Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd has launched the PC-Q07 Mini-ITX chassis. The black hairline-brushed all aluminum PC-Q07 allows for the Mini-ITX platform motherboard to be combined with traditional full sized components, thus saving you money and giving you the option to utilize components from a system you already have. Designed to be passively cooled, with strategically placed innovative air vents make it both silent and safe. The small chassis can fit snugly in any environment. The PC-Q07 is definitely worth serious consideration for building the ultimate ITX platform. Ideal for System Integrators looking for money saving, high quality solutions.

Harnessing an adequately powerful processor in the Intel Atom 330 dual-core, AOpen is ready with a nettop system board in the mini-ITX form factor, the AOpen i945GCt-DN. AOpen has taken care of the essentials, making it an entry-level platform.

The i945GCt-DN embeds an Atom 330 processor clocked at 1.60 GHz, with provision for a single DDR2 memory module of the standard 240-pin DIMM size. It takes its power from an external 12V input or from the Molex connector. It lacks an ATX power switching input. Of all the components, the i945GS northbridge is actively cooled with a fan. The Atom 330 makes do with a heatsink, while the ICH7 southbridge is cool enough to run without one. Display output is via a D-Sub connector. A total of 8 USB 2.0 ports are provided (4 on the back-panel + 4 by headers). Also provided are the essential 10/100 Ethernet and 6-channel audio. A single PCI-E x1 slot provides expansion. Pricing is yet to be known.

VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA-P710, the world's first single board computer based on the new Pico-ITXe specification of the Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG), providing a more rational approach to system design.

Supporting up to four customizable I/O expansion modules, the VIA EPIA-P710 Pico-ITXe enables a highly flexible and affordable implementation of serial connectivity options. Designed as the perfect baseboard, the VIA EPIA-P710 uses an intelligent board layout to allow efficient module stacking and aid heat dissipation.

To combat Intel's Atom-embedded ITX motherboard linueup, and the platform itself, there has been an influx of mini-ITX motherboards based on the AMD 780G chipset lately. Perhaps the thermal design of the 780G allows implementation in form-factors this small. To combat the dual-core Atom, AMD had built up plans to release low-power processors based on the AM2 socket. Notably, the Athlon X2 22W and Athlon single core 15W chips. Perhaps it is these processors that are inviting companies to plan Mini-ITX motherboards based on the AM2+ socket with the 780G chipset.

Albatron is about to release the KI780G motherboard, and they seem to have packed quite a lot to it. To begin with, the board features an AM2+ socket (that supports processors only upto 65W TDP), two DDR2 SO-DIMM slots for using the more compact memory sticks notebooks use, four SATA II ports, an IDE connector, Gigabit LAN, 7.1 channel audio with SPDIF optical and co-axial pass, display connectors that include D-Sub, DVI and HDMI (HDCP capable), and finally a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot. The motherboard goes head-on against the feature-set that the MINIX comes with. This is meant to be a full-featured HTPC board. Its pricing is not known at the moment.

IN the past few months, an interesting set of Mini-ITX motherboards made it to the market. There are two primary classes of ITX boards: embedded CPU and those with CPU sockets. VIA and Intel have boards based on their small-footprint embedded processors, while others made innovative solutions with CPU sockets. The Minix-ITX, an AM2+ socket based ITX board, took it to the next level with a motherboard that fulfills most requirements of HTPC users.

Magic Pro, a Chinese company that concentrates on Asian markets has now come up with another solution based on the AMD 780G chipset. The board, MP-NC81 comes with 128 MB of Sideport memory to assist the integrated graphics processor (IGP) that's housed in the 780G chipset. The IGP supports UVD, it accelerates H.264, VC1 and MPEG2 1080p playback. It comes with SB600 southbrige which routes to four SATA II ports with RAID support. The board features a single SO-DIMM slot to hold notebook DDR2 memory. It supports AM2+ processors with TDP of up to 95W. A striking feature however, is that the board optionally ships with a wireless ethernet riser-card, much in the same way as some high-end motherboards from ASUS do. The riser card is said to support 802.11n standard.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA N700 Nano-ITX board, designed as a complete solution for compact industrial PC and embedded automation devices. Featuring a 1.5GHz VIA C7 or 500MHz VIA Eden processor, the VIA EPIA N700 is the first Nano-ITX board to feature the latest VIA VX800 media system processor, offering system designers the perfect balance of ruthless miniaturization and uncompromising functionality.

Compact, yet user friendly, the VIA EPIA N700 uses additional onboard ports to make system design of compact PCs easier; two S-ATA ports, a Gigabit LAN port, a COM port, two USB 2.0 ports and a VGA port are provided, with additional COM, LVDS and IDE support available through onboard pin-headers. With the VX800 offering an integrated DX9 graphics core and excellent hardware accelerated video playback, this compact, low heat, power-efficient board is the ultimate solution for designing low heat, compact systems.

Just when you thought Mini-ITX would mean extremely compact system components for great HTPC builds, came in the limitations of integrated graphics and relatively weak processors. VIA for example, have had ITX boards for quite some time. Just that the features most essential for HTPC builds such as graphics capable of high-definition video output, processors capable of decoding them at acceptable rates lacked, and hence those older ITX solutions from VIA remained a niche solution for embedded computing or thin-clients.

Picture this: a Mini-ITX board, AM2+ socket, AMD 780G (one of the fastest integrated graphics embedded), four SATA II ports, video output as HDMI (with digital audio pass, HDCP compliant) DVI-D / D-Sub, 8-channel audio with SPDIF optical and co-axial pass, all rolled into one? Awesome, isn't it? Several sources point out that J&W Technology is planning the release of such a board next week, the MINIX-780G-SP128MB.

VIA Technologies, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA P700 Pico-ITX board that couples more features within a streamlined, ultra compact footprint designed for low profile systems, with extended I/O port options through two companion boards.

Via Technologies is not likely to ship its supersmall Mobile ITX motherboard, aimed at ultramobile PCs (UMPCs) and other light portable devices, in production volume until next year, company officials said here at the CES show Monday. The company attracted industry attention when it unveiled the board at Computex in Taipei last June, declaring that it would find its way into markets this year. But "manufacturability issues" will likely prevent the board from being used in commercially launched devices this year, according to Alp Sezen, a sales director for Via based in Fremont, California. Via expects to announce the Mobile ITX production schedule at this year's Computex, and will probably just manage to ship sample boards by the end of the fourth quarter, he said.