PC Motherboards are getting smaller. The miniITX!
The motherboards in today’s computers are becoming more and more integrated. A few years ago, integration meant that everything that you used to have plug into an expansion slot on a motherboard is now “onboard”. Onboard meant that the controllers that used to be on the cards that plugged into the expansion slots were now soldered onto the motherboard. This was slightly more convenient but didn’t necessarily provide any better performance.
Today, motherboard integration refers to more advanced technology where the features, such as audio, video, network, etc. are integrated INTO the motherboard’s core logic or chipset. This improves performance because it provides high-speed pipelines from those individual components directly to the CPU and the system memory. It also saves room on the motherboard itself allowing it to become much smaller than in the old computer days.
As motherboards get more integrated, the smaller form factors have become more and more popular from ATX to mATX and now the miniITX. The miniITX board is a 6.7 x 6.7 inches low-power motherboard developed by VIA Technologies and is slightly smaller than the microATX.
Intel has the Atom CPU which is used in most netbooks, but also has the Atom on a miniITX desktop board. The Atom is a bit lower in performance than standard CPUs, roughly like a Pentium 3, which is fine for the netbooks and for really basic home use.
Intel has another board, the DG45FC that is a miniITX, but supports many Desktop CPU chips and has onboard HDMI and DVI-I: http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Motherboards/DG45FC/DG45FC-overview.htm
Our Manufacturer, Equus, thinks the miniITX form factor motherboard is the next big thing.
Check out the all of the Nobilis computer systems from Equus that we have to offer!
Thanks to Terry Collins of Equus Computer Systems for providing some of the information presented in this blog post.