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VIA sells PC2500E development mainboard with CPU and OS from $59.99

"Developers, developers, developers!" rings the famous Steve Ballmer chant. Google is a long way from capturing the same developer community found at Microsoft, or even Apple, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. 

There's certainly no shortage of low-cost, open-source computing recently. The demand for a PC running an operating system other than Windows or Mac OS only increases each year.

Laptops in this category have been getting a lot of attention recently with the XO Laptop finally entering production and fighting for the dollars of third-world countries against Intel’s ClassMate notebook. ASUS has also released its low cost Eee notebook that runs Linux.

User looking for the sort of low cost computing these systems offer for things like web surfing and email, but still feel the Eee and XO or too expensive for their needs should look at the gOS Development Kit that uses a VIA C7-D 1.5GHz CPU. The development kit includes the mainboard, CPU and comes bundled with a free gOS operating system based on the Ubuntu 7.10 distro bundled with Google applications.

The cost for the VIA PC2500E mainboard and the CPU is $59.99. That isn’t really a full fledged computer since you will need to add a hard drive, case, PSU and RAM, which will add more expense. The mainboard has VIA 10/100 Base-T Ethernet, onboard Realtek ALC655 6-channel audio, two PATA connectors, two SATA connectors, a VGA connection and four USB ports. The board also features a parallel port and a serial port. The board dimensions are 190mm x 228mm.

At a mere $60, almost anyone can become an active developer for gOS -- and Google knows this.  The company is banking on excited developers jumping on its recently announced Android OS, though gOS does not receive any official support from Google.  However, gOS has no problem loudly promoting Google, and any ally in the third-party developer community is a valuable one.

Apple quickly realized the important of third-party support after the launch of the iPhone this past Summer.

However, as Google "Android" phones are not expected until at least the second half of 2008, it might take more than a $60 motherboard to get enough third-party support to unseat Apple and Microsoft.


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Everex $200 Wal-mart PC
By razorboy on 11/9/2007 8:47:41 PM , Rating: 2
This is basically the same motherboard in the new $200 PCs being sold by Everex at Wal-mart.

They are both made by iDot, which is VIA's motherboard arm. They are both based on their PC2500 platform:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/empowered/pc2...

The board in the Everex machine is the iDot PC2500G, which seems to be a "little" nicer than the PC2500E. (These are still crap boards though, for about the same money, buy the Intel D201GLY)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...




RE: Everex $200 Wal-mart PC
By wrekd on 11/9/2007 11:38:41 PM , Rating: 2
I think the Intel board has only one memory slot, the PC2500E has two. Also, your crap board comment was unneeded.

I am a minimalist. I like my Wii, I'd like an Eee and if the Mac Mini was a tad cheaper, I'd buy one of those too.


RE: Everex $200 Wal-mart PC
By Ringold on 11/10/2007 2:45:04 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
Pros: The is basically a Pentium M with 512kb of L2 cache and 133FSB (533 Quad) x 10 = 1.33Ghz Its about 4-5x faster than the 1Ghz Via Eden mini-ITX mobo/cpu combo I was using before. If you're building a mini-ITX system this is THE BEST BANG FOR BUCK.


That review basically sums it up. Via CPU's operate entirely different than your normal crop of x86 chips.

It'd be nice to have a SATA port on that, though. I've not yet accumulated spare DDR2, but I have started to get to the point of having spare SATA HD's that could be recycled to lower the cost of such a build. My last PATA soldier was felled by the click of death many moons ago.


RE: Everex $200 Wal-mart PC
By mindless1 on 11/11/2007 7:28:02 PM , Rating: 2
Apparently you aren't a minimalist as you just knocked the board with more performance because it lacks a memory slot.

It's a crap product with every corner cut to make cheaper and far lower performance than something like this which has better performing integrated video and PCI Express 16X slot too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

The only real virtue of the Via board since it isn't particularly small is that it uses less power, but you can also get down to a quite low power level underclocking and undervolting another higher performing processor and have a better system at only minimal extra cost (linked board doesn't come with heatsink, but I doubt you want to use the Via board's heatsink fan either as it's more noisey short lived junk.


RE: Everex $200 Wal-mart PC
By Fozzie on 11/11/2007 2:08:02 PM , Rating: 2
Except for the lack of any SATA ports on the Intel board, only one parallel IDE port.

Come on Intel! There are the traces on the motherboard for the SATA port, why is this intentionally crippled?


RE: Everex $200 Wal-mart PC
By MAValpha on 11/12/2007 9:12:13 AM , Rating: 2
The SATA ports on the D201GLY were realized in the just-released D201GLY2 (http://www.logicsupply.com/products/d201gly2). It adds two SATA ports and goes 100% fanless by going from a 1.33GHz Yonah to a 1.2GHz Conroe-L (Core Solo Celeron to Core2 Solo Celeron).


A wonderful step
By geddarkstorm on 11/9/2007 3:47:13 PM , Rating: 2
You could easily complete a computer sans monitor for under or around $200 with that board and CPU as its base. It's a wonderful thing for low income families and countries to finally bring them into the PC era. That board comes with all the basic necessities, very nice indeed.




RE: A wonderful step
By darkpaw on 11/9/2007 3:58:56 PM , Rating: 3
Been able to do that for a while. This is just a mb+cpu basically, could always find deals on a MB + low end AMD or Intel CPU in the $60-70 range.

I built my mother-in-law a sub $200 sans monitor system about two years ago just using off the shelf components. I bet it was faster then this thing too.

The real area this shines is for hobbiest that want small.


RE: A wonderful step
By goku on 11/10/2007 5:49:47 PM , Rating: 2
word, infact I made my friend a "gaming machine" with an ECS Nforce3-a motherboard + Sempron 3100+ CPU, 1GB ram, optical drive, a QUALITY PSU, all for $200, though I did have to give him a Geforce 2 and he bought a used HDD. But otherwise yes I don't think this is particularly special.


RE: A wonderful step
By Mitch101 on 11/10/2007 7:59:37 PM , Rating: 3
I built a test web/sql/e-mail server with a previous mobo with built in cpu. It ran perfectly fine and completely silent using a 5400rpm 40gig drive from a tivo unit. You really dont need that much CPU for these kinds of things.

When I think back we used to run 300Mhz servers that would manage a couple hundred users e-mail. Mine would manage 5 people and act as a web server handling what 300 users a day and wasnt even visible on my electric bill.

Granted you can build more powerfull setups for little more but again silence and little to no power consumption is worth it. Never feel guilty about leaving this running around the clock.


RE: A wonderful step
By mindless1 on 11/11/2007 7:35:01 PM , Rating: 2
The problem is that giving a low income family or country this doesn't mean their performance needs are lower, with it having such low performance it will have a shorter viable lifespan. Let's face it, unless a product was defective it is replaced for performance reasons so this product actually has a higher cost:year. IOW, halving peformance to shave 15% off total system cost is a bad value and adds to landfills when it's thrown away at end of life.


Careful about what you're implying with your report
By ninjit on 11/9/2007 4:26:17 PM , Rating: 2
A quick "google" for gOS easily told me that it has nothing to do with google (as already pointed out by another poster)

Here is the official website for the distro:
http://www.thinkgos.com

They clearly state at the bottom that they are NOT affiliated with google.
Their shtick is that they love google products, and bundle as much of it as they can with their distro (along with links to Google Web2.0 apps)




By ninjit on 11/9/2007 4:28:06 PM , Rating: 2
just for future reference after you edit the article

quote:
At a mere $60, almost anyone can become an active developer for gOS -- and Google knows this. The company is banking on excited developers jumping on the gOS, and hopefully Android OS. Apple quickly realized the important of third-party support after the launch of the iPhone this past Summer.


By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 11/9/2007 4:49:38 PM , Rating: 2
Sorry about that, I cleaned it up to make the intent of that statement a little more clear.


Cheap ITX board?
By Fox5 on 11/9/2007 5:06:36 PM , Rating: 2
At 190mm x 228mm it's close. It actually matches up with flexATX dimensions almost perfectly, and this costs well below the cost of a normal small motherboard +via cpu combos.




RE: Cheap ITX board?
By ajfink on 11/9/2007 8:03:54 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, this is neat. Might scratch together one just to check it out, toss 7.10 on it.


Android and Google
By cobak on 11/9/2007 3:46:42 PM , Rating: 3
What does this have to do with Android and Google? I'm pretty sure gOS is not that same thing or even related...




mp3car anyone
By VisionxOrb on 11/9/2007 6:20:56 PM , Rating: 2
looks like a heck of a deal for building a carpc, might have to get one of these asap.




The Phone?
By rupaniii on 11/10/2007 9:18:07 AM , Rating: 2
I need a kit where i can test the speed and memory and features of the PHONE.
What's the point of coding a new board that's just Intel comaptable with lots of ram?
Does the gOS tooks have a Samsung or ARM or XScale Processor platform simulator?
This seems dumb, suprising for google. Working on Earth is fun and that's great software.




The Phone?
By rupaniii on 11/10/2007 9:18:34 AM , Rating: 2
I need a kit where i can test the speed and memory and features of the PHONE.
What's the point of coding a new board that's just Intel comaptable with lots of ram?
Does the gOS tooks have a Samsung or ARM or XScale Processor platform simulator?
This seems dumb, suprising for google. Working on Earth is fun and that's great software.




my mistake
By rupaniii on 11/10/2007 9:24:20 AM , Rating: 2
Ok, sorry. Thought gOS was another name for Android.
Too much new google.
Though, again, i really wonder who codes that doesn't have at least this hardware.
Cheap hardware is never ignored though.

Now, i need an Android Platform emulator, anyone got one?
Anyone know of anyone getting this to work on existing phones. After all, switching to Android and running Google Services is all Google's really after, and if it runs alot better, then customers will be happy and buy new Android phones.
I need a Nokia N800 like os on my PPC6700. That's totally within reach with Android. I admit, an N810 is droolworthy. I'd like to see a Wimax chip in it though, since i live in Balt/WashingtonDC area.




Already done.
By Alias1431 on 11/10/2007 10:30:34 AM , Rating: 2
At Fry's Electronics, there is a CPU and motherboard combo for $59.99 this weekend. It's a Celeron 430 and an ECS motherboard. Cheap, but gets the job done. Just slap an open source OS on that.




Not Sweet enough
By osalcido on 11/9/07, Rating: -1
RE: Not Sweet enough
By rsasp on 11/9/2007 3:35:54 PM , Rating: 1
lol... its good enough for third world country, i mean this isn't for gaming.


RE: Not Sweet enough
By retrospooty on 11/9/2007 3:38:01 PM , Rating: 2
Its not really for you, its for people that can barely scrape together $60, or for cheap high volume internet appliances, like you might find in an internet cafe, or hotel lobby.


RE: Not Sweet enough
By mindless1 on 11/11/2007 7:33:17 PM , Rating: 2
Shaving 15% off the cost of a system when the penalty is 50% lower performance is not a good idea for most uses. Buying a low end board built cheap is not a good idea for a cafe or lobby where it is meant to last many years instead of replaced every other like some gamers do.


RE: Not Sweet enough
By Ringold on 11/10/2007 2:38:50 AM , Rating: 1
I don't care so much about the board (it's capabilities arent bad) as long as its stable.. but the VIA cpu? *cringe*

Now, that board mated with a low end AMD or Intel chip (hell, even an old 1.2ghz Tbird!) at or near the same price point.. that would be nice.


RE: Not Sweet enough
By TomZ on 11/10/2007 5:51:59 PM , Rating: 1
Ask and you shall receive:

http://www.buy.com/prod/intel-d201gly-desktop-boar...

Intel board, Intel processor, $63.00.


"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer

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