14 DAY TRIAL // VIA has just announced the introduction of a new mini-ITX motherboard, dubbed the EPIA-M720, based on the company's own processors which was designed to provide great multimedia performance while also delivering a low power consumption.
The new motherboard comes as an upgrade to the previous EPIA-LN and it retains most of the features of its predecessor but adds DDR3 and SATA II support as well as a new embedded graphics core for improving the video capabilities of the platform.
This new GPU includes the VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video processor which is capable of providing hardware acceleration for high-definition video content in various formats including H.264, VC-1 or Blu-ray.
In addition, the EPIA-M720 aslo supports up to 4GB of DDR3 memory via a single full-sized DIMM socket, two SATA 3Gbps devices and one Gigabit Ethernet port.
The rest of the expansion options include eight USB 2.0 ports (six available through on-board headers), an HDMI video output, two COM ports, and a 32-bit legacy PCI slot for installing an add-on card.
At the heart of the EPIA-M720 mini-ITX board stands an 1GHz VIA C7 processor that features a single computing core. This is based on the CoolStream architecture and is manufactured using IBM's 90nm SOI process.
"Featuring the VIA VX900 MSP and improved connectivity, the VIA EPIA-M720 allows for an easy upgrade for customers," said Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc.
"The VIA EPIA-M720 offers substantial performance improvements which will enable the creation of a wealth of innovative next generation embedded devices," concluded the company's rep.
According to the company, the EPIA-M720 was designed for digital signage, POS, Kiosk, ATM, home automation, healthcare and media client system applications.
No information regarding pricing or availability was made public by VIA, but considering the feature set pricing should be pretty low.