Dual Core Mini-ITX Drives Gaming And Digital Signage

Aug. 3, 2011
VIA Technologies puts a 1.6 GHz dual core VIA Nano X2 E-Series processor with up to 4 Gbytes of DDR3 SODIMM memory onto its VB8004 Mini-ITX motherboard designed for gaming and digital signage.

VIA VB8004 motherboard

VIA Technologies puts a 1.6 GHz dual core VIA Nano X2 E-Series processor with up to 4 Gbytes of DDR3 SODIMM memory onto its VB8004 Mini-ITX motherboard (Fig. 1). It targets high performance digital signage and gaming applications. The dual core motherboard can handle a pair of displays with the VIA S3 5400E graphics module option to handle up to four displays simulanteously. The VIA S3 5400E features the ChromotionHD 2.1 video engine that supports HD standards including Blu-ray Disk, H.264, VC-1, WMV-9, and MPEG-2/4.

The VIA VX900 media processor supports Microsoft's DX10.1 graphics, Shader Model 4.1, OpenGL 3.1, and OpenCL 1.0. It can handle 1080p video resolutions and streaming video.

Other on-board peripherals include a GigaLAN Ethernet port, six USB 2.0 ports, two serial ports and two SATA ports. The motherboard forgoes a PCI or PCI Express slot but it does have an expansion connector that has one 4x PCIe lane, one 1x PCIe lane and a USB port.

The motherboard can handle HDMI, 24-bit LVDS, and DVI technologies. The S3 5400E module supports smooth HD playback at resolutions of up to 2560 by 1600 pixels.

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