http://www.ukgamer.com/index.php4?ac...&id=411&page=1


Pulled no punches. C7 is old & I wish they'd replace it with the Nano, paired with something capable of handling some video acceleration, for HTPC. Via must know how poorly this would perform with HD content so I do wonder about their business judgement.

Thanks for an informative read.

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You're right it's an old review but I think VIA's problems have gotten a lot worse since then. They have completely missed the boat with netbooks (I think only the first gen HP ones had VIA chips in them) and for the niche mini-ITX market, Atom+ION is surely the way to go.

Again it looks like VIA did all the leg work at the start then just made a wrong turn along the way and just fell of a cliff.

L

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[3DVelocity] - Honey coated hardware
[UKGamer] - Gaming served with sauce

Think this particular board surfaced in 2007. Can't agree on Atom/Ion at all. It works well but from what i've read it costs Companies $130 compared to the Atom/945 price of $50-$60. People who need the performance will pay the higher price, of course, as they need to.

Zotac seem to have a good range but if you look at the prices from the following link you'll see the cheapest is £105. Not too bad at first glance but when you remember the Atom is almost worthless it is not a good price.

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=pr...it=10 &page=1

Now, when I was looking to build a little ITX system for my Wifey I came across this little beauty.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/JandW...X-HDMI-DVI-VGA

An ITX motherboard that can take up to a 95W AMD CPU & has, probably, the best integrated graphics available for ITX in the 3200 with 128MB sideport. It's £71.24 & you have to add your own CPU but an Athlon II X2 240, Regor Core, Socket AM3, 2.8GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 65W, Retail at £43.92 means you will have a system that absolutely, totally obliterates the competition & can stand toe to toe with "normal" desktops using integrated graphics. The board also sports a PCI-e x16 slot @x4. I suppose some people would go for the energy efficient CPUs tho.

You could get a S775 ITX mobo for £100+ & go the Intel route as well but they still have the appalling Intel integrated graphics.

Returning to Via, I'm not so sure that their lack of success in netbooks can be blamed on them 100%. The Nano is better than the Atom but I've only seen Samsung netbooks with it. Don't know how the Via Chrome 9 stacks up in the graphics department but I'd guess it would be better than Intel. Anything is better than Intel graphics!

While I can't see myself buying a netbook I guess I'd go with a Nano CPU rather than anything containing an Atom if I had to ....

Returning to the review; after a bit of thought I realised that the C7 should have been capable enough so the issue is the "media" chip.
The VIA EPIA M700 might be an improvement. VX800 digital media IGP chipset?


What's a VMR capable HD video processor?

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That J&W board is absolutely great but those type of boards aren't quite what EPIA fans want - the power consumption of the CPU/chipset together will be at least 60-80W on one of those systems whereas with EPIA or Atom units you're looking in the 20-40W range max. I don't have the figure in my head as I type this but I assume NVIDIA's Ion is in that range too.

However that doesn't detract away from the fact that the J&W board you posted is excellent - I remember seeing a small piece on Anandtech about it and then looking at the £130 price tag on Scan. I'm glad it's come down in price, I wonder if they will ever have it in stock though.

Cheers,

L

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[3DVelocity] - Honey coated hardware
[UKGamer] - Gaming served with sauce

They had it in stock when I was looking. Been out of stock a few weeks now. Be great if they came out with an AM3/DDR3 version.

I suppose I'll have to agree with you on the higher wattage. I just can't put myself in the shoes of the sort of people who'd purchase something with the performance of the Atom. For me it would be no big deal to lug a 15" - 17" laptop around although I'd invest in a spare battery as well. If J&W had done the extra layers on that motherboard to allow higher bandwidth over the PCi-e x16 slot I wouldn't have hesitated to build a tiny (full function) system for Wifey. Just for fun.

Question: The Atom is an "in order execution" CPU, even the nano is out-of-order execution. What was the last mainstream CPU that was in order execution? (My memory is absolute crap!)

Continuing the netbook/top theme; have you notice DFi are bringing a board with 945 & ION? Strange! Also, the price will likely be high.

EDIT: Had a glance @ the J&W website. CPU support list. Single core but it'd thrash the Atom & it's rated at 22W.

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Now, I'd like to see a review of this compared to Atom & the Via C7.

http://www.steatite-embedded.co.uk/m...l?cpu_type=277

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