Overclockers Australia - Via "Eden" EPIA (800 MHz C3)

Via "Eden" EPIA (800 MHz C3)
18-June-2002 - Review by Kevin Baker (Baker on Forums)

This board was kindly provided for review by Kieran at Data Parts Shepparton. All images in this review will enlarge when clicked.

For a long time now, there has been a gap in the market of small footprint computers. Apart from NLX and MicroATX, there have been no real entries into this market. Until now. Via have been working on a new standard, Mini-ITX, for a while, and have now released a range of "Eden" boards. These board feature low power consumption, and a very small footprint. I have been sent the 800MHz model for review.

Update: Thanks to Tim Handley @ VIA who provided the following info: The VIA EPIA is available in two speeds, 533MHz and 800MHz. The 533MHz is called the VIA EPIA 5000 and the 800MHz is the VIA EPIA 800. The VIA Eden Platform (CPU, North Bridge and South Bridge) is available to motherboard makers with a 400MHz, 533MHz and 667MHz fanless CPU and the C3 EBGA version is available with a 733MHz and 800MHz CPU with the small heat sink and fan combo that you reviewed. VPSD is only producing the 533MHz and 800MHz versions because this will cover the main market segments.

I used for this review:

250w Aopen Power Supply (Noise Killer type)
256mb Generic Hynix Chipped PC-133 SD-RAM
Maxtor 2B020H1 20 GB 5400 RPM HDD, ATA-100
Pioneer 16x DVD, Model DVD-115

What's in the box?

1x Eden Motherboard
1x ATA-66/100 Cable
1x Eden EPIA Manual
1x Driver CD
1x Custom backplate to suit Eden, standard size.

First Impressions:
When you hear that the “Eden” motherboard is 170mm X 170mm, you think, gee, that’s small, but you don’t actually realise how small until you open the box. You really see the size in this shot comparing it to a normal CD:

The heatsink installed on the 800MHz C3 CPU is a mere 40mm by 40mm and around 25mm high. It seems to be anodised aluminium. The fan installed is a low noise AVC C4010T12H, which according the manufacturers specifications has one ball bearing and one sleeve bearing. It runs at 6200rpm, pushing only 7.87 cubic feet of air per minute, while only producing 29dB.

The heatsink is attached via two push through pins, the same as commonly used on Northbridge and video chipset heatsinks, such as the Orb range of chipset coolers. This cooler keeps the chip nice and cool, however as it seems the heatsink is also stuck on with some sort of thermal frag tape, I could not gain access to the chip to take some proper readings. I did however, experiment with turning the fan on the heatsink off, only to find that the heatsink heated up very quickly. I imagine that with a bigger heatsink modified to fit through the two-pin mounting method, or even possibly a Zalman passive chipset heatsink, fanless operation could be achieved.

More interesting however, is the way the CPU is attached to the motherboard. The C3 CPU is attached using the Enhanced Ball Grid Array (EBGA) method, meaning that rather than the CPU sitting into a socket on the motherboard, it is actually soldered onto it.

What this means to most, normal users, is that the CPU is not upgradeable. One interesting absence on the motherboard is that of a Floppy Drive Connector. I would assume that this was removed simply to save space, as it is supported by the chipset on the motherboard.

Overclocking
Just a quick note: There's basically no overclocking support. There is a 66/100/133MHz jumper, but given the (firmly attached) CPU is already running at 133MHz FSB it doesn't do much. As you'll see in the benchmarks later, I doubt this is a machine you'll really notice any useful performance increase from tweaking etc anyway.

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