Although the VIA Pico-ITXe based EPIA-E710 board was launched in the end of October last year, the latest addition to this board might just make it an appealing solution for those looking for a tiny 1080p HD video capable x86 platform.

With the introduction of the P710-HD add-on, the EPIA-E710 board has gained a much improved graphics solution via the SUMIT (Stackable Unified Module Interconnect Technology) interface. The P710-HD module features an S3 4300E GPU with 256MB of GDDR2 memory as well as DVI, HDMI and S-video outputs. The module also offers 2-channel LVDS and analog (D-sub) pin headers.

The S3 4300E might not be the most powerful GPU on the market, but as it can be passively cooled it should be suitable for low noise solutions. The GPU clock would be limited to 300MHz when passively cooled. VIA hasn't specified the GPU or memory clock speeds for the P710-HD module, but there the GPU is capable of higher speeds with active cooling.

The P710-HD module support resolutions of up to 2,560x1,600 and it offers acceleration of popular video codec's such as MPEG-2 HD, VC-1, WMV-9 HD and H.264. It's also suitable for usage with Blu-ray content.

So far the specs are fairly scarce and we don't have any pricing details, but we have a feeling that this won't be a cheap solution as VIA doesn't really seem to focus on the consumer market with these kind of products. However, this might still be a popular choice in certain vertical markets and even more so in the digital signage market where HD video has become a must have feature.

You can find the product page here



The P710-HD module