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Review: Commell LV-670

by James Morris on 18 May 2003, 00:00

Tags: Commell

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What is Mini ITX Form Factor?



I think I should start this review by explaining just what MiniITX form factor motherboards are. The form factor was originally proposed by VIA to be an ultra small form factor, smaller than the FlexATX and MicroATX form factors that were the smallest at the time. The original MiniITX boards were feature rich boards with a CPU soldered onto the board. This was cheap to produce as there was no discrete packaging cost for the integrated processor.

The specifications of the MiniITX form factor state that the board may not be bigger than 170mm x 170mm. As you can see this is tiny when compared to the normal ATX standard.

VIA also aimed to have a very low heat output from the MiniITX so that the huge coolers fitted on nearly all modern systems were redundant. Up until now no one has managed to combine the MiniITX form factor with a powerful processor that is not soldered directly onto the board.

Commell have set out to do just this with the LV670.



First Impressions

Receiving the parcel from the courier I opened up the outer box to find a very boring looking brown cardboard box inside. There is no flashy box with lots of pretty pictures here and personally I think thats a good thing, it means more money is spent on the product rather than PR. The box itself is a very sturdy number so there is no danger of the motherboard being damaged in transit.

Opening up the box you are greeted by the motherboard protected in its anti-static bag. The first impression you get is; "wow, how small is that?". When you see it close up you can't believe cramming that many components onto a board would be possible, but it is.

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