EPIA-M900 power usage and performance

This is the last article from my series about my EPIA-M900 system (first, second). This time I'll focus on power usage numbers, some small performance tests and overall feel.

I used  Tunex multifunction power meter to measure a power usage. All tests were made using Windows 7 64-bit edition. The whole system (including eH1 graphics card and HDD) without monitor uses 44-46W on idle. 44W is more constant than higher values. I tested system on BIOS without graphics card too and it showed 29-31W values. So graphics card adds about 15W on idle. Later I used AIDA64 stress tests and GPU-Z render test to simulate system's maximum power usage with and without HDD stress test. On full load (CPU and GPU) power meter showed 75-77W and 73-74W with and without HDD stress test respectively.  That was the maximum power usage numbers I managed to get on this system. GPU render test raised power usage to 55-56W. CPU load only increased power usage more than GPU load to 68-69W. Finally, while playing Starcraft II this range was between 70-71W. So it is difficult to say how much power usage increased because of GPU or CPU as other components takes some too and overall power usage doesn't increase on the same level as on CPU or GPU load separately.

While power usage numbers are quite good we should look into performance. As of 26 February, 2010 1.6GHz (1.73GHz on turbo) is the maximum frequency you can get from dual core VIA CPUs. VIA Nano X2 L4350E TDP is 27.5W. So you can compare it to low usage mobile CPU (if I am correct, current standard mobile CPU's TDP goes from 25W-45W typically) by TDP. Unfortunately, performance is on the lower range and you need to compare them to Intel Atom and AMD APU from bobcat core series. This is the area where VIA CPU is really competitive. But this article won't make any summary and won't make big comparisons . I will provide only some raw numbers for your investigation and reference. 


Firstly I used y-cruncher multithreaded pi benchmark application. I used 50,000,000 decimal digits test and Linux 0.5.5 Build 9187 version. Total result was 126.278 seconds for this test. Single core VIA Nano L2200@1.6GHz completed test in 299.358 seconds. U2300@997MHz needed 497.043 seconds. The same test was slower on Windows for unknown for me reason (about 20 seconds in total). If you want to compare this result to other CPUs, it is comparable to Intel Celeron T3100 result.

I also ran AIDA64 tests (v2.00.1700). I didn't tested L2200 but AIDA64 had results in their table. Memory read using DDR3-1066 SDRAM 7-7-7-20 CR2 was 3747 MB/s (Nano L2200 with DDR2 3352  MB/s). While memory write test was much faster than L2200, 7138 MB/s against 3157 MB/s. Memory copy 4944 MB/s vs 2759 MB/s. Memory latency was the same 117.3 ns on both systems. CPU Queen - 5890 vs 2580. This test was a little bit faster than AMD E-350 (5169). CPU PhotoWorxx - 5083 vs 2493. For reference Celeron 420 had almost the same result, E-350 had quite lower result at 4375. CPU Zlib - 34.2 MB/s, L2200 - 14.7 MB/s, E-350 31.0 MB/s, Core i5-650 HT - 101.1 MB/s. Padlock module helps VIA Nano CPUs to shine on CPU AES test where L4350E got 86803 points and lost only to CPUs with Intel AES support (though considerably) but others without it lost considerably (even 12xOpteron 2431 got 78761 points), L2200 - 40002 points. CPU Hash test gained 1054MB/s vs 549MB/s (E-350 achieved 326MB/s only). FPU was always quite a weak place for Centaur CPUs but Nano architecture improved FPU performance. FPU V8 436 vs 318, This test was bad for VIA CPUs, even E-350 got a little bit more here. On the hand it showed better results at FPU Julia and Mandel tests 1862vs892 and 832vs428 respectively (E-350 got results in between closer to L2200). Finally FPU SinJulia was a weak place too: 302vs132 while E-350 - 506. This is all tests I made. Tests showed quite mixed results but I believe that L4350 is comparable to first generation dual core AMD K8 CPUs or last generation Pentium 4 CPUs. Somewhere they will be quite faster, elsewhere much slower. They are faster than dual core HT Intel Atom CPUs (at least first generation). The last thing I could test was folding@home project. Unfortunately, this CPU is not suitable for SMP client. It is just to slow (dual core phenom ii@3.2GHz will do 1% 12-15 minutes than this CPU will need 2.5 hours). I also added Windows 7 performance index last time it is here once again (the CPU got minimum 3.9 result):

Windows 7 performance index

In general, it feels that CPU is much slower than Phenom II X2. Active processes like antivirus, flash, program loading grabs quite much from CPU. It is expected result of course. You can't compare apples and oranges this time. However, if you want to feel comfortable at your desktop, this system can be a little to slow. Though it is not that bad after you get into it. I want to change HDD to SSD some day. This should solve slower loading times and I guess should help to feel more responsive and fast while using the system. The only program which used hardware GPU acceleration in videos was Windows Media Explorer (MPC classic unfortunately took only CPU). I will try to investigate this in the future.

I didn't do any GPU tests. I tried to run some DX10/DX11 benchmarks but eH1 was unable to run them at normal FPS. However I played Starcraft II at 1280x1024 without any noticeable problems and with good graphics settings. While playing GPU temperature didn't raised more than 6-7°C from starting point (never reached 50°C).  I believe you can play most modern games with such configuration and not very big resolutions without problems.


So this is it about this system. I hope you enjoyed these articles and found them helpful. Thank you for reading.

EPIA-M900 system setup and Windows 7 start up

After I tested some open source operating systems I've decided not to play to long and started to assemble the main configuration for the desktop PC. It consists of EPIA-M900 motherboard, eH-1 graphics card, 2xKingston KVR1333D3S9/4G RAM (I am not really that Kingston fan but lately all RAM comes from them and I can't complain, they have very good compatibility with most boards), Samsung HD161HJ 160GB hard drive and In Win BM-639 case. Initially I planned to add CD-ROM too but some modifications disallowed that (later on that). RAM works at 1066MHz effective speed because it is the maximum VX900 supports.

The main purpose was to replace that annoying small CPU fan. So I perforated one side of the case above the CPU/chipset heatsink and installed 120mm fan. This "project" went ok and I was able to remove default fan. CPU cores temperature goes from 43°C on idle to 63-66°C max on load (speedfan show 5 degrees less than AIDA64 at the same time). CPU temperature is ~55°C by AIDA64. System temperature never rises above 31°C. The downside of this solution was that the fan blocked ability to add CD-ROM as original case design placed construction for 5.25'' drive just a little bit below that side of the case. GPU temperature range starts from 41.3°C on idle to 46-48°C on load. I firstly made one mistake during assembling because one wire stuck between GPU heatsink preventing fan from rotating. This lead to temperature from 81°C on idle to more than 126°C on load. You can understand from this that eH1 can work without fan :). Graphics card fan is surprisingly silent. I've read a lot of angry comments about active cooling solution in this card but it seems that they aren't reasonable this time (I know that fans tends to fail after some time but on the other hand you need to keep good airflow with passive cooling solution and need fans somewhere anyway). Unfortunately, the PCI-E riser was only 1.1 compatible so I needed to turn on the switch on graphics card to support slower PCI-E version. I tested that motherboard supports 2.0 version actually (at least graphics card worked switch in off mode). Finally, PCI-E slot is x16 physically only. x8 is effective speed of that slot.

AIDA64 CPUID

The other task was to fasten graphics card because I bought not suitable riser (I needed right angle one but I bought straight one. It lead to the problem that riser raised graphics card much above case panel for cards bracket fastening). The solution was simple. I inserted graphics card upside down (fan is on the top now). I needed to cut the bracket a little bit and make one hole in the it and the case for the screw but this solution needed minimal effort and almost no sacrifice for the future use of the case or graphics card (yes, the original bracket will not be suitable for normal insertion any more but I have replacements and you probably will find them at various IT stores too). Unfortunately my camera is broken now because of that I couldn't to make photos of these modifications but I'll try to do them in the future.

GPU-Z (some information inaccurate)

The last thing I wanted to do before Windows installation was BIOS update. I found the newer version on viaembedded web page and I made an upgrade. Firstly, it seemed that everything went ok. However, after I loaded system defaults, motherboard just didn't boot anymore. It was very unpleasant moment because I though that motherboard just died because of unsuitable BIOS version. Fortunately it booted after I changed RAM to some spares I had had at home. BIOS showed incorrect checksum error on boot but I was very happy nevertheless as motherboard was alive at least. I downgraded BIOS back to old version (fortunately I made a backup of it because you couldn't download it from viaembedded web page). I don't know why VIA decided to add this BIOS version without any release notes and description but they will gain lots of unsatisfied users with such irresponsible move. These days BIOS upgrades are simple and painless process usually, because of this users will try to do this from time to time. Such surprises should be avoided and BIOS purpose and suitability for particular model stated clearly. Anyway I recommend to use original BIOS versions with VIA motherboards :)...


After all preparations I was able to try Windows 7 (64-bit) finally. I wasn't installing them cleanly, just tried to boot into installed system from previous computer. This process went smoothly... almost. Every time I tried to connect to the network, Windows was hanging up and rebooting with good, old BSOD in the end. Solution was simple yet again, I needed to install network drivers from CD or web page. It seems that Windows update provided faulty drivers for some reason. I also installed the newest 500 series Chrome drivers from s3graphics web page instead of the ones from CD or viaembedded eH1 web page. All other devices were recognized by Windows and successfully installed into the system. Due to system resources requirement for physical memory addresses Windows sees 7.25GB of RAM instead of 8GB. I will discuss some performance results and power usage in the next article.

Windows 7 rating

I've chose EPIA-M900 for my VIA Nano X2 setup

While VIA prepares some new motherboards like EPIA-M910 and EPIA-920 (last one will be equipped with quad core CPU and VX11 (VT3456) chipset which has integrated DX11 compatible GPU) I've made a decision on my own configuration. It is quite unusual and consists of VIA embedded parts mainly.  So I've decided to take EPIA-M900 (EPIA-M900-16L) motherboard and eH1 graphics card. I've already received this hardware and started to test it.

In Win BM-639, VIA eH1, VIA EPIA-M900 boxes

EPIA-M900 is the most quality made motherboard from VIA embedded I've ever seen (especially compared to the most of VB series and old models). However, I admit that some recent models are similar by quality too. On the other hand this quality comes at substantially higher price than I would like to see. Unfortunately cooling system is made in VIA "fashion". It consists of the big aluminum heatsink over CPU and chipset and small, annoyingly loud fan. On the bright side the fan speed is controlled by CPU load using smart fan function in BIOS. However, it still emits unpleasant sound even at lower speed. GPU has a fan too but it seems less audible (no speed control). EPIA-M900 box is visually not appealing as it looks like simple corrugated cardboard box (I've never saw the one like that for motherboards earlier but as it is targeted for embedded market VIA probably decided to save money on box visual appearance). You will find a SATA cable, driver's CD and I/O shield besides the board itself. Yet again it is quite ordinary minimal set of accessories you'll find in most VIA products. There was two main reasons I chose this board. Firstly, it was the only VIA Nano X2 board which had a PCI-E x16 (effective speed up to x8) slot, secondly EPIA-M900 had two RAM slots and supported 8GB RAM while VB8004 (the other candidate) only one. Besides, it was easier to get than VB8004 with its graphics module.

EPIA-M900

VIA eH1 has more visual appealing and more standard box for such products. Accessories include DVI-VGA adapter and driver's CD. There is one caveat that you'll find a Linux tux image on the box indicating this graphics card "support" Linux but you won't find any drivers neither on cd nor in VIA Embedded web page. You can download some Linux drivers on s3graphics web site but you still won't be able to use them on modern Linux distributions as it has some code that won't compile on current kernel. I guess the card itself is supported by those proprietary drivers but I couldn't test them due to reason I mentioned above. There are no open source drivers for this GPU so the only way to use this card is VESA driver or try an older distributions (with 2.6.38 kernel or maybe even less). What is more, it doesn't use solid state capacitors as S3 graphics similar products.

VIA eH1 graphics card

The motherboard itself had some surprises that I hadn't notice or they hadn't been clearly defined in specifications. Firstly, most pin headers was smaller in size than standard ones. USB headers are surprisingly standard ones but front panel audio, fan, kbms and COM headers are mini variants. I saw smaller fan header (but forgot to check that they were only ones) and I knew about smaller COM headers but they were unneeded for me. Unfortunately I didn't know that front panel audio header and kbms header would be mini ones too. I actually don't know where to get adapters for them right now too. Second surprise was a missing RAID support in BIOS firmware (or I didn't found it). I though that such RAID support existed in all boards currently and you even had no need to check that. 

I tried some open source operating systems during this weekend. Linux (Fedora 16, openSUSE 12.1) and FreeBSD installed ok. NetBSD didn't boot (I guess because it doesn't support VX900 chipset still) but dual core CPU was recognized. Haiku boot sequence ended in kdebug with some stack trace. PC-BSD didn't boot too but it seems that it was a DVD boot loader problem because FreeBSD installed without any problems and surprisingly recognized all motherboard's integrated hardware (as you may or may not know PC-BSD is just desktop orientated FreeBSD variant). As I mentioned earlier eH1 graphics card and its HD audio is not supported on any open source OSes (except VESA driver).

I'll try to make some tests in open source OSes and/or Windows later on but I don't make any promises this time. I hope to test power usage too. To end this article on good note the board itself feels really good. It uses the most modern chips from VIA like VT2021 HD audio, VT6130 Gigabit Ethernet controller, VX900 integrated graphics with H.264 decoding acceleration on Windows, 8GB support (unfortunately USB 3.0 was not added for some unknown reason as the place for two connectors and VIA Labs chip was designed on the board). Smart fan control makes default fan bearable on idle. Finally dual core CPU with modern instructions support up to SSE4.1 and Intel compatible virtualization feels quite fast (I compiled quite a lot of source during this weekend, y-cruncher result is comparable to Merom 3M dual core pentium or celeron CPUs). Finally, the board quality gives hopes that VIA will continue to make more boards like this in the future and even improve them. BIOS could me more capable but it is embedded board so requirements are minimal for them I guess. Quite good FreeBSD support was a pleasant surprise too. I can't tell much about eH1 GPU right now as it will show its capabilities on Windows only.

P.S. I've updated my last  article on VIA Nano X2 solutions several times too. Probably I'll keep to do this for some time in the future.

VIA Nano X2 solutions

It has been more than two years since my post about VIA VB-8001 which was the first 64-bit VIA Nano CPU board. I even had this board but it was quite disappointment (it was very unstable in Windows) and I was forced to sell it eventually. VIA released enhanced single core VIA Nano 3000 series and finally 40nm VIA Nano (and Eden) X2 dual core processor solutions after that. It is only september/october of this year when first boards and mini PCs with dual core CPU finally appeared. By the end of this year VIA released quite a lot of boards and there is at least one third party solution with this CPU. I was looking for the one (still didn't get any) so I will try to describe my findings here.

VIA EPIA-M900

If I am not wrong VIA EPIA-M900 was the first VIA Embedded board released with VIA Nano X2 (E) CPU. It features 1.6 GHz VIA Nano X2 E L4350 CPU and VX900H chipset (this is the newest VIA chipset with improved hardware acceleration for VC1, H.264, MPEG-2 and WMV9 HD formats, unfortunately graphics is DX9 only still). The board has PCI-E 16x (real speed is 8x) and PCI expansion slots. PCI-E slot is on non standard place (if I am not wrong once again) and you will need to use some PCI-E riser (one is included in the box). That means it could be some problems to find a suitable case if you will want to add something (for example an external video card) to that slot. The board has 4xUSB 2.0, VGA, COM, 1Gbit NIC, HDMI ports and 3xaudio jacks on the back panel. You can have 4 additional USB 2.0 ports, 3xCOM, LVDS, front-panel audio and some other embedded things using pins on the board. Finally you can add up to 8GB DDR3 RAM to it (2xSO-DIMM ports). There are 2 SATA 2.0 connectors for internal storage. By the time of this post it costs about 250 USD in USA market and 230-240 EUR on EU market (prices from e-itx.com and techcase.de, mini-itx.de). It is quite pricey in my opinion but it is quite standard price for VIA Embedded solutions. EPIA-M900 board is aimed for embedded market and this is the main reason for higher prices. The bright side is availability. You can easily buy this board in USA or EU right now. What is more it uses solid-state capacitors only that brings more quality feel to it. Heatsink is actively cooled and fan noise is unknown to me. Finally, e-itx.com listed 1.2 GHz version (possibly passively cooled) of this board but availability is unknown currently and the price is higher than 1.6 GHz version (321 USD) (update 2012-01-25: it appeared that EPIA-M900-12LQ version will have a quad core CPU).

VIA EPIA-M900

VIA VE-900

VIA VE-900 is a little bit different board from other ones. It is not intended to be used on embedded market and even has a different category on VIA web site (VIA mainboards). I am afraid this will lead to some unsatisfied customers who won't be able to find this board description (but google should help for all). The main advantage of it is the price. It costs only ~90USD in USA or 90-95EUR in EU. It features a little bit slower VIA Nano X2 L4050 1.4GHz CPU and VX900 chipset. PCI is the only expansion slot so you won't be able to add any decent graphics to it. I/O ports are the same as EPIA-M900 expect that they are placed differently and have PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse. The board has 2xUSB 2.0 pin headers for 4 additional USB ports, 1 pin header for LPT port, front-panel audio and 2xSATA 2.0 ports. You can also add 8 GB of RAM but you need to use full size DDR3 RAM modules (not SO-DIMM). Heat sink is actively cooled too. It rotates 1400 rpm with smart fan enabled (probably on idle) and is quite. So, this board looses PCI-E slot, has 200MHz slower CPU and uses some non solid-state capacitors but it is quite similar to EPIA-M900 and it is much cheaper. If you happy with integrated graphics capabilities this board is very good for HTPC or even low power consumption and low-cost desktop computer. It is available in USA and EU and you should be able to buy it without any problems.

VIA VE-900

VIA VB8004

VIA VB8004 is yet another mini-itx form factor board where you can find VIA Nano X2. VB8004-16XS and VB8004-16X is the ones with dual core CPUs (X prefix indicates that the board has a dual core CPU). This board features VIA Nano 1.6GHz CPU and VX900H chipset (like EPIA-M900). It is compatible with mini-itx cases but the length of I/O coastline of VB8004 mainboard is non-standard. This means that it comes without I/O shield and HDMI port will probably be on expansion slot zone (this board doesn't have any PCI or PCI-E expansion slots). What is more it doesn't have ATX power connector. You need to use external power supply which can be connected to 12V DC-in connector on the back of the board. I/O ports also include COM, DVI, 1 Gbit NIC, 2xUSB 2.0 and 2xPS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse. There are also LVDS, front-panel audio, COM pin headers, digital I/O, 2xUSB 2.0 for 4 additional USB ports pin headers and 2xSATA 2.0 ports. One of those two USB pin headers can be used for VIA WLAN module. The unique feature of this board is 80-pin proprietary I/O connector (it carries 1xPCI-E 4x, 1xPCI-E 1x and USB). This connector can be used to attach VB8004-A graphics module which features DX10.1 S3 5400E GPU. It also has Mini PCIe slot, HDMI and DVI-I port (S prefix indicates that board comes with this module, so you need VB8004-16XS for that). This makes a board somehow similar to VB8003 which had integrated S3 chrome graphics to the board. Unfortunately the price for this module is quite high. If you can buy VB8004-16X for ~225 USD, VB8004-16XS variant will cost you ~330 USD. The module alone add more than 100USD (or ~90EUR in EU market). I don't write EU prices as I didn't find any EU shop which had them on the list (considering the tendency it will cost around 220 EUR for 16X variant and 310 EUR for 16XS). So availability is another downside of this board. Even in USA market there are still not that easy to get. The high price, external supply requirement and non standard I/O costline are the main discouraging elements of this board. Also, it has only one SO-DIMM DDR3 slot so you can use only 4GB of RAM. Nevertheless, it was number one mini-itx board on my list. Both CPU heatsink and GPU module are actively cooled.

VIA VB8004 with VB8004-A module

VIA VB7009

VB7009-12XC is listed on e-itx.com website. It is also a mini-itx board with 1.2GHz VIA Nano X2 CPU. However, there is no more information about it. Even VIA website doesn't list such board currently. I will update this chapter if something will come up soon.

Update 2012-01-03:
VIA announced VB7009 today. It is a board with VX900 chipset and three different CPU options. Only VB7009-12XC model uses dual core VIA Nano X2 1.2GHz CPU, other ones VIA C7 or C7-D CPUs. VB7009-12XC is actively cooled. Other specifications aren't somehow extraordinary. It has 2xSATA II ports, 1xPCI expansion slot, 1xDDR3 socket for up to 4GB of RAM, 5xCOM headers (only in VB7009-12XC), 2xUSB 2.0 headers for 4 additional USB ports, front audio connector and other headers (probably more for embedded use). Back panel I/O coastline includes 1xVGA, 1xCOM, 1xLPT, 2x1 Gbit LAN ports (2xVT-6130 controllers), 4xUSB 2.0, keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports and 3xaudio jacks. It is clearly aimed for embedded market (LPT, lots of COM ports and one DDR3 socket can be as  evidence) but 2xNICs is unique feature between VIA Nano X2 mini-itx solutions and can be appealing for those who need such configuration without additional network card in their home servers. The board also has ATX power connector instead of 12V DC-in connector on VB8004.  Of course, it can be used for normal desktop computing but other solutions (VE-900, EPIA-M900) are more suitable for this in my opinion. It costs ~190 USD in US and ~185 EUR in EU  (cheaper than other VIA solutions except VE-900) and availability is unknown by my writing date. I guess they should appear soon in US (as board was announced officially) and later in EU.

VIA VB7009

VIA EPIA-M910

UPDATE 2012-02-10:
VIA EPIA-M910 is one more mini-itx solution released on February 09, 2012. It features actively cooled VIA Nano X2 1.6GHz or passively cooled VIA Eden X2 1.0GHz CPU and VX900 chipset. Later might be possible 1.2GHz quad core solution. I/O costline has 2xPS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse, 1xVGA, 1xHDMI, 2xCOM, 4xUSB 2.0, 2x1Gbit LAN ports and 3xaudio jacks. You can find headers for 4 additional USB 2.0 ports, 6xCOM ports, front audio, single and dual channel LVDS and some other purposes. Expansion slots includes 1xPCI and 1xPCI-E x1 (reversed). There are  also 2xSATA II ports. One interesting thing about this board that it offers two different versions with ATX power connector or DC-in connector (this version has 2xSATA power connectors). You can add up to 8GB of RAM into 2xDDR3 slots. I don't know any prices currently but I don't think they will be much lower than EPIA-M900. In general I don't think that this board is suitable for desktop usage but it has fanless CPU configuration and 2xLAN ports and DC-in option so it has more flexibility for small server applications. It still uses VX900 MSP (not VX900H) because of this it is not much different from other ones feature wise except some on board headers and I/O differences. There is an option to use some PCI-E x1 graphics with  riser probably but you stuck with DX9 on board graphics here by default (EPIA-M920 will have VX11 chipset with DX11 integrated graphics).

VIA EPIA-M910

VIA EPIA-P900

VIA EPIA-P900 is pico-itx form factor board (10 cm x 7.2 cm). You need to have a special case for it. VIA offers Artigo 1150 kit which uses this board but I will write about it on separate chapter. The board has a fan too. This is probably the main downside for such compact low power board. It features slower VIA Eden X2 1.0GHz CPU but still uses the newest VIA VX900H chipset. You can find 2xSATA 2.0 ports and various I/O headers for 5xUSB 2.0 ports, PS/2, audio jacks, LVDS and other embedded ports on one side and 2xUSB 2.0, VGA, 1Gbit NIC and HDMI on the other. You can add up to 4GB of RAM to one SO-DIMM DDR3 slot. I can't write about it much because I wasn't interested in pico-itx form factor much. I tried to compare it to earlier boards and probably you can use it one your older pico-itx cases. The new users probably will have some problems to find a pico-itx case (in case you plan to do it yourself). The solution is to buy Artigo 1150 as I mentioned earlier. Though the very small size is really an impressive however it comes at price. The processing power is even lower than mini-itx solutions, still an active cooling, no options to expand, dx9 graphics, special case requirements and high price keeps me away from pico-itx right now. It costs ~270.00 USD in USA and ~270EUR in EU. Availability is unknown too.

VIA EPIA-P900

VIA EITX-3002

VIA EITX-3002 is em-itx (17cm x 12cm) form factor board and requires a special case too. This form factor was interesting to me at introduction however earlier boards with single core VIA Nano CPUs were extremely pricey and they were available mostly for OEM market. EITX-3002 isn't exactly what I was dreaming about too and it continues a tradition for high prices and low availability. It can be interesting for some users nonetheless. It has VIA Eden X2 1.0GHz or Nano X2 1.2GHz CPU and uses the same VX900H chipset. Em-itx form factor has I/O coastline on both sides which includes HDMI port, VGA port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, 2xCOM ports, 4xUSB 2.0 ports, 2xUSB 3.0(!) ports (optional), audio jacks and power and HDD activity LEDs. It also has proprietary EM-IO expansion bus, however this board supports only EMIO-3210 and EMIO-3450 I/O cards (at least officially). I expected to use EMIO-3110. The main advantage of this solution is passive cooling system and very compact size with lots of I/O ports in both sides. It also has CFast slot on the back of the board. VIA currently offers industrial VIA AMOS-5002 system featuring this board. It completely fanless design but requires external power supply. You can up to 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM (one slot). The price is from ~390-420 USD depending on configuration and for board only. Availability will never be very good for home users IMHO.

VIA EITX-3002

VIA Artigo A1150

VIA Artigo A1150 is do it yourself kit which features VIA EPIA-P900 pico-itx form factor board (read about it above if you still didn't). The case design is made by VIA Embedded and it is visually very appealing (for me).  Because of pico-itx form factor it fits on your hand. It has audio jack, power button, 2xUSB 2.0 ports, 1xUSB 2.0 device port to connect it to other computer, power and hdd LEDs on the front and 2xUSB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, 1Gbit LAN ports and DC-in 12V  connector on the rear side. You need to add only hard drive or SSD and RAM to it and install some OS. As far as I know external supply should be in the package too. However, I still think that it fits only for media pc or some specialized tasks. It is underpowered, actively cooled and price/performance ratio is not at very good level. VGA instead of DVI is one more downside for me too. However, compact size, low power and good position in your computers infrastructure may be appealing for some of you. The price is ~265 USD and ~280EUR in EU. I think availability will be good in the near future (as is with Artigo A1100 at present time). Currently it just comes to the market so it might be some problems to get it, in Europe especially.

VIA Artigo A1150

Zotac ZBOX nano VD01 (Plus)

Zotac ZBOX nano VD01 and Zotac ZBOX nano VD01 PLUS are the only third party solutions I know. However, they are very interesting ones despite some shortcomings. Both computers are the same exception some configuration (plus variant includes 2GB DDR3 RAM and 320GB hard drive, other one comes without any RAM and hard drive). It features VIA Nano X2 U4025 1.2GHz CPU and VX900H chipset. It is a custom computer so I don't know which form factor was used (maybe any) but the size is similar to nano-itx (12 cm x 12cm). The computer dimensions are 12.7cm x 12.7cm x 5 cm. The front side has a power button, WiFi and HDD activity LEDs, infrared receiver, memory card reader (MMC/SD/SDHC/MS/MS Pro/xD), audio out and microphone jacks. Rare side has external power supply connector, 2xUSB 3.0 (!), 2xUSB 2.0, 1Gbit LAN ports, eSATA connector, WiFi antenna connector, HDMI and DisplayPort. It integrates 802.11n/g/b (300Mbps) module and Bluetooth 3.0 receiver. As far as I know it is actively cooled but I guess this custom computer should be silent. The only downside is integrated graphics, especially then Zotac has AD10 variant with AMD E-350 APU which has much better and DX11 capable GPU. However, if you look at all VIA Nano (Eden) X2 solutions then this one has the richest and the most modern I/O connectors like USB 3.0, eSATA and DisplayPort . The price is ~180 USD for non plus variant in ZOTAC page and ~180-220 EUR in EU. Availability is good and it should not be a problem to acquire one.

Zotac ZBOX VD01

Summary

VIA (or Centaur exactly) finally managed to introduce dual core CPUs to the market and VIA Embedded introduced quite a lot of boards and you can get easily some of them at the end of the year except several embedded solutions or the ones which only comes to the market. That is a good thing. Intel Atom and AMD APUs makes a lot of pressure now for VIA. Some earlier manufacturers don't offer VIA solutions anymore or they come at much slower pace. Earlier advantages becomes less visible now. However, I think they still able to offer not ordinary and interesting products to the market (form factors, board designs, better performance than Atom CPUs and so on). Price/performance ratio is is not that good for home users  in my opinion but I still like to support smaller companies which tries to innovate even with much smaller resources. The only problem that VIA boards doesn't have the most modern ports and their VX900(H) video is still DX9 and very weak. So I need to find the best solution between expandability, feature set and price. All boards has some advantages and disadvantages but they aren't perfect in all aspects. My favourites are VB8004, EPIA-M900 and Zotac ZBOX solution currently. Probably I will wait for one month or two to make a final decision. I hope that this article will help for somebody who is looking for VIA dual core solutions too.

UPDATE 2012-02-11:
 I updated all links to new viaembedded web site and fixed EPIA-M900 link which was redirecting to general blogger web site.

2011 small summary

I was less active this year and unfortunately couldn't keep any of my promises. I still have quite lot of readers of my eComStation 2 installation article. It is quite surprising as I don't think that I'm the only one who described an installation process of this operating system. Unfortunately, I didn't use it much and I decided not to upgrade to new version. Because of this I am leaving usage review for somebody else (at least for now). However, I hope somebody found that article interesting and maybe even useful.

I was less active on collecting CPUs recently however I had some new additions and photos. Not everything is on my gallery but sooner or later I'll put photos of all my CPUs. Some new additions will include Kendall Square Research cpu set, HP Alpha 21364 1300 MHz, some PowerPC, MIPS, Zilog Z380 and other items. You already can find new CPUs from last big update in march such unfinished HyperSPARC, VIA Nano Quad Core ES, Intel C8008, HP PA-RISC 8700 3AA2-3105, Hitachi SH-3 and SH-4 and others. Probably it is not that "epic" as last update but still was interesting and with lots of unusual items. I am not going to expand my collection in such pace as earlier but I still looking for some items like intergraph or fairchild clipper, at&t hobbit and some rare items. My focus is still to have several new architectures before I feel more or less completed my original aim to have all major CPU architectures in my collection.

This year wasn't very interesting in hardware too. My jetway jnc-81 died this summer. Jetway replaced it with JNC-84E-LF. It is quite similar board but it has newer amd 785G+SB750 chipset (compared to 780G+SB700) whose main feature is updated graphics. It also uses AMI BIOS instead of Award and supports more AMD CPU models (though I still use Athlon II X2 235E). I removed my 750GB WD disk and use only NAS server for data. One NAS server green WD 1.5GB hard drive died but I replaced both disks with Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB. Read performance nicely surprised me. It is SATA 3 disk so it might be even faster on new interface as it seems that it hits the boundary on the first part of the benchmark. It is five platter disk so it might not be the best disk for NAS but 3TB should be enough for a very long time for me. I just hope they won't fail anytime soon. I've made a service to report S.M.A.R.T. data to ensure some early detection this time.

Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 read/write benchmark

The last but not the least I've upgraded my mother's computer. It features Asus M5A99X motherboard and 8GB DDR3 RAM now (1600Mhz by specifications, but works only as 1333MHz because Phenom doesn't support faster speeds, at least like I understood). It replaced old Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard with 4GB DDR2 RAM. Motherboard has modern UEFI bios and it also successfully unlocked my Phenom II X2 555 to quad core. Now folding@home is almost twice faster because of this two additional cores. Graphics card remained the same NVIDIA Geforce 450GTS but even it seems a little bit faster at folding. There is one caveat that it consumes almost 300W of energy because of folding (I would use about 120W on idle). Electricity will become more pricey next year so I am thinking to stop or limit gpu or cpu folding but it depends on situation. It still uses about 200W if only GPU or CPU active.


More or less it is everything this year. I don't have any specific plans for next year but I think I'll have some changes too. I hope to replace my old HP PSC-2355 multifunction printer/scanner device. My NAS server hardware can be upgraded too but it is not a priority. It will be more a software year probably. I hope for NetBSD 6 release finally. It looks quite promising for me. Though I use Fedora Linux 16 as main system currently and it probably will be the one for some time. Maybe Haiku and other partially hobby systems will be used more often too as they progress. I'll keep upgrading NetBSD on DEC Alpha system though I still wasn't successful to load X server on it. Finally, I'll keep testing for some OSes and software on my VIA VT-310DP. 


I don't know if I'll update my main computer. There are always lots of interesting thoughts what I want to have and to use. Jetway JNC-84 wasn't so friendly with my systems as JNC-81so there is a possibility that I'll change platform but it is not a priority too. I still quite satisfied with current performance. 

So that is everything I want to share for now. Till the next time.

Jetway JNC81 (NC81-LF) doesn't support AMD Athlon II X2 250e (and probably C3 stepping) CPUs

I had an opportunity to get AMD Athlon II X2 250e 3GHz 45W CPU. I planned to upgrade it from my current 235e model. Unfortunately, it appeared that Jetway JNC81 (NC81-LF) didn't support it. Though it is a bit to fast conclusion but I think this motherboard just doesn't support any C3 revision Regor Athlon II X2 CPUs. So you probably won't be able to use 270u and similar Regor C3 CPUs (even 240e if it is not C2 stepping one) but I can't confirm it. I contacted to Jetway support and they replied that the BIOS won't be updated to this motherboard (because they don't have access to Award BIOS code and they can't even tell what is actually supported). The only option is to get updated Jetway JNC84 model with AMI BIOS. I decided that it will be to "pricey" for me right now (300 MHz upgrade is just too small). I just sold 250e. If you plan to upgrade your JNC81 be aware that you need to test compatibility especially with newer cores.

250e was heavier than 235e and used a little bit different, more rugged heat spreader. It was manufactured at 48th week of 2009. It is 9-10 months earlier than introduction date and 12 weeks later than my 235e. AMD probably released them only when they had sufficient quantity. You usually can't find them on the market as they used for OEM. I bought one in ebay. Unfortunately, I was forced to sold it very soon but it was confirmed working by the new owner.

March 2011 big CPUs collection update

I've just updated my CPUs (and other chips) collection with lot of new items. Most of them I got from very helpful CPU collector from USA who kept them for several months in his house, however, other arrivals were interesting too. This update was one of the most joyful for me as it added several new architectures, engineering samples and other rare, unusual chips. No other update had so much rare items. I still working on photos to picasa web album (as it is still the main "place" of my collection, though I started a work on management program and planning to redo my website which is quite dead now. I guess it can take a long time to finish but I determined to do everything this year). I'll add some photos from earlier updates too (generally QED, PMC MIPS CPUs and one i960).

New architectures:
Western Electric 32100 (hunted for a long time)
National Semiconductor 32032
NEC V60 (I've got newer NEC V70 actually)

Engineering samples
Intel Itanium 9040 ES (dual core Montecito with 18MB cache)
Motorola 68EC000 Sample (low cost 68000 for embedded controller applications)
IDT 79RC32V334-150BB Eng. Sample (MIPS RC32300 processor)
Fujitsu MB86903-40 ES
AMD 8100048021 Opteron Engineering Sample Socket 940 (yes, one more exception, but it is worth and I'll try it in action if it will boot)

Other interesting CPUs and chips:
Compaq Alpha 21264C-1225TPN (my first Alpha made by Compaq and first 21264C model)
HP Alpha 21364 - 1150 /EV7 (first Alpha made by HP and first 21364 model)
Unfinished DEC support chip for Alpha systems (beautiful)
Fujitsu MB87327B - (most likely) Clipper C400 early MMU before integrated CAMMU (cache and memory management unit) chip was introduced. My own research helped to identify it with help of other collectors.
Intel 80960MX SD014 chip die (first real CPU die in my collection)
AMD 29000 337-2900 (first my 29000 model (I had 29040), unusual markings)


Enjoy these photos now:

Most of new chips

Itanium generations comparison

Fujitsu MB86903-40 ES