What is to happen with VIA stuff now?

MooCow

MooCow

[H]F Junkie
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Last time I heard, people were jumping ship at VIA. What does that say about the current stock out there? Will the prices stay or go up? Or will the whole demand drop and I can pick up a ITX board for under $50?
 
VIA has always had a niche, and I think they will continue to do so. They are not amazingly powerful, even within their target market. However, their multi/media capabilities make them indispensable in some places.

As for a sub-$50 ITX, you can if you shop around (and settle for used). Hell, you can pick up an Intel D201GLY (Yonah core Celeron-M 1.33GHz) for $70 brand new. Total power consumption for a whole computer with such a board is under 40W.
 
I suppose that is not bad, but with my brothers be-2350 dual core it eats 65W at the wall and that is with a disk, cd-drom drive, and tv-tuner running xp.

I pay $0.08/kw hour so in a 24 hour period

((65w*24)-(45w*24))/1000 * .08 = $0.0384 * 364.25 = $14 per YEAR power difference for a ton more cpu speed.
 
I think as long as people still want smaller PCs Via will have a market.

Other than the D201GLY Little Valley, the majority of non-VIA ITX boards cost significantly more when you factor in the CPU cost. And even with the ~$65 price tag of the Little Valley, VIA offers a lot more features on their mini-ITX boards that justify the higher cost.

They're definitely starting to get competition in the low-power market from Intel. Big difference is that Intel's LV and ULV CPUs command a higher price than most VIA boards with a CPU. Intel does have a few worthy competitors with the cacheless Shelton and the yonah Celeron 215 on the Little Valley.

Even though I'm not much of a fan of VIA, they've got pretty good hold on their niche. The Little Valley is competition, but Intel's aiming for the entry level and not the core of VIA's market.
 
I'm actually am looking for a small board that has dual NIC's. I run IPCOP on a big ATX case and I also won't want to spend hundreds on a piece of hardware that doesn't need super fast processing power. Last time I checked this stuff was still rather expensive for what it was.
 
Didn't know about Little Valley 2, thanks! SATA looks good, as does fanless, but the 220 is actually a slower chip. I know 1.33->1.2 isn't a big difference, but I wish they didn't downgrade it.
 
Those glorious bastards. Hmmm, might have to swap one of those into my WHS cube.

I'd welcome the slower CPU just because it's fanless. The fan on the current Little Valley drives me nuts.
 
MooCow said:
Last time I heard, people were jumping ship at VIA.
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Seeing how VIA is about the only one making small, low power boards... I doubt they are going anywhere.

MooCow said:
and I can pick up a ITX board for under $50?
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I just picked up an open-box JetWay C3-800mhz off newegg for $45. 256MB stick of DDR333 for $9 from newegg, and I now have the quietest linux box ive ever owned.
 
Fry's has a new (?) mini ITX VIA CN700 based model using a C7-M 1.5GHz CPU for $90. I saw it yesterday. It's not a marked down model like the older 10000 that was $180 ($129 now).

VIA is probably cursing Little Valley 1/2 now for killing mini ITX prices. :p
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The Celeron 1.2GHz in LV2 should be faster than the old 1.33GHz since it's using a Core 2 Solo based chip now.
 
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