Via EPIA MII Mini-ITX Motherboard

The EPIA M12000 is based on the Mini-ITX form factor. Mini-ITX basically means that the motherboard can be a maximum of 17cm x 17cm. Also, Mini-ITX power supplies can be a maximum of 100watts, so the motherboards must be extremely light on the power requirements. The EPIA M12000 meats all of these requirements as you can see. Via included a sparse bundle with the EPIA M12000, including only a well written manual, driver CDROM, back plate and IDE cables.

Starting at the back panel and working right we have the legacy PS2 ports, Serial port, Onboard Video handled by the S3 Graphics UniChrome IGP, 10/100 LAN, 2 USB 2.0 ports, S-Video, SPDIF/Composite Video Out. After that is the 3 audio jacks controlled by the Via Vinyl Six-TRAC Audio and finally there is the Firewire port. Above all of this are the integrated Compact Flash and PCMCIA slots.

Moving to the middle section of the motherboard we have the onboard Via C3 processor running at 1.2 GHz. Judging by the small size of the heat sink and fan on the processor, the C3 is a fairly cool running processor. The Via C3 processor is based on the C5P Nehemiah core and is built on a 0.13 micron manufacturing process. It includes a Full Speed FPU, 64KB Full-Speed L2 cache, and utilizes SSE multimedia instructions

The Via CLE266 North Bridge sits next to this. The CLE266 includes the onboard graphics controller (S3 Graphics UniChrome IGP) and the MPEG2 decoder for smooth DVD playback. Next to the North Bridge is the Via VT8235 South Bridge which controls the onboard LAN, 2xATA slots, USB and sound. The floppy connector is in a weird position, making it hard to route a floppy cable from here. The single PCI slot finishes off the mid section of the board. Personally I would love to see an AGP slot included as well, but size does not allow for that. Shown in the last picture is the ATX power connector. Notice the capacitors surrounding the connector, these make it slightly difficult to remove the ATX connector.

At the edge of the board is the DDR266 slot with the 2 ATA 133/100 ports behind it.

The VT1211 is the LPC Super I/O which controls the Serial, Parallel and floppy disk. This chip also handles the hardware monitoring for the motherboard. Also shown in the picture is the VT6307S which handles the FireWire capabilities of the board.

The VT1616 handles the onboard audio. The Via VT1616 is also known as VIA's Vinyl Six-TRAC audio. As the name implies it provides 6 channel audio support for true 5.1 channel surround sound. Six channel audio shows that the EPIA M12000 would be an excellent choice for a HTPC.

Finishing it off is the Via VT6103 chip. This controller chip handles the 10/100 networking.

The BIOS

The BIOS on the Via EPIA MII 12000 is based on the standard Pheonix Award BIOS. Under the Onboard Peripherals section you can enable/disable the IDE controllers, as well as change some audio and video settings. Normally the Frequency/Voltage area is a fun area to visit, as this is where the overclocking settings should be stored. Sadly they are not stored here/anywhere on the EPIA MII 12000.

The only thing available for you to tweak is the memory speed and timings. On the last page (Advanced Chipset Features) you can change the settings for the onboard video, and how images will be displayed during POST. One newer option is the ability to change the resolution for the system during POST as well as set it up the system to use a TV as a primary display. The system monitoring section is bare as well, only displaying the minimums.

Test Setup

Via EPIA MII 12000. Mini-ITX Mainboard, 512MB Corsair PC4000, 120GB Seagate 7200RPM, Windows XP SP1, VIA Hyperion 4.51

VIA EPIA M9000, 512MB Corsair PC4000, 60GB Maxtor 7200RPM, Windows XP SP1, Via Hyperion 4.51

ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe, AMD 1700+ @ 12.5 x 166, 512MB PC3200, 200GB Seagate SATA 7200RPM, Windows XP SP1

The A7N8X-Deluxe based system will only be used in certain comparisons. The VIA EPIA boards are not designed to compete directly against full-fledged desktop based systems, so keep in mind that we know the comparison would not be fair in all benchmarks.

Test Software

SiSoft Sandra 2004
PiFast
VirtualDub 1.5.8
TMPGEnc 2.521
Unreal Tournament 2003
DU Meter
HD Tach
Via AES Benchmark
DUMeter

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