gpu
does it have one?
El Reg hasn't written about VIA for yonks, but it's one of the original x86 CPU makers, thanks to its purchase of processor design firm Centaur in 1999. VIA has long pitched low-cost, low-power CPUs, and now it's trying to do so again, this time with ARM technology, in a bid to take a bite out of Raspberry Pi. VIA APC Banana …
Wondermedia.
If memory serves me right older Wondermedia did MPEG accel and sucked bricks sidewize through a thin straw on most other stuff (just the way Via GPUs of old used to do on PCs). The library support was horrible too and refused to work with a lot of android apps.
On the positive side this being VIA it probably does crypto accel so it may be a good VPN gateway if there is support for its crypto in openssl and/or kernel.
I have no idea how bad will this one be. I am definitely not holding my breath here.
It may be worth it for a firewall or CCTV/telemetry server if it is possible to boot Debian on it. In fact, I may buy it (to add to the stack of Via MBs which I have and still use from time to time).
That's the thing about the Raspberry Pi, the VideoCore IV GPU is an absolute beast. This VIA board seems to just be cashing in on the Raspberry Pi fuss, it's got approximately the same puny CPU, a much punier GPU (can't do 1080p), double the RAM (which is the only thing it has in its favour), needs a special PSU rather than any common or garden mobile phone power supply, doesn't boot from an SD card so is potentially brickable, and it's a fair bit more expensive. Plus, it will have fark all community behind it, and good luck finding documentation for the hardware.
So mostly negatives and only one small positive - this VIA is so easy to pass up.
Now, if it had been x86 at that price, that might have been a little more interesting but again the lack of any community to speak of and no doubt the unsupported/undocumented drivers would have combined to put a major dampener on that enthusiasm also.
You don't need to program to a GPU to benefit from a GPU. If your desktop windows are rendered into surfaces they don't need to be repainted every time some other window is dragged over them. This reduces the amount of repainting and context switches which results in a more responsive desktop.
Amazingly it looks a far more complicated (and thus expensive) design than the Pi, with separate RAM ICs (has VIA not heard of Package on Package?), the ARM SoC and of course the Flash IC that permits bricking, plus a bunch of other discrete ICs (I counted at least 5, not including the socketed BIOS chip) that aren't considered necessary at all on the R-Pi which is basically built around three ICs in the case of the Model B - LAN IC, Broadcom SoC and a single RAM IC (no LAN IC at all in the Model A).
It really doesn't look like a lot of thought has gone into this design, and in fact it looks like VIA have used all of their PC motherboard design skills to create it, which probably wasn't a good idea.
"This also has mounting holes. Sadly missing from the Pi making casing it a bit tricky."
You sir need to buy new glasses! The Pi clearly has mounting holes in the picture published earlier today by this very organ. I can see at least 4 holes and another may be hidden by the ethernet socket.
Also, it appears to be pre-flashed with Android 2.3 (a phone OS), with no indication of other options. Its still an ARM11 (ARMv6) device.
Given the clock speed is only 800MHz compared to the Pi's 700MHz and they are running the same cores, the only real benefit in this over the Pi is the extra RAM.
On balance, I'd say the Pi's GPIO ports, 1080p hdmi, multiple OS options and brick-proofing make it the better bet.
If it tries to boot from the soldered-on flash before it tries to boot from USB, and it is possible to change the contents of the soldered-on flash, then it is probably brickable.
When I am emperor it will be illegal to sell brickable devices and it will be a requirement to provide instructions for restoring a device to a usable state. This isn't just imperial beneficence. It would be a matter of national security if a virus or worm could permanently damage components of widely used hardware.
Hmmm... I have an ARMv6-based tablet clocked at 800 Mhz running Gingerbread and it's a real dog.
It can't run a significant amount of software for Android too (e.g. Skype video) because of the CPU's generation. I don't know how better than the Telechips TCC8902 in my tablet this VIA CPU could be, but I wouldn't expect it to be a performer compared to more recent (and very cheap too) SOCs like e.g. the Allwinner A10.
I studied the screenshot and it's powered by a WM8750. According to the spec sheet for that it supports OpenGL ES 2.0 *and* 1080p.
http://www.wondermedia.com.tw/en/products/platform/soc/wm8750/
Why this Via says 720p only is a mystery. Maybe it hasn't the VRAM for any higher.
But still brickable, unless you have a spare BIOS IC. And most people won't have spares. So for those without a spare BIOS, it remains brickable.
Whereas the Raspberry Pi is impossible to brick - if you make a mistake all you need to do is reformat your SD card.
Despite years of messing with BIOSes and embedded systems, I know which system I prefer and yes, it's actually the SD card method - perfect for tinkering and repeated tweaking, far more forgiving for novice users, and cheaper too.
"it's actually the SD card method - perfect for tinkering and repeated tweaking"
Not to mention, you aren't tied to picking your OS of choice. Some devices (Beagleboard xM) have a button so u-boot can load different operating systems (RISC OS & Angstrom Linux, for example). In the absence of a button, it's still not a problem, just swap the card and power up. Android, RISC OS, regular Linux, etc etc - the SD card method makes it stupidly easy to choose what you want when you want, with zero risk of bricking the hardware. Now that this stuff is available, and boot times are pretty fast (remember, the OS is probably copied into RAM, not executed directly from Flash, so there's little Flash can do that an SD card can't), I don't see why anybody who wants to use their device would stick with Flash. Maybe an embedded industrial application, it makes sense. A device like this? No. Flash is so last-decade..
Looks like standard PC mboard connector ... given they are calling it a "Neo ITX" board then I'd assume its designed to fit in (mini)ITX cases. Placement of fixing holes near connectors looks to be same as mini-ITX and connectors would fit in the standard ITX/ATX port template.
Competition is great, but are VIA contributing to the Raspberry Pi Foundation to improve computer education for kids, or just profit taking?
I can see this VIA board as benefiting consumers/hackers (although not really, as the Pi IMHO is better in almost all areas other than RAM) but selling to consumers/hackers is not the reason Raspberry Pi's are being produced.