VIA Epia-CL 10000

Introduction

The VIA EPIA-CL 10000 motherboard is VIA's latest Mini-ITX offering, boasting an on-board 1Ghz processor, Dual-LAN and a whole host of other features all packed onto one tiny 17cm x 17cm board.


Up-until recently the Mini-ITX standard of motherboard was aimed at industry and the more advanced user, running everything from cash-points to cars. However, more and more these boards are becoming the choice for the home user due to their compact size, minimum fuss, low-noise and power consumption advantages. These features make the board ideal for use as a dedicated network device (such as a firewall, file server, etc), an office PC or a specialist application (such as a 'Home-Theatre PC' or MP3 player).

Specifications

• On-board 1GHz VIA C3 CPU
• Supports up to 1GB of DDR266 RAM (1 Slot)
• Florm Factor: 170mm x 170mm Mini-ITX
• On-Board VIA CastleRock AGP Graphics
• 2 UltraDMA 66/100/133 IDE Connectors
• 1 Floppy Disk Drive Connector
• On-board Dual LAN (10/100)
• 4 USB 2.0 ports (up to 6 supported)
• 1 COM Port (up to 4 supported)
• 1 Parallel Port
• VT1612A, Two-Channel AC'97 Codec Audio
• I²C Connector
• FIR Connector
• Optional LVDS connector
• 1 PCI slot

As you can see, there are a lot of features crammed into such as small board, although the lack of an AGP connector may well annoy those not satisfied with the integrated graphics.

Included Items

VIA EPIA-CL 10000 Motherboard

• User's Manual
• 1 x ATA133 Cable
• 1 x Floppy Cable
• Custom I/O Bracket
• Driver/Utility CD

The board comes with the basic bits you need to get it working and a well written user manual, although we were slightly disappointed that extra's, such as a USB/COM port back plate to take advantage of the on-board headers, were not included as standard in the package.