted as managing 8.0 gigatransfers per second. Read The Full Story

VIA Mini-ITX 2.0 standard unveiled: HD support a priority

Chris Davies, Jun 5th 2008 Discuss [0]

As VIA's energy-efficient mobile processor range gets faster, the chips become more suited to applications other than basic ultraportable notebooks. That's why the company has developed a new Mini-ITX 2.0 standard, an updated version of the 17cm square motherboard which has proved so popular with case modders and small-form-factor HTPCs. Mini-ITX 2.0 specifies a CPU such as VIA's own Nano, a 16-lane PCI Express slot for high-definition video support, and a minimum of 2GB DDR2 RAM. Read The Full Story

ASUS to preload Express Gate instant-on Linux on all new motherboards

Chris Davies, May 16th 2008 Discuss [0]

Last year ASUS released a motherboard, the P5E3, with an embedded compact Linux distro it called Express Gate. Basically a fast-boot alternative that, in just five seconds, bypassed Windows and gave you a web-browser, media player and other apps, it was developed by a company called DeviceVM (under the name Splashtop). ASUS were obviously pleased with how the mini-OS performed, as they've now decided to add Express Gate to all of their motherboards. Read The Full Story

VIA fanless 500MHz PX5000EG Pico-ITX board

Chris Davies, May 14th 2008 Discuss [0]

VIA has dropped its already-compact Pico-ITX boards into a hot wash and come up with the PX5000EG, measuring in at just 3.9 x 2.8-inches. The small size is due to VIA dropping the processor speed down to just 500MHz (compared to the existing 1GHz PX1000G) and thus being able to leave off any active cooling. It'll still support up to 1GB of RAM, though, and has hardware MPEG-2/-4 and WMV9 hardware decoding acceleration. Read The Full Story

AMD blames motherboards for overheating Phenom X4 CPUs

Chris Davies, Apr 29th 2008 Discuss [0]

Processor manufacturer AMD is being forced to field criticism from some users, after reports of compatibility issues between a number of their quad-core Phenom X4 chips and motherboards using a certain chipset. The company confirmed that the issue arises when the 9750 and 9850 Phenom processors, which have a Thermal Design Power (the maximum amount of power the cooling system is required to dissipate) of 125 watts, are used with motherboards based on the 780G chipset. Such boards - which AMD describes as "mainstream" - are only capable of dealing with the lower, 95 watts TDP processors, such as the 9600 and 9550. Read The Full Story

AMD ‘Hawkfish’ reference motherboard spotted with faster Southbridge

Chris Davies, Apr 25th 2008 Discuss [0]

AMD are planning a refresh to their 790FX motherboard range that should satisfy power users and overclockers' demands for a better-performing Southbridge. Currently 'boards using the 790FX chipset rely on the SB600 Southbridge, which in comparison to more recent chipsets has relatively poor PCI and SATA performance. Fudzilla have found the reference design for the upcoming relaunch, which swaps out the SB600 for the newer SB750; codenamed "Hawkfish" it also includes broad RAID support and increased connectivity. Read The Full Story

Sony XEL-1 broken down – shot from the dissection at the Embedded Systems Conference

James Allan Brady, Apr 18th 2008 Discuss [0]

For some reason the announcement of a newer, thinner OLED TV by Sony and the attention of an event gave someone cause to disassemble an 11-inch OLED TV that costs $2500. It’s 3mm thick, so reassembly was probably harder than disassembly. Read The Full Story