Mini-ITX 2.0 motherboards to have Nano CPUs, 16X PCI Express

Mini-ITX motherboards are not the smallest standard x86 motherboards—that honor goes to Via's own Pico-ITXes, little bigger than a deck of playing cards. It's the Mini, however, that's captured the hearts of crazy case modders the world over, thanks to its combination of tiny size, reasonable performance and acceptable price. Today that performance goes up a notch, thanks to compatibility with new processors and Blu-Ray drives, and the inclusion of a gamer-friendly 16x PCI Express slot.

At the core of Mini-ITX 2.0 is a high performance yet power efficient x86 processor, such as the VIA Nano processor announced last week, to provide all the horsepower necessary for running the latest applications and operating systems in a space-constrained environment. To maximize flexibility in configuring mini PC systems for today's increasingly immersive graphics and high definition visual computing environments, such as advanced DirectX® 10 graphics and Blu-ray Disc™ playback, Mini-ITX 2.0 also defines a 16-lane PCI Express slot as a prerequisite, enabling the integration of a high performance graphics add-in card.

Via offers the following reference configuration

* Processor: High-performance, power efficient x86 processor, such as the VIA Nano processor
* Memory: Support for minimum 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
* Graphics: DirectX 9.0 integrated (IGP); DirectX 10 through an add-in card
* Display: 1 VGA port for LCD display; 1 HDMI port on add-in card
* HD Audio: 3 Audio jacks for up to 6-channel surround sound
* Broadband Connectivity: 1 Gigabit LAN port
* Storage: 2 Serial ATA II slots + 1 IDE (PATA) slot
* Peripheral Connectivity: Minimum 4 USB2.0 ports
* Expansion: 1 PCI Express 16-lane slot
* Size: 17cm x 17cm
* O/S Support: Microsoft® Windows Vista®; Microsoft Windows Vista Premium (through an add-in graphics card); Microsoft Windows® XP, and major Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Suse Linux and gOS

The 6.7" boards will appear in the fourth quarter.

Press Release [VIA]