[phrehdd]

It appears that VIA is now pushing hard into the HTPC market with what looks to be like a real please to those interested in small form factor HTPC.

VIA VB8003 Mini-ITX

As it is new, there isn't much to say on how XBMC will benefit but its worth the look just to see real competition out there.

The VIA VB8003 Mini-ITX board uses VIA's new VIA Trinity’ platform and combines a 1.6GHz VIA Nano processor, VIA VX800 unified media system processor and an DX10.1 S3 Graphics 435 ULP onboard discrete graphics processor. The S3 Graphics 435 ULP also features the ChromotionHD™ engine, providing true HD quality 1080p playback on the latest HD standards including Blu-ray Disk, H.264, VC-1, WMV-9, MPEG-2/4 and AVS, at resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels. The VIA VB8003 Mini-ITX board features a comprehensive array of on-board multimedia I/O, including two HDMI ports, a DVI port and a VGA port. By harnessing the power of both the S3 Graphics 435 ULP graphics processor and the integrated IGP of the VIA VX800 MSP, the VIA VB8003 can be configured to power up to four, independently configurable displays at resolutions up to and beyond 1080p.

For some geek details on what this board is touting -

http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/trinity/

Any thoughts ?

- Phrehdd

[ion_man]

Yes one thought, wake me up when there are decent VIA drivers for Linux available (with 3D and video decoding acceleration).
Good hardware is useless without good drivers.

[phrehdd]

Yes one thought, wake me up when there are decent VIA drivers for Linux available (with 3D and video decoding acceleration).
Good hardware is useless without good drivers.

Though I am not a windoze fan, it appears that it does its goodness under windoze.

I'll agree with you on preferring a non-windoze OS.

[j3ff]

Via has potential, but they keep focusing on the wrong market - likely why they are not getting anywhere sales wise.