14 DAY TRIAL // VIA may not be nearly as prominent on the consumer market as Intel or Advanced Micro Devices but, if anything, the kind of products it does deal in are definitely worthy of note. In fact, the company has just come out and unveiled its latest Mini-ITX motherboard. Dubbed VIA EPIA-M840, this platform is meant for embedded device designs and, among other things, stands out because it enables 64-bit software support.
The VIA EPIA-M840 has 64-bit support because it is equipped with one of the latest Nano E-Series processors. Two versions of the platform are available. One of them, the more powerful one, has a 1.6GHz SKU strapped onto it, whereas the other limits itself to 1.2GHz but, in return, boasts a fanless, and, thus, silent and energy-efficient, construction.
Both come with the same VX800 media system processor and it is this component that provides most of the worthwhile features of the card. For one, DirectX 9 support is enabled, as is HD audio and dual Gigabit networking. Furthermore, up to 3GB of DDR2 system memory is supported, as is full software virtualization as well as advanced video acceleration for MPEG-2, WMV9 and VC-1 video formats. Other things that the motherboard integrates are a VGA output, two COM ports, four USB 2.0 connectors and audio jacks.
"The VIA EPIA-M840 exemplifies our commitment to bringing the latest technologies to key embedded market segments," said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "By listening carefully to our customers we've been able to create a product that ticks all the boxes required to build the very latest intelligent industrial devices."
The M840-16 and M840-12E, unfortunately, were not exactly priced. Still, their maker should already have some on hand to send to its customers. Meanwhile, the full set of details on the boards can be seen here.