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September 05, 2017
Choosing the right DC-DC PSU

August 27, 2015
AMD's Project Quantum

August 13, 2015
The Redstone PC is the ultimate Mini-ITX Minecraft Machine

October 09, 2014
The "Restomod TV"

April 09, 2013
Installing NAS4Free

February 28, 2013
Building an XBMC 12 Home Theatre PC

January 25, 2011
XBMC Guide updated to version 10.0

August 06, 2010
Building a Green PC

February 15, 2010
Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC

October 10, 2008
The "Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 2008"

Mini-ITX Online Store

September 12, 2008
"Florian", the DVD burning robot

September 05, 2008
The "i-EPIA"

May 22, 2008
The "GTA-PC"

April 14, 2007
The "Digg" Case

January 19, 2007
The "ITX-Laptop"

December 07, 2006
The "Tortoise Beetle"

October 02, 2006
The "DOS Head Unit"

August 31, 2006
The "Janus Project"

August 05, 2006
The "Leela PC"

June 26, 2006
Nano-ITX in a Football

May 17, 2006
The "EPIA Alloy Mod"

April 11, 2006
Neatorama's Collection of Case Mods

February 18, 2006
The "Rundfunker"

October 24, 2005
The "ITX TV"

October 06, 2005
The K'nex-ITX

August 05, 2005
The "Waffle Iron PC"

July 21, 2005
The "Supra-Server"

July 18, 2005
The "Mega-ITX"

July 07, 2005
The "Encyclomedia"

May 25, 2005
The "Accordion ITX"

Mini-ITX Online Store

May 16, 2005
The "FileServerRouterSwitch"

May 15, 2005
The "Mini Falcon"

May 13, 2005
The "Bender PC"

May 11, 2005
The "BBC ITX B"

May 10, 2005
The "Frame"

April 20, 2005
The "Jeannie"

March 09, 2005
The "Cool Cube"

January 30, 2005
First Nano-ITX Project?

January 17, 2005
The "iGrill"

January 15, 2005
The "Gumball PC"

December 15, 2004
The "Deco Box"

December 03, 2004
The "TERA-ITX"

October 06, 2004
The "Coealacanth-PC"

September 17, 2004
The "Gramaphone-ITX-HD"

August 26, 2004
The "C1541 Disk Drive ITX"

August 25, 2004
The "SEGA-ITX"

August 13, 2004
The "Quiet Cubid"

August 06, 2004
The "BMWPC"

July 14, 2004
The "Moo Cow Moo"

July 02, 2004
The "Mini Mesh Box"

Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page...


EPIA MII 12000 Review
Posted on May 18, 2004 Jump to:

Conclusion

EPIA MII 12000

The amount of connectors and headers on this board is staggering, considering the 170 x 170mm size. VIA have crammed in 15 seperate ports on the back panel, including a CardBus adapter, 3 kinds of video output, USB 2.0 and Firewire, and a Compact Flash reader. Though we were disappointed we couldn't boot using Compact Flash, several Mini-ITX cases come with IDE-based readers already, and a future BIOS update should make it possible for the two biggies - Linux and Windows Embedded. When we manage to cram Windows XP onto a Compact Flash card of any size, we'll start worrying about that too.

The most impressive results were the AES encryption tests. These didn't simply better our Pentium and Athlon results, they blew them out of the water - the MII 12000 was on average an order of magnitude faster performing standard encryption tasks. Padlock technology will certainly be popular with industrial and embedded manufacturers, but if it gains popularity amongst the open source community it will become a selling point for home users too. Secure encrypted Linux filesystem anyone?

All the results show that raw CPU power isn't always the measure of a motherboard, which is central to VIA's design philosophy. By providing task-specific functionality in the supporting chipset and on the CPU, the requirement for raw clockspeed is lessened. Only in the high performance world of 3D gaming does this board really lose its teeth - any improvements on that front will have to wait for the CN400 chipset.

VIA's low power consumption is almost a trademark, and the MII won't disappoint here. This translates to low cooling requirements, quieter boxes, and in power sensitive applications - longer run times.

As an inexpensive upgrade path for ageing x86 machines, EPIAs are ideal - schools, libraries and internet cafes can all benefit from low noise and low power consumption machines. Under Linux, even a humble EPIA 5000 can perform tasks such as file serving with ease, all at the cost of a SCSI card. Due to their small size, EPIAs have gained a following in the modding community (witness the many projects on this site). Although such mods probably represent a small proportion of sales, they show the versatility that this form factor has, and the enthusiasm of its owners. With the M and MII models, VIA have shown that the EPIAs can be powerful multimedia playback machines. An EPIA M in a low profile case looks great next to a TV, where a regular PC will look out of place, overpowered and overpriced for the task. Add a PVR card and you have a perfect HTPC.

By staying focused on the same design philosophy that went into the original EPIAs, the MII continues to significantly push up the performance levels of these low wattage, all-in-one motherboards. Case in point: the continuing evolution of the Nehemiah C3 processor. Clocking in at 1.2GHz, VIA have broken the symbolic 1GHz barrier, a development Intel and AMD advocates have to take notice of. With the MII, the EPIA M platform has matured - the next stage for VIA will be to replace the CLE266 chipset, and move to the next generation of CN400 EPIAs. For now though, the EPIA MII 12000 combines the best of EPIA platforms past, with some promising new features. We like it.

Wishlist...

We made a wishlist for future EPIAs in our last lengthy review of the M10000, just in case the guy who designs the boards at VIA was reading. Here's our updated version:

Faster, fanless C3 CPUs. A DVI connector. With an adapter for VGA. Actually - 2 DVI connectors. 2 GigaBit Ethernet Ports as standard. A 3 Ethernet port EPIA. A 4 Serial port EPIA. Scrub that - how about a choice of removable I/O panels, that attach to headers on the board? RAID support. SATA. Video Input. Hardware assisted MPEG1-4 decoding *and* encoding. On-board graphics memory. Half-decent 3D graphics. A breakout cable for the audio connectors to save space. Dolby decoding (and a THX logo to impress the HTPC market). All running in silence at 20W and under $150. And on 2 AA batteries. Perhaps next year...

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