ARTiGO turns into ARMTiGO

VIA started manufacturing ARTiGO systems a few years back - small form factor complete systems designed for automation and digital signage applications. They featured VIA x86 platforms on the inside, with VIA processors and graphics chips offering a very flexible array of display options.

VIA has now announced a new line of systems that takes this small, robust, feature set and makes it smaller again by using an ARM SoC.

“VIA is leveraging its advanced SFF system design expertise demonstrated in its market leading x86 ARTiGO systems to create a new family of smaller, lower power ARM based systems,” said Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded, VIA Technologies, Inc. “The introduction of the ARM-based ARMTiGO A800 allows us to provide our customers with a comprehensive range of solutions in both leading processor architectures.”

Developers have the option to use Linux or Android.

VIA's latest ARTiGO is the world's smallest quad-core system

Now in its fourth iteration, the VIA ARTiGO series of computers are well known for being silent, sleek, compact and versatile. The latest, the VIA ARTiGO A1250 is similar to the other designs, except that it's a quad core system.

"The VIA ARTiGO A1250 is an ultra slim system for those seeking a compact solution without sacrificing computing power. Taking inspiration from the Pico-ITX form factor, the VIA ARTiGO A1250 offers an impressive range of features including a full 64-bit quad core processor, 3D and HD video support, dual independent display support, up to 8GB of DDR3 system memory and a rich I/O set with USB 3.0, in a chassis that is a mere 3cm in height."

The little system makes for a lovely PC for a kid's bedroom, or for commercial applications like in restaurants or hotels.

Computing on a silver platter

Here's an image of the VIA ARTiGO I hadn't seen before ...

Desktop computer with power and finesse

At 5.7" x 3.9" x 2" (14.6 cm x 9.9 cm x 5.2 cm) the VIA ARTiGO is the smallest fully featured PC on the market, available in a handy kit form that's great for entry level enthusiasts and still enticing enough for a seasoned PC builder.

The new A1150 edition comes with a 1.0GHz dual core VIA Eden X2 processor and it supports HD video playback and Gigabit Ethernet, making it an itsy bitsy solution for the family room, and quiet and small enough to be unobtrusive but really handy as a media solution in a bedroom.

But why focus on the multimedia aspects so much? The thing is, this setup ticks all the boxes for a desktop for the vast majority of people. Why on earth would you have a hefty beige or silver box whirring away taking up desk or foot space when you can have this literally sitting under the profile of most LCD monitors?! Crazy!

"VIA redefines dual core low power compact computing, bringing all the features of a regular desktop PC into a form factor that needs to be seen to be believed," said Epan Wu, Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "VIA has a long history in creating leading edge form factor systems, and the VIA ARTiGO A1150 pushes the bounds for ultra-compact desktop computing.”

More at the official Press Release.

ARTiGO pimped as a good Christmas gift idea

Networkworld has got on the Christmas gift list bandwagon early ... oh no hang on, there's only four weeks to go, so not so early ... and they've recommended the VIA ARTiGO builder kit for "true techies who enjoy a little light tinkering". I have to agree. In Australia you'd have to get one from Pioneer Computers, Tech Buy, Eyo, My Shopping, etc - just Google it and you'll find plenty of options.

Looking for a 24/7 server?

The guys over at Overclockers Australia have been discussing kit for a 24/7 Linux server and one of the discussion group member's suggested the VIA ARTiGO A110. The ARTiGO is one of the easiest products to use for this sort of thing. Just add the HDD and RAM, install and OS and it's ready to serve!

Finding an ARTiGO bargain in Oz

A quick search on the net this week shows that Scorpion Technology Computers is listing the cheapest VIA ARTiGO for Australian etailers, at AUD 479. The A110 is the latest version of the ARTiGO, featuring a 1.2GHz VIA Nano processor and fully HD and HDMI support, making it a great all rounder and multimedia capable. For 60 bucks less, however, head on over to eBay where you can pick up the older A1000 model for USD 379.95. This features a 1GHz C7 processor and whilst it has HD audio, it can not support HD video, just MP4 and WMV9. As a tiny storage computer, however, it's ideal.

ARTiGO kit on video

If you want to get a better picture of the ARTiGO kit and what it's like to build a system with one, check out this video on PCPer.com. If you Google ARTiGO A110 you'll find quite a few options of where you can get them in Australia.

VIA ARTiGO A110: A DIY delight

The US site, Maximum PC, has reviewed the relatively new VIA ARTiGO A110 barebone PC. Like all of these embedded computing products, it's fantastic if you understand what it's good for and use it for that; dissapointing if you don't bother to understand its design point and try and do something silly like play a game on it. Productivity center - yep. Media center - nope. Media streamer - yep. Gaming PC - nope.

VIA ARTiGO A110 intro video

Last week VIA announced a new ARTiGO kit, this time aimed at ... well, all sorts really, including PC enthusiasts who might like to build themselves a teeny tiny PC. The ARTiGO A110 kit is available for "retail" online sale in the US. I've been told that it will be available in Australia via the usual channels, by the end of the month.
There's nothing all that new being explained in this video, but it does give you a good look at the quality of the case - and it does look very solid and well finished.

New VIA ARTiGO targets consumers

The latest VIA ARTiGO system, just launched by VIA, is targetting regular consumers and enthusiasts. Previous VIA ARTiGO designs were aimed for use as servers. The ARTiGO A1100 would also be perfect for that but the new configuration also aims to appeal to general desktop use as well.
The new white chassis is pretty spiffy looking, complete with a little swirly design. It looks just as cute as the first ARTiGO but the white color is somehow more friendly than the black. The measurements are 14.5 x 10 x 5 cm and that makes it the smallest full featured PC kit available. It is full featured, with a 1.2GHz VIA Nano 64-bit processor and the VX855 digital media chipset which gives it HD playback support. Being so small, it doesn't have room for an optical drive but you could always plug in a USB optical drive.

As a media box for the lounge room, that compliments a DVD/Blu-ray player, and is responsible for playing DivX, AVI and other media file types, the ARTiGO A110 is really pretty awesome. The etail price, for US residents only, is USD 243. It has HDMI and VGA out (and audio of course). That's not a bad deal, especially when you look at how much space it would take up ... or more to the point, how much space it wouldn't take up. Having the audio ports on the front and the VGA and HDMI on the back is not ideal though as there would be no way to avoid having cables sticking out the front of it.

As a desktop PC it's also a very sweat deal. It would take up less room on a desk than you're average phone!! The specs are also more than capable of most people's working requirements.

The Press Release says that it supports Windows 7, Vista and XP but the product page on VIA's site omits Vista. Not sure what the deal is there but my guess is that it's on oversight on the website.

Sadly, no online sales place is listed for Australia. Mini-ITX.com do ship internationally though. You can also try and win one in VIA's ARTiGO A110 simile game. The competition is open until next Thursday 29th. The idea behind the comp is that people submit images of things that the ARTiGO A110's size reminds them of and then people vote for their favorite. My tip would be to go for something funny.

VIA ARTiGO around Oz

The VIA ARTiGO Pico-ITX builder kit, it has to be said, is a darn cute little PC. You can literally hold it on the palm of your hand and yet it's a complete PC with a 1GHz processor, HD audio, Ethernet and the VX700 chipset.

Of course the size of 15x11x4.5 cm makes it ideal for modding, it is of course designed for developing an embedded application using VIA's Pico-ITX platform. To get your project on the way, I've had a look around to see where you can pick one up in Australia ...

AusPCMarket has them for $568.70

Eyo will ship one to you for %531.93

TechBuy's price is $592

ARTiGO A2000 recipe

Written up a bit like a recipe, a website dedicated to MS Windows Home Server has taken a look at the VIA ARTiGO A2000 barebone system, and why not? As they point out, it was designed as a Windows Home Server box. Overall they're happy with how easy it is to build and that it gives flexibility in choosing RAM capacity and disk space. On the down side, they do note that it's limited for a server in that it supports only a maximum of 2 hard drives. Still, for most home servers, 2TB would be enough and the trade off is pretty positive - that it's compact and silent.

VIA ARTiGO A2000 dubbed an excellent solution for budget home storage

The VIA ARTiGO A2000 barebone system is designed for a quick and easy solution to storage that is affordable, silent and small enough that your home or office doesn't need to be re-arranged. It features a VIA Nano-ITX board that has a VIA C7-D processor on it. LegitReviews ran it through a whole bunch of tests and decided that it fulfilled its design intentions admirably.

"After reviewing all of the benchmarks and taking into consideration the purpose of the ARTiGO A2000, I can say that it has shown itself very well in managing and serving data despite its apparent inadequacies in actually performing CPU or graphics intensive tasks. At $239, this low-power network server seems to run cool, quiet, and stable, while still performing well in a battery of tests that put the strain on its Nano-ITX motherboard and VIA C7-D 1.5 GHz processor. When all was said and done, the ARTiGO A2000 did what it was made for: it provided an excellent solution to network storage."

It's a long review, with lots of benchmarks. Check it out here.

PadLock really makes a difference

Continuing on in a series of blogs about the VIA ARTiGO A2000, Fea-nux has been experimenting with VIA PadLock, which is built in security in VIA processors. This includes hardware support for AES encryption. With PadLock enabled, OpenSSL was 45x faster and Apache was almost twice as fast. There is both practical advice and results in this blog!
"Once the padlock_aes module is loaded, it can be used by programs such as OpenSSL. First, run openssl engine, and you should see output such as (padlock) VIA PadLock: RNG ACE2 PHE(8192) PMM that indicates that the VIA PadLock engine support has been compiled in. To see the difference with and without hardware encryption, for example, try running openssl speed -evp aes256."

Nice NAS with the ARTiGO A2000

Electronic design have published a detailed article about two different NAS solutions, one of them being the VIA ARTiGO A2000. The A2000 comes as a barebone system, designed to be compact and not comsume much power. This Lab Bench Online article gives details about how to set up the A2000 with FreeNAS using an image file handily distributed with their supplier of the A2000, Logic Supply.
"Things got more interesting once the WinSystems CompactFlash card arrived. Adding it was easy but first I loaded it with FreeNAS. This is a free, open source, FreeBSD-based NAS server platform complete with an extensive web-based interface. It can run a host of file services from Samba (for Windows support) to NFS to SSH. The UPNP support can work with DLNA clients. It has SMART drive support as well as firewall support. Check out the website for all of the features and screen shots of the interface."

Guilt free computer

These days, most households have enough media files on their PCs that they really need a separate PC just for storage. Having a media server or home server is also convenient because then everyone in the house can have access to the files. Movies can be streamed to the PC in the lounge room. Family photos can be viewed by anyone. MP3s can be streamed to the PC in the office. But leaving a PC on all day and night makes the environmentally concious consumer curl over in a knot. The blogger fea-nux found a solution in the VIA ARTiGO A2000.
"The past 8 months, it’s been working great as a home server. It has a very compact size, and Gigabit Ethernet is supported. "
"However, if you want a mail/web/ldap/sql server, along with a file server (NFS and Samba), the A2000 is nice because it doesn’t take up much power, so you can leave it on without feeling much guilt."