The layout
The EPIA-M10000 is a Mini-ITX board which measures just 17 square cm. Check it out:
So the EPIA-M10000 is small. Really small. For some folks, size matters, so the EPIA-M10000's tiny footprint will definitely be a major selling point. A motherboard this small encourages all sorts of experimentation with small form factors that even a Flex ATX motherboard might have trouble squeezing into. The fact that the board conforms to a Mini-ITX standard is helpful, too, since a number of case manufacturers already support the tiny form factor. More cases are coming, with plenty of flavors appropriate for everything from home theater systems to business desktops.
What's so amazing about the EPIA-M10000 is that VIA is able to squeeze all those peripherals and the chips they require onto such a small board with only four layers. Looking at the board, there doesn't appear to be a free square inch of real estate anywhere, despite the fact VIA even includes a legacy floppy connector on the board.
In addition to the floppy port, VIA has managed to squeeze two IDE ports onto the EPIA-M10000 alongside the board's single DIMM slot. When running two IDE devices, there's no need to share any IDE channels, giving users enough room for a hard disk and single optical drive without having to break into master/slave pairs.
Those on the cutting edge of storage technology will notice that the EPIA-M10000 lacks Serial ATA support, which is all the rage these days. Since the EPIA-M10000 is geared at small form factor systems where Serial ATA's thin cabling would surely come in handy, it's a little disappointing to see support left off the board. Still, Serial ATA support would have required another on-board chip and extra traces and connectors, which the EPIA-M10000's small size can't accommodate. Despite how common Serial ATA ports are on high-end and even mid-range motherboards, there are still few hard disk options available and no Serial ATA optical drives on the market.
Memory-wise, the EPIA-M10000 supports up to 1GB of DDR266 or DDR200 memory, making it a perfect way to get rid of that old DDR DIMM you have lying around that's just not up to running in-sync with a 333 or 400 MHz front-side bus. Honestly, I can't imagine an application for the EPIA-M10000 that would require up to 1GB of memory. 256MB will probably be plenty for most mainstream users, with 512MB offering a comfortable margin for business desktops under Windows XP.
As far as expansion slots go, the EPIA-M10000 is equipped with only a single PCI slot. Honestly, there's not enough room for anything else on the board. If size constraints limit the number of expansion slots on the board to one, some may wonder if perhaps an AGP slot would have been a better choice.
Nah, probably not.
It would be nice to plug an All-in-Wonder card into the board and build a nice little PVR system, but ATI already makes a PCI version of its popular multimedia graphics card. There are lots of other PCI video capture cards available, too, and the presence of a PCI slot gives end users more flexibility when it comes to upgrades. If the EPIA-M10000 featured only a single AGP slot, there would be graphics options galore, but no way to upgrade the board's audio or networking capabilities. The few PCI graphics cards available on the market may be a deterrent for those looking to build a Lilliputian gaming system based on the EPIA-M10000, but rightly so. The EPIA-M10000 isn't going to be a particularly speedy or cost-effective gaming platform anyhow.
Despite its small size, the EPIA-M10000 is teeming with expansion ports. The board serves up two Firewire ports and four USB 2.0 ports, which just about realizes the full potential of the board's peripheral chips. The VT8235 south bridge chip used on the EPIA-M10000 actually supports six USB 2.0 ports, but VIA doesn't provide access to two of those ports.
As far as audio goes, the EPIA-M10000 has three analog ports. This arrangement requires port sharing for those looking to run six-channel speakers and use the board's mic or line in ports. Port sharing is annoying, but since it's common on full-size ATX motherboards, I suppose we can let the real estate-deprived EPIA-M10000 by with just a warning. The board does offer an S/PDIF port for digital output, so those frustrated by port sharing can always opt for a set of digital speakers.
Standard VGA and S-Video ouputs round out the EPIA-M10000's port cluster, though oddly an S-Video-to-component adapter wasn't included in the box. I'm used to seeing such an adapter included with even budget graphics cards so it would have been nice see VIA cough one up with the EPIA-M10000.
