motherboards

Via Technologies, a known PC chipset and chipmaker, announced on Thursday its Via EPIA N700 Nano-ITX motherboard. The new board is the first to offer Via's latest VX800 chipset and is compatible with its 1.5GHz C7 and 500MHz Via processors. The new motherboard supports up to 2GB of DDR2 667Mhz system memory. Via claims that this combination of chipset, processor, and ultracompact design allows for a unprecedented balance between extreme miniaturization and uncompromising functionality.

Though tiny, measuring merely 4.7 inches by 4.7 inches, the Via EPIA N700 still manages to offer a variety of onboard ports … Read more

Appropriately, a tiny Intel system board has debuted to match the tiny Atom processor. This could yield more portable desktop PC designs like the Eee Box.

The Intel-made motherboard is based on the Mini-ITX standard, which was originally developed by Via Technologies.

Diminutive desktops based on these motherboards can get as small as a typical notebook PC--a design small enough and light enough to be portable.

Intel is calling this category of desktops that sport an Atom 230 or N270 processor Nettops.

Nettops are designed for basic computing tasks like browsing the Web and sending e-mail and are generally cheap, … Read more

Forget Intel and AMD for a minute. The two largest PC circuit board makers, Asus and Gigabyte, are at it.

PC motherboard maker spats have typically taken place below the radar. But a recent round of particularly sharp recriminations have become very visible because they go to the core of a new trend in marketing: How green is your motherboard?

This is what happened: Gigabyte, according to reports, said in Taipei earlier this month that Asus' EPU (energy processing unit)-based motherboards do not achieve the power savings that Asus claims.

In short, Asus claims power savings of just over 80 percent, … Read more

Last October, I covered my first motherboard for Webware: the Asus P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP (check out the video).

It was a Webware story since it was, at the time, the only motherboard to ship with "Splashtop," an embedded Linux OS with Firefox and Skype. With this capability, 15 seconds after you hit the power switch, you could be online.

The idea is that it makes it possible to shut down the PC when you're done with it, yet still be able to pop online in a hurry to check something on the Web.

The only problem with … Read more

Inexpensive circuit boards can work reliably with the fastest AMD quad-core Phenom processors when modifications are made, according to a report. This comes in the wake of mismatch issues between Phenom chips and select motherboards, as reported by Asia-based vendors.

The mismatch between high-end Phenom processors and lower-end motherboards became an issue when some Asia-based manufacturers attempted to plug in 9750 and 9850 Phenom processors into boards based on AMD's 780G chipset. The chipset is attractive to board makers because of its relatively high-performance integrated graphics. (A motherboard is the main circuit board in a PC.)

On Monday, AMD … Read more

Update: Ultrasmall desktops aren't new, but an Intel design unearthed in Asia means there may be a lot more on the way.

Ultracompact desktop PC design is tapping into two powerful forces: Low cost and eco friendliness. Tiny Dell desktops (photo) and Atom-powered Nettops are hints of things to come. And Intel motherboards disclosed in Asia may fuel this trend. Hardware site HKEPC has posted photos of two new Intel Mini-ITX-based motherboards, "Eklo" and "Fly Creek."

(Correction: the motherboard is called Eklo not "Elko" as previously reported.)

The original Mini-ITX board design was … Read more

Gadget skins normally aren't worth noting because they've become so common, but Crave has had a soft spot for GelaSkins almost since we first opened for business. Their designs have been consistently stylish and innovative as they've expanded to practically every surface imaginable, including laptops, iPhones, and even Wiimotes.

And now they've done it again, by going back to the root of their gadgets, quite literally. The "Motherboard" collection takes a bare-bones approach (or raw circuitry, in this case) with a design that will surely draw more than a passing glance at the local … Read more

Intel is getting ready to launch the full-sized SUV of desktop motherboards. Expected later this quarter, the Skulltrail board packs two quad-core 130-watt QX9775 processors--which Legit Reviews said sucked up to a whopping 351 watts. In short, this is not the MacBook Air. The tiny processor in that power-stingy computer sips a mere 20 watts.

Skulltrail pulls out all the stops. It has dual 1600-MHz front side-buses connected to dual Xeon sockets and four full PCIe x16 slots, with planned support for up to four high-end graphics boards. And Xeon processors running on Skulltrail boards have been demonstrated by Intel … Read more

I just got a chance to try out a Webware PC: a computer built around the new P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP motherboard from Asus. What makes this motherboard be hardware for Webware is that it has a Firefox Web browser (running on an embedded Linux operating system) burned into ROM. It also has Skype. You turn it on, and in fifteen seconds (I timed it), you can be in Firefox and surfing the Web.

You can also boot it into Windows, or whatever OS you have installed on the hard disk. Boring.

This built-in browser has a lot of great things but some drawbacks too.

In the plus category: This alternate operating system, provided by DeviceVM to Asus, is fast and convenient. There's no giant OS to boot before you get into your browser, which is a slimmed-down version of Firefox, not some weird, quasibrowser that doesn't do what you want. There's a Flash plug-in installed so most modern sites render properly. Flash videos play just fine. The system saves all your settings (including bookmarks) in memory, so you don't have to start from scratch every time you fire it up.

The P5E3 motherboard has nearly everything built in that you'll need. Connecting to a network--wired or WiFi--is fast and easy. Skype has access to the board's audio in and out ports.

Because the DeviceVM platform doesn't have access to the hard disks connected to the motherboard, the system is very secure. So if, say, guests wants to use your PC to check their Web mail, you can boot them into the ExpressGate environment (that's what Asus calls it) and not worry about them junking up your PC. You might want to clear your private data from the Firefox cache first, though.

And this motherboard is "green," at least in theory. Many people leave their PCs on all the time, because launching a browser from a cold PC can take several minutes. With this setup, you can turn off the PC when you're done browsing, and when you need to get back online, you can be there in seconds.

If you work primarily online--using browser-based tools like Google Docs for productivity, Salesforce.com or Basecamp for business operations, Meebo for IM, and so on--this setup is just great.

Should you get one of these motherboards just for its ExpressGate feature, though?

… Read more