DailyTech - Intel Takes on Mini ITX

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Hardware Intel Takes on Mini ITX
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - May 14, 2007 7:49 PM

33 comment(s) - last by Kougar.. on May 15 at 2:55 PM

Intel prepares its new mini ITX motherboard offering

Intel is poised to take on VIA’s mini ITX motherboards with its upcoming Little Valley D201GLY, which is part of its Intel Desktop Board Essential Series. The new D201GLY is the first Intel branded motherboard to feature a SiS chipset. Intel previously used ATI chipsets in its D103GGV and D102GGC2 budget motherboards, however, Intel kicked ATI to the curb after the acquisition by AMD.

The upcoming Intel D201GLY motherboard is an all-in-one solution with an integrated processor, similar to VIA’s EPIA series. It features the SiS662 north bridge paired with the SiS964L south bridge. The SiS662 features integrated SiS Mirage 1 graphics. The integrated graphics core is AGP8x-based and features hardware accelerated DVD decoding. It is not Vista Premium ready.

Intel integrates a Yonah-based Celeron processor on the D201GLY. The integrated processor is a Celeron 215 in a BGA 479 package. Intel clocks the Celeron 215 at 1.33 GHz on a 533 MHz front-side bus. It also has 512KB of L2 cache. Despite being Yonah-based, the Celeron 215 is a single-core processor.

Other notable features of the Intel D201GLY include DDR2-533/400 MHz memory support, one PCI slot, 10/100 Ethernet, six USB 2.0 ports and optional S-Video output.

Expect Intel to release the D201GLY with the integrated Celeron 215 in the end-of-May or early-June timeframe.

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Nice Pic!

By wrekd on 5/14/2007 9:29:03 PM , Rating: 5

The .7 micron increase in picture size really brought the board details to life.

RE: Nice Pic!

By TomZ on 5/14/2007 10:06:56 PM , Rating: 1

LOL. That's one of my personal pet peeves about lots of web sites...the tiny picture (like we all still have modems), and the click to enlarge that brings up the photo that's a whopping 10% bigger!

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RE: Nice Pic!

By jpeyton on 5/14/2007 10:21:49 PM , Rating: 2

Who else is disappointed the CPU heatsink isn't fanless?

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RE: Nice Pic!

By Kougar on 5/14/2007 11:50:16 PM , Rating: 2

It sure won't be with that processor.

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RE: Nice Pic!

By Gravemind123 on 5/15/2007 12:04:08 AM , Rating: 2

Considering its Core based architecture, not NetBurst it's probably possible for it to be run fan-less if you were to mod a somewhat larger copper heatsink on it.

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RE: Nice Pic!

By Kougar on 5/15/2007 2:55:31 PM , Rating: 2

I'm not so sure. Celery chips always have had their lower power modes stripped out of them, which is why they are a worse choice for a laptop. They may be the lower end part but their power consumption will still drain the battery faster than a non-Celeron version. This one still retains a 27watt TDP... to go fanless it would need some good airflow.

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RE: Nice Pic!

By Roy2001 on 5/15/2007 1:09:04 AM , Rating: 1

It is not only should be fanless, but should also have HDMI output.

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RE: Nice Pic!

By Anh Huynh on 5/15/2007 2:38:03 AM , Rating: 4

Why bother with HDMI? The integrated graphics doesn't even have enough horsepower for Vista Aero glass, not to mention 720p/1080i/1080p resolutions for multimedia tasks.

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Too little, too late.

By Funksultan on 5/15/2007 7:47:17 AM , Rating: 2

Sorry Intel, the specs for this board just aren't going to cut it. I don't expect them to step right into first place among mini-itx producers, but still... wtf?

They could price this at $29, and I still think they'd have a loser on their hands.

Come back with something that's not 4 years outdated Intel. You should know better.

"S-Video is an option? Awesome! Betty, grab my checkbook!"

D

RE: Too little, too late.

By TomZ on 5/15/2007 9:15:53 AM , Rating: 2

You've demonstrated complete ignorance about the small form factor market. You are not going to get top-of-the-line motherboard features in such a small board. Check out VIA's offerings, since that is what this competes with.

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RE: Too little, too late.

By sprockkets on 5/15/2007 9:26:55 AM , Rating: 5

VIA's boards have SVIDEO, SPDIF out via coax, some have DVI and one board has RCA audio out and component as well. All new boards have SATA as well. AOpen even makes Core 2 Duo 479 capable boards with the G965 chipset as well with SATA and more. So yes, this board sucks, and if it costs around $250, while the processor is worth it, nothing else is.

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question

By Gul Westfale on 5/14/2007 10:41:58 PM , Rating: 2

why does intel not use their own motherboard chipset on this board? surely one of intel's own laptop chipsets with integrated graphics would have similar/better performance and they wouldn't have to pay SiS for theirs?

does it have something to do with supply issues, or are intel chipsets more expensive to make than it is to buy a SiS one?

RE: question

By Triring on 5/14/2007 11:00:46 PM , Rating: 2

They're luanching a market tester to see the market's acceptance for further consideration if there is a bigger potential market to this kind of product.
They probably introduce another product using UMC components which is under development if this test proves successful.

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RE: question

By JeffDM on 5/15/2007 7:43:36 AM , Rating: 2

That really isn't an explanation of why it's not using Intel's own parts. It doesn't seem to do anything special that Intel's chips do not. If it's a pilot run or market test, then it shouldn't put too much strain on the supply of their own chips. If Intel's production is strained through low yields or high demand, then I'd understand, but I haven't even heard any rumors of that.

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RE: question

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 5/15/2007 11:58:08 AM , Rating: 2

VIA and SIS dominate the industrial PC market. Intel has very little presence in this arena, and it's a good "in" for them to partner with someone who has a lot of experience here already.

Good for SIS in the nearterm -- but for their sake you'd have to hope Intel doesn't get good at industrial PC and then turn around and cut SIS out.

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dont forget about picoBTX

By irev210 on 5/15/2007 12:51:08 AM , Rating: 1

picoBTX boards are the most underrated intel boards ever.

I really love the media center picoBTX board, excellent for the DIY people. Very feature rich, nice having the mini pci-e 1x slot for wifi, etc.

RE: dont forget about picoBTX

By Shadowmaster625 on 5/15/2007 2:44:10 PM , Rating: 2

btx is garbage

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Micro Media Servers?

By Preyfar on 5/14/2007 9:47:13 PM , Rating: 2

I'd love to see MicroATX boards come with RAID built in - they'd be fantastic for home media servers. Strap in 2 or 3 mini-laptop drive in and have a great home media system that's small and inconspicuous.

Dear God

By thebrown13 on 5/15/2007 12:51:11 AM , Rating: 1

Can we please drop the parallel and PS2 ports?

Thanks,
Everyone.

RE: Dear God

By TomZ on 5/15/2007 2:34:52 PM , Rating: 1

ITX is used a lot also in industrial applications, where legacy connections like serial, parallel, and PSS are more important.

Otherwise, I'm with you - please substitute these with more USB ports!

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useless

By sprockkets on 5/15/2007 8:55:56 AM , Rating: 2

I do not mind SIS, it will work just fine for what people need. But try 3D in Linux with it. No DVI either. It will be a good performer perhaps, but the 964L SB has no SATA, and that is sad. I'm not buying a laptop PATA drive again, and for the cases you use with mini ITX, using PATA is unacceptable.

The two most important pieces of information I found missing at the post...

By MarkHark on 5/15/2007 12:16:45 PM , Rating: 2

1- idle/max. power consumption

2- expected retail price

Yet Again

By cheetah2k on 5/14/07, Rating: -1

RE: Yet Again

By cheetah2k on 5/14/07, Rating: -1

RE: Yet Again

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 5/14/2007 9:54:01 PM , Rating: 4

I think this is geared more at VIA than AMD.

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RE: Yet Again

By cheetah2k on 5/14/07, Rating: 0

RE: Yet Again

By deeznuts on 5/14/2007 10:38:37 PM , Rating: 2

AMD's DTX is a new form factor, Intel has introduced a Mini-ITX board, which is a form factor that has been around for a while. DTX is a tiny bit bigger and if you want to argue original thoughts you can argue DTX is a ripoff of other smaller form factors with some innovation.

Trying to equate creating a new spec for a new form factor vs. having a real working board is childish IMO. You think Intel heard about AMD's spec in January and rushed out and created this board to copy? Or is it AMD copying VIA who has been quite a player in this niche market?

http://www.tech-crm.com/?m=200703
Rep from AMD saying they want to repeat the success of ATX. Who introduced ATX anyway?

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RE: Yet Again

By cheetah2k on 5/14/07, Rating: -1

RE: Yet Again

By TomZ on 5/14/2007 11:03:02 PM , Rating: 2

Kris is right, because AMD is not really in that market in any significant way, whereas VIA is and has been for a while.

I think your theory of Intel sitting around trying to anticipate AMD's next move is pretty creative, but also pretty unlikely. What is really going on is that both companies are anticipating increased demand for small-scale PC's and PC-like devices.

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RE: Yet Again

By theapparition on 5/15/2007 7:21:53 AM , Rating: 2

I bet Intel is just waiting for AMD to make an annoucement, and when AMD announces a new innovative product, they just hand their engineers a few cups of coffee, make them work unpaid overtime, so they can completely reverse engineer the product overnight. While that's happening, all marketing materials are being made at midnight down at the local Kinko's. Supply chains are being set-up, tooling and production is geared up with suppliers in China/Taiwan. Now they've really stuck it to AMD, and now Intel just sits around twiddling their thumbs waiting for AMD to come up the next "innovation" in the computer world.

In case anyone hasn't figured it out, that was sarcasm.

TomZ is completely correct. Both companies have long term roadmaps, and try to anticipate the future. Most of the time, they head in the same direction. How soon did both companies release dual core processors? Very close to one another. But how can that be when just engineering time alone is several years per processor? It takes years from an idea to materialize into a released product. The idea that intel sits around stealing ideas in a few months is just plain stupid.

If anything, Intel moves s-l-o-w. The bigger a company, the harder it is to get product to the market. Since very few readers here at Daily Tech have released products, you have no idea what it takes. The roadmap planning, engineering time, product testing, production tooling, and partner verification all take time.

AMD, on the other hand, has been pretty quick with new products. That's the biggest reason many investors are weary of them right now. Their greatest strength against their competition is non-existant right now. Late products and poor anticipation has forced them to go to cut-rate prices, hurting their bottom line. I expect AMD to be more nimble than Intel, the fact that they haven't been lately, is concerning.

Getting back to the point at hand, sometimes, the roadmaps do not reflect consumer demand. That's why you see canceled products, and missed market opportunities. The small, low power computer segment is something that VIA has concentrated on, since their acquisition of Cyrix. They've built quite a nice business not directly competing with Intel/AMD. Intel and AMD felt the time was right (at least two years ago), to get into this market. What you are seeing now is the result of that decision.

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RE: Yet Again

By deeznuts on 5/14/2007 11:05:47 PM , Rating: 2

Ah ok. Well that's your opinion and if it is what INTC does, hey it's good business practice in my opinion. I'm a capitalist pig.

The digitimes article you mentioned didn't refer to VIA but I believe what KK was referring to, was that this board by intel was aimed at VIA, since they have dominated if not outright owned the Mini-ITX form factor sector. This is a good thing since the via procs, well that's all that needs to be said abou that.

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RE: Yet Again

By prenox on 5/15/2007 10:07:40 AM , Rating: 2

Intel is more concerned with VIA than AMD with this.
I remember reading that Intel was trying to stop VIA from making processors. http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/11322
I am just speculating here but Intel could be applying pressure with this and trying to force VIA to make nothing but chipsets. If Intel could force VIA into doing that then they wouldn't have to fight VIA for marketshare when Intel's processors are in all of them.

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RE: Yet Again

By TomZ on 5/14/2007 10:04:50 PM , Rating: 2

I think Intel, AMD, VIA, and others are just reacting to demand for smaller form factor PC and PC-like devices. I don't think any company is specifically reacting to the other.

In my view, what Intel potentially brings to the party is the typical high quality of their motherboards, compared to off-brand boards mini-ITX boards you typically see with the VIA chipset. Also, I think Intel will have the upper-hand when they bring their low-power, high-performance cores and chipsets (e.g., Santa Rosa) into this platform.

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