VIA Epia M10000 Mini-ITX Motherboard

Reviews: Hardware

Motherboards | Power Supplies | Memory | Systems | Video Cards

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
VIA
Oct. 10, 2003

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From Erza to Nehemiah

The redesign of the C3, the Nehemiah, promises to change several performance issues found in previous Erza C3 processors. The Nehemiah uses several technologies brought fourth from the Erza core. These include the 4-way associative 64KB L1 cache along with its 16-way associative 64KB L2 cache. The Nehemiah, just like the Erza, is built using a 0.13 micron process on a die of 52x52mm. But this is where the similarities end. The redesign of the C3 CPU includes these new features:

The Nehemiah is designed to work at clock speeds of 1 GHz and beyond, unlike the Erza T, which was designed to reach up to 1 GHz.

The Nehemiah uses just over 20 million transistors where as a Northwood P4 uses around 55 million, and the latest GPUs have over 100 million transistors. This is the world's smallest x86 processor.

VIA has switched sides and now uses SSE as opposed to 3DNow! used in the older Erza based C3 processors. This should allow for better performance in 3D applications as well as SSE optimized image processing applications.

The Nehemiah also features a full speed FPU, unlike the Erza core, which had a "half-pumped" FPU. This should dramatically increase performance in 3D rendering, multimedia, and streaming applications.

The Nehemiah includes a feature called the "StepAhead Advanced Branch Prediction" which looks ahead and gathers data needed to allow for better application performance.

VIA has also increased the C3's pipeline from 12 to 16 with the Nehemiah core. Compare this to the P3's 10 stages and the P4's 20 stages.

The Nehemiah requires 1.4 volts as opposed to the Erza's 2.35 volts. This allows the processor to reach higher speeds, but will require active cooling on the CPU.

The Nehemiah also features a hardware based random number generator (RNG) which creates true random numbers from the electrical noise on the chip. This is good for security and server applications, but of little use to anyone else.

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Page 2 of 7

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Page 1: Introduction & History
Page 2: From Erza to Nehemiah
Page 3: Board Layout & Features
Page 4: Accessories
Page 5: BIOS
Page 6: Workstation & Office Performance
Page 7: Conclusion

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9 User Comments

1 - Posted by Kurtis on October 10, 2003 - 6:01 pm

i love that thing. can't wait to see what you do with it soon :)

2 - Posted by handrail on October 11, 2003 - 12:45 pm

yeah, put it in a dukes of hazzard lunchbox. that would be cool! i had this one when i was 7!!!!

http://www.cybermad.com/culture/wobble/duke1.gif

http://www.cybermad.com/culture/wobble/duke2.gif

3 - Posted by Kurtis on October 11, 2003 - 1:29 pm

lolol.

4 - Posted by A Person on October 25, 2003 - 2:16 am

Hey Brian, I got a question about the onboard video. I was reading a review of this board on another site http://www.techseekers.net/modules.php?name=Review... and they said that they could boot using the tv output but once the os loaded it switched back to vga. So they had to have a monitor around to switch back to tv. The thing that confused me was that they said, "Once I switched over to TV out, I could remove the monitor from now on." I was wondering if this meant that they could remove the monitor untill they rebooted or if they didnt need a monitor forever after that. Do know anything about this? (The peeps over there didn't respond to my email)

I am working on a project (in the planning stage) to build a pc inside of something portable, like a nintendo or a lunch-box or something cool so I can take it around to other peoples dorms and play old video games with emulators and watch dvds. I am gonna use an m1000 but if I have to have a monitor around everytime I boot then I'll have to buy a seperate vid card which will totaly change my plans.

Also, where did u get yours from? Or did u get it for free?

5 - Posted by Brian on October 25, 2003 - 11:09 am

Funny thing is, I don't have a TV. I'll see if I can snag one and test it out.

6 - Posted by Brian on October 25, 2003 - 11:34 am

To set up TV output, first attach a TV AND a Monitor and select "CRT+TV" in the BIOS and boot normally. Both screens will boot normally, but the TV will go blank once in Windows. (using your monitor) Go to the Display Properties (right click on desktop and click properties), go to the "Settings" tab, then "Advanced" then "S3Display. Then click on the TV icon/image and it should highlight in blue and tick the box below it. Click "OK" and the TV should display again.

Once you have done that, you should be able to shutdown, remove the monitor, and display with only the TV. I will test this out in a few days and keep you updated.

7 - Posted by A Person on October 25, 2003 - 2:14 pm

cool, thanks so much!!!

8 - Posted by ELiTE KiLLaH on October 25, 2003 - 10:28 pm

hopefully its just a one time thing...otherwise thats just fucking stpuid of them lol

:?

9 - Posted by A Person on October 25, 2003 - 11:30 pm

Ya, if its just a one time thing then I dont need any other video card and then I can stick some other fun stuff in it instead.

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