Stability

We tested both boards with our bit-tech stability test, bar the FarCry testing for the EPIA EX, and they both emerged after 24 hours without a single flaw. We can safely say that both these boards are certainly very stable.

Warranty

MSI offers a two year warranty on its motherboards in the UK, which is comparable to others like Abit, but it's still less than the three year minimum we would prefer to see. A home theatre PC shouldn't be upgraded that often, so once it's working just right people tend to leave it. This means that you aren't going to be fiddling with it, taking it in and out of cases and pushing it to its limits that often, but having it die in a few years may require a complete overhaul since AM2 CPUs won't likely be sold by then.

Value

For the same price as the EPIA EX 15000G you could buy a Jetway mini-ITX motherboard with 1.5-2GHz VIA C7 CPU instead. It doesn't offer quite the same features but it does come with an expansion module selector for some variety use. If you absolutely require a mini-ITX PC but with more power, there are Pentium M and Core 2 Duo boards but they cost more and the CPU is an extra on top. Albatron and EQS is both make AMD 690G AM2 motherboards on the mini-ITX format, and they are fractionally cheaper than the Intel boards, but you're still looking at something just shy of £200 with the same Athlon X2 BE-2350 CPU.

On the micro ATX AMD 690G front, the Asus M2A-VM with HDMI is a fraction cheaper then the MSI K9AGM2 but it only offers HDMI from an included PCI-Express x16 card, whereas the MSI has it on the rear I/O making it far more convenient. Most AMD 690G boards are around £40-55, so it's really down to choosing what features you want or which your favourite brand is.

Power Consumption

In a situation like this the EPIA and Solid State Drive combination really comes into its own. With a 30 percent power saving over an EPIA EX 15000G with a 7200RPM drive, it shows what this sort of combination can do. Having said that, it's not like 34W full load for an EPIA EX and 7200RPM drive is a lot in itself; it's still the lowest power system we've seen to date.

Conclusions

Trying to find words other than "consistently disappointing" for the EPIA EX 15000G is exceptionally difficult. After meeting with VIA during Computex and being told playback compatibility was all down to the codec and bit rate, we tested as many iterations of popular codecs and sizes as we could find to see exactly where it fits. If you watch exceptionally low bit rate or exclusively non-HD content and DVDs then yes, the EPIA will suffice, however forget any sort of h.264 action, which is fast becoming the codec of choice.

High-Definition is already here in some parts of the world and it's certainly arriving in many other regions. Therefore investing in something that can't do HD now means your (future) media watching might become extremely limited. The whole situation is made worse by the fact the CPU is soldered to the board making it non-upgradable. Forget Vista full stop, the system just isn't powerful enough to deal with the extra background services because it simply can't multi-task effectively and is limited to a single gigabyte of memory. The on-board graphics chip is limited to DirectX 7 so you'll be limited to the basic look anyway.

The EPIA may be packed with exotic features but it's at the expense of more mundane parts: after plugging in a USB keyboard and mouse you're left with no extra USB 2.0 ports unless you use up an essential PCI bracket space or your case as front I/O ports. What's the point of using a USB hub then when VIA could just have easily included a component break out cable instead? There may be phono jacks for stereo audio, but why not include a 3.5mm stereo audio jack and adapter cable here as well? It's not as neat, but it's down the back of your TV but you're already having to suffer five cables from component and sound anyway, rather than just a single HDMI.

Despite claiming MPEG-2 acceleration we found even the latest drivers don't work with PowerDVD 7 Ultra. After discussing the problem with Cyberlink it seems not to be PowerDVD's fault, but just the lack of compatible acceleration by the drivers in a six year old operating system (Windows XP Professional).

The benefits of the EPIA EX are that it's almost completely silent, even though it has a small fan, and its low power envelope. We coupled it with the Samsung 32GB SSD drive and 120W DC-DC passive PSU in an extremely low profile case and you had to put you ear to it to even know if it was on.

The humming from the external transformer was louder. So, maybe this would make a great torrent or FreeNAS box to sit under your TV? But would you drop £150 for the privilege of streaming stuff from this to play it back on another machine? Its ultra low power footprint is certainly an attractive option for those who don't want to leave their main PC on all day, especially if it's got an 8800 GTX, quad-core CPU and half a dozen hard drives spinning away. Even when these components are sitting idle, they're still using a lot of power. If you fancy making either of these PC types, £80 for a VIA EPIA ML 8000 should more than suffice.


In comparison the MSI K9AGM2 plus Athlon X2 BE-2350 combination will cost you just shy of £100 (not including delivery). You could even drop in an energy efficient Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and still be left with change compared to the EPIA EX 15000G.

That combination has HDMI with native HDCP built in, which is a requirement for Blu-ray and HD DVD playback compatibility. The EPIA has more outputs including obscure stuff like LVDS and video input, so it certainly appeals to those after a niche board to suit those specific needs, but when it comes to the vast majority of people's requirements for an HTPC, the MSI K9AGM2 combined with an Athlon X2 BE-2350 will suffice for a low power but highly capable solution.

If you just want it for a DVD or DivX player, surely a £21.99 product does the same job? Or perhaps an old Xbox with XBMC would be right up your street, although you wouldn't be able to record onto that.

Something it should be ideal for for is a car PC, which uses small 7" low definition LCD screens. But how big is the car-PC modding market? You'll still have to tailor the video you watch for the devise, but it's likely that it'll be done anyway to make it compatible for a small screen and USB stick.

The EPIA EX 15000G is about four to five times slower than the MSI K9AGM2 and BE-2350 system on average, but the AMD system uses only twice as much power with comparative hardware. To do the same computational function you'll still be using more energy over the course of the task, but on the whole the EPIA will use less power if both systems are left on over a 24-hour period with the VIA system fully loaded and the AMD system sitting idle for most if not all of it.

Final Thoughts...

I've tried but I can't fathom why someone would buy the EPIA EX 15000G board over an alternative home theatre solution like the 690G system we've shown here. The only scenarios I can see this being used in is if you intend to do very little and are absolutely anal about power consumption or buying green products.

You could need a specific function the board offers like its size or something from the variety of extremely niche features, but it's not a product to rival any sort of desktop or media centre system. EPIA motherboards have always pleased some modders who have the crazier system designs, but for the general public I suspect the vast majority of people will want to look elsewhere.

EPIA EX 15000G

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 3/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 4/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 4/10

MSI K9AGM2 & AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

What do these scores mean?