Some information on the long rumoured socket adapter from Asus:

http://www.x86-secret.com/?option=newsd&nid=847

Motherboard compatibility is still unknown at this point...

Well, not quite as small, but offering space for a 3.5" HDD. http://digitimes.com/systems/a20050221PR205.html Intel 855GME-based, although a revision based on Alviso/915GM is in the works. Now just mount a passive Dothan ULV on the board and give me an external SATA2 port with a 2 meter SATA2 cable....

I am not an expert in these matters, but it appears that the small D connector is not HDMI but the Japan-specific "D-Terminal" video connector. I'd love to be proven wrong though.. I don't think you will be. I've never looked at HDMI very carefully, and the D-Terminal looks vaguely like HDMI, but n...

Whoa, it's the dream motherboard for HTPCs. It has built-in DVI, VGA, Component AND HDMI. I want one. Preferably AFTER I get a nice new HDTV. EDIT: For PakkaPakka It looks like 7.1 audio output (maybe?), VGA, DVI, Component, either PS/2 or S-Video (I can never remember), HDMI, 2xEthernet, and 4xUSB...

EDIT: For PakkaPakka It looks like 7.1 audio output (maybe?), VGA, DVI, Component, either PS/2 or S-Video (I can never remember), HDMI, 2xEthernet, and 4xUSB. Not counting internal headers of course. Thanks sthayashi, I've never seen a HDMI connector to this day. Wonder if the AOpen board can provi...

Availability is March/April it seems. I'm tempted to buy this one, since the Turion Athlon64s are expected to appear only towards (the end of) June. Perhaps some reports of actual power consumption data will be available some time before. Can anyone identify all the ports on the AOpen board? http://...

Akiba page (japanese): http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20050122/etc_915gmm.html Aopen Japan product page (babelfish link): http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2faopen.jp%2fproducts%2fmb%2fi915gmm-hfs.html Press release, some pictures (bab...

Any indication when we'll see the SPRC review?

The new core could be up to 20% faster, but so is the heat generated (21W TDP -> 27W? TDP).

The most exiting feature of the new Dothans is NX support.

Thermalright SP-94 is another. Though finned, SP-94 does utilise heatpipes. In a tower setup, the Scythe NCU-2000 would run passively, easily. you want open pins, like this: http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/mcx478/MCX_04.jpg http://www.zalmanusa.com/upload/product/6000_cu_s_p.jpg http://w...

If you're meaning "Centrino" as in "Low Power", then the AMD low-power K8-derived Centrino killer will materialize in mid-2006, on the 65nm process in Fab36. This - planned - chip does not have a public code name, but is has been showing up in roadmaps presented to AMD partners for the last month. ...

If you're meaning "Centrino" as in "Low Power", then the AMD low-power K8-derived Centrino killer will materialize in mid-2006, on the 65nm process in Fab36. This - planned - chip does not have a public code name, but is has been showing up in roadmaps presented to AMD partners for the last month. T...

This is the Intel 'Shelton' processor: essentially a Pentium M stripped of its L2 cache. Any commercial product that is focused on silence, cost and/or small form factor is most welcome, IMHO. Seems in a year or two the 'developing countries' platforms of Intel (Shelton) and AMD (PIC) will catch up ...

What kind of heatsink would be best for passive heat dissipation? I assume that Alpha-style pinned heatsinks would be more effevtive at passive heat transfer, compared to the newer finned designs that seem to depend on directed airflow (a dedicated fan). I remember seeing some Dothan-specific heatsi...

The gamepc passive test run was outside of an enclosure/case. Dissipating 20W or more with a passive heatsink in a typical case is not going to work in practice. However, you could adjust the processor to run in one of the lower p-states (1.5GHz or below), running on a lower voltage. Another option ...

Review at GamePC: http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=dothandesktop&page=1&cookie%5Ftest=1 The review states that the onboard Promise SATA chip supports NCQ The limited number of boards shipped to Europe seems to have been sold in a single day. The board seems to be out of stock everywhere.

Now all we needs is a new chipset with low-voltage options, PCI-E support, SATA II, DDR400 (or higher), etc :) Nah, just kidding, although I'm tempted to think what a better chipset/memory interface would do to the performance of that chip. Some of that will be provided by the Alviso chipset platfo...

A great review to read, thanks. I'd really like to see a comparative review of this board and the AOpen i885GME. Does the AOpen BIOS include similar multiplier/voltage options? Does the AOpen Promise SATA chip support NCQ? Do any of the two boards have other unique features? DFI built their board fo...

The board has made some appearances in shop listings:

http://www.geizhals.at/deutschland/?fs= ... 0&y=11&in=

Rumoured availability is end of november

Any chance of fitting the LV Dothan (Pentium 738) in this board? As far as I know the MicroFCBGA is lower height compared to the normal Banias/Dothan packages. Ack. Never mind. Just found out that the mfcBGA package is for surface mount only. I thought it was a variant of the new LGA stuff. Kind of...

Any chance of fitting the LV Dothan (Pentium 738) in this board?

As far as I know the MicroFCBGA is lower height compared to the normal Banias/Dothan packages.

MikeC wrote:I was in contact with the US AOpen office, and they say their first shipment is due to arrive in 2 weeks...

But where are these units shipped to?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

The european page for this board now reads 'Japan Only' above the part number

This is the reply I revieved:

Unfortunately the board was released for Japan only but still you may contact
AOpen sales for any option on this, regards.

http://english.aopen.com.tw/company/contact/salform.htm

Would be a nice combo with a Pentium M LV (10W TDP) for a silent (not quiet but really silent) workstation. I believe the fastest Pentium LV runs 1.4 GHz, with a 1.5 GHz model out in a couple of months. Especially combined with one of the upcoming external SATA-II solutions. Imaging maxing out this ...

This looks nice: Gainward SilentFX PowerPack! Ultra/980 XP “Professional”: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2004-03/silentfx.jpg -GeForce FX 5700 -Dual DVI -video-in/video-out -€199 Image from the following article (a.k.a. glorified Gainward press release) at XBitLabs: XBitLabs - Gainward Creates...

You don't mention what the card needs to do only that you need two dvi ports. Is this for gaming or for photoshop type work? The answer to the gaming question is key. Good question. Most of the time is spent programming, usually with code on one screen, and design diagrams/sample code/documentation...

Haven't read the Anandtech forum thread, but Matrox G550 Dual DVI and the P650 are completely passive, though obviously it's 3d performance leaves much to be desired. At the end of the 1990s, I waited 2 years for Matrox to write decent drivers for NT 4.0. After recently hearing rumors of Matrox lay...

I'm looking for a VGA card with two DVI outputs. Noiseless operation/passive cooling is an absolute requirement. My first though is using a cheap FX5200 card with one of the Zalman passive VGA sinks. While the DVI signal quality of the FX5200 is the worst of the industry, I don't expect to get into ...