Operating Guidelines
Version 1.10
DVD Payback Test
The table below compares VIA C3™ processor and CLE266 chipset DVD playback
performance to that of a powerful Intel® Pentium 4 1.7 GHz and 845 chipset with
Leadtek Geforce 4 MX440 VGA card. Despite giving away 1.167 GHz of processor
speed and competing with Geforce4 graphics the VIA CLE266 platform delivers
equivalent performance at a fraction of the cost and required space and cooling. Note
that this is a comparison of only the DVD playback performance, not a of overall
system performance, as digital media performance is what counts for the lifestyle
PC.
DVD Playback Performance
This table also shows that both platforms have achieved the magical figure of 30 frames per
second that indicates smooth or flawless DVD playback.
Power Consumption Tests
As the DVD playback performance is comparable in the table above, we will also look at the
different power consumption results for a range of typical home PC activities with the VIA EPIA
M-Series mainboards compared to the typical “one size fits all” platform that is being promoted by
others in the PC industry. We have also included the low power VIA EPIA-Series Mini-ITX
mainboards as a frame of reference. Where the VIA EPIA M-Series mainboards are aimed at the
living room space, the VIA EPIA 800 and fanless VIA EPIA 5000 are aimed at the thin-client,
small footprint desktop and education PC markets, although they are also being used as 1u
server, Personal Video Recorder and car PC platforms amongst others.
The “one size fits all” system that we are using as a reference platform is an Intel 845-based
Pentium 4 platform and we are comparing the power consumption to that of the VIA EPIA M-
Series Mini-ITX mainboards. Some of the tests are not aimed solely at Digital Media
performance, so they also include the power consumption numbers for the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX
mainboards. All tests were conducted using the Microsoft Windows® 2000 operating system and
include the wattage consumed by the total platforms. The table below each diagram uses the
Intel platform as a frame of reference for the accompanying calculations.
Intel 845 with Leadtek
Geforce 4 MX440
VIA Apollo CLE266
Platform
29.96
8--25
29.78
10—12
Windows ME
Frame
Rate
CPU Usage
Frame
Rate
CPU usage
Performance
Player
Cyberlink
PowerDVD4.0-(DxVA)
Cyberlink
PowerDVD4.0-(DxVA)
Vendor
Intel® Pentium 4 1.7GHz
VIA C3™ 533MHz
CPU
