| Saturday, July 5 2008 |
The competition heats up with compact-computing. MSI has released a special motherboard which could compete with the VIA Pico-ITX board. This compact motherboard has a hardwired Intel Atom N230 processor clocked at 1.60 GHz that is passively cooled by an aluminum heatsink, it shares this heatsink with a Intel 945GC northbridge that's the core-logic used accompnied with a ICH7 southbridge. It features an integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 and Realtek ALC 888HD audio.
While the board doesn't feature an onboard PSU unlike the offering from VIA, it features two DDR2 slots for DDR2 667/533 MHz, two SATA II ports, an IDE connector, ports arranged in the standard ATX fashion. A PCI slot is provided. The board features onboard ethernet along with 6-channel audio. This board has started selling in Japan, where it's priced at approx. US $95 and measures 19cm x 17cm.
Source: iXBT
While the board doesn't feature an onboard PSU unlike the offering from VIA, it features two DDR2 slots for DDR2 667/533 MHz, two SATA II ports, an IDE connector, ports arranged in the standard ATX fashion. A PCI slot is provided. The board features onboard ethernet along with 6-channel audio. This board has started selling in Japan, where it's priced at approx. US $95 and measures 19cm x 17cm.
Source: iXBT
User comments
Wow, that board looks pretty sweet for HTPC. Can't wait for other boards come out!
sick!, wish that was an x16 pci though
ponder ... new media server ....
$95 including processor is excellent. Shame it doesnt have onboard DVI connector.
PCIe16 is not needed. This will never be used as a power games machine due to atom. It's for embedded industrial designs, fileservers, webservers, mediaservers, control applications, internet terminals, or "Secretary's PC"
PCIe16 is not needed. This will never be used as a power games machine due to atom. It's for embedded industrial designs, fileservers, webservers, mediaservers, control applications, internet terminals, or "Secretary's PC"
Not sure how this is competing with the Pico ITX boards..... it's larger than a MiniITX board which is standard 17x17cm. Sure it's small, and a good value it seems, but it's significantly larger in every dimension.
VIA, Jetway, Intel, and other manufacturers have MiniITX and slightly larger boards which would be direct competitors to this.
VIA, Jetway, Intel, and other manufacturers have MiniITX and slightly larger boards which would be direct competitors to this.
Media server it is. I really like these new compact MOBOs with all in one stuff on them. Id like an AMD variant of course, but this is just as awesome.
Yer thats a mini-itx size...isnt pico itx like 10cm x 8cm or something?
Oh well, it will still make a good upgrade to my current server :D.
Oh well, it will still make a good upgrade to my current server :D.
I'd be all over this if it had a gigabit NIC. I'm looking for a new mobo to update my old server box which is using an old EPIA 533, and one of the things I'm wanting is a gigabit connection and be passively cooled, guess I'll still wait to see what new things come out in the next few months.
by: Bitgod;871644Add a gigabit PCI card to it :rolleyes:.
I'd be all over this if it had a gigabit NIC. I'm looking for a new mobo to update my old server box which is using an old EPIA 533, and one of the things I'm wanting is a gigabit connection and be passively cooled, guess I'll still wait to see what new things come out in the next few months.
Na but I had the same problem as you. Thankfully, I had no use for a second PCI slot....but you can get those PCI riser/expander cards (1 PCI slot --> 2 PCI slots)
GMA950 doesnt support H264 decoding. VGA doesnt support HDCP.
More or less, this is useless for a HTPC. Its peachy for an office box, or cheap netbox however.
More or less, this is useless for a HTPC. Its peachy for an office box, or cheap netbox however.
good thing it has a parallel port so i can use my dot matrix printer.