EPIA 800 enough?

**The Durango Kid** · 05-19-2004, 04:44 PM

I got a line on a EPIA 800 for $68.00 (seems like a good deal) but I'm not sure if it's going to be enough power and wanted to know what everyone else thinks.

I'll be looking to run
GPS
MP3
Rear Cam
DVD
XM
WindowsXP with Custom Software interface

I'll be feeding a 7inch TS-VGA and two 7inch LCD (rca with a video amp). It is posible that I will need to run 2 of these at the same time. XM/GPS, DVD/GPS or MP3/GPS etc etc.. Basically my rearcam is on all the time on the TS (unless the GPS is going) with my XM or MP3 control docked at the top. The DVD will be feeding the rear screens. I doubt I'll be playing DIVX/XVID movies.

Will it be enough CPU for my needs? I was planning on getting a EPIA MII12000 but the 800 is so cheap I thought it might be an option.

Thanks.

**bjm2020** · 05-19-2004, 04:46 PM

I have the 800 and don't have a problem. You may want to get a seperate video card cuz the onboard video isn't the best.

**The Durango Kid** · 05-19-2004, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by bjm2020

I have the 800 and don't have a problem. You may want to get a seperate video card cuz the onboard video isn't the best.

Huh. The space I am installing the unit is very tight. I'll have to check but I doubt a video card will work. They do make a raiser inverter right? Basically it will turn a AGP/PCI card sideways.

**_maelstrom** · 05-19-2004, 04:58 PM

I use the EPIA 800 too. It works well for most things, but bjm2020 is right, the video kinda sucks. And there is no way to run a 16:9 resolution with the onboard video like you can with the M10000.

**The Durango Kid** · 05-19-2004, 05:12 PM

Ahh ok.. Thanks for the info guys.. I'll hold off on the 800 then and pick up either then 10000 or 12000..

**veetid** · 05-19-2004, 06:03 PM

How do you run 16:9 resolution with the M10000? The current drivers I have don't support it.

**samc** · 05-19-2004, 06:45 PM

Personally even the M10k is too slow but to answer your question the Epia 800 won't cut it.

**OrangePeel** · 05-19-2004, 07:25 PM

I have an 800, it would handle most of that ok. I think playing DVD is the main bottleneck there. My Epia can *kind of* play DVD, but decent quality divx is out of the question. My Epia's onboard sound sucks, so I have an SB Live in the PCI slot, but I can't say I've found the onboard video to be substandard? But yeah, no 16:9 is annoying sometimes. I'm probably going to upgrade to an M10000 sometime, so if it turns out I get one that does 16:9, that's a bonus...

Main thing is you'll want a fairly good amount of RAM. I used to have 256MB in mine as my GPS software was too slow otherwise. I now downgraded to 128MB coz it makes hibernate go faster, and I got new GPS software which works fine with less.

**soybeanstorm** · 05-20-2004, 05:44 PM

I'm in the planning stages of my car computer and was also thinking about the EPIA 800.

Durango, where did you find the board for $68?

Orange Peel, I am planning to hook this up to my amps too.. What exactly is wrong with the sound quality on this board? Is the sound better on the M boards? (other than 6 channel sound, it's probably the same quality right?)