The Layout ist quite convenient. Besides the Mainboard hast a lot of connectors, so you will find a PCI Slot, Mini-PCI Slot and also CF-Cardreader. It is a real pity that the chipset does not provide the possibility to use SATA, thats why it was not implemented. Anyhow there is a floppy connector in addition to the IDE (UDMA100) connector. In Addition to the usual ports like PS/2 (for keyboard and mouse), a VGA Output, four USB 2.0 and one serial and LPT Port their are also even two network-ports - so this mainboard is ideal to be used as Firewall or little Server.

Current comes through a common ATX connector - the integration of a direct 12V DC Jack would be useful. Clever is, that you can get a touchscreen interface optional. If you are using the motherboard in default settings, you will recognize that the resolution is changeable to 1024x768 indeed, but this could lead to display problems, depending on the Output device that is connected (TFT/analog monitor). So it is better to choose the option "CRT" in BIOS, if you use a monitor that is connected to the VGA Output.

The AMD Geode LX CPU is a so called System on Chip Processor. That means, that Graphic-engine, Memory-, PCI-, and Sound controller are integrated in the processor. Originally developed as GX by Cyrix, bought by National Semiconductor and further developed and finally sold to AMD and optimized by AMD - the Geode LX has a long history. AMD increased the L1 Cache to 128 KB and implemented a L2 cache with 128 KB and also a AES Engine. The information @0,8W in the specification of the Geode LX700 is to savor with attention - the CPU is indeed one of the most energy efficient processors, but under full load it takes about 3.1W and typically it is 1.4W - what is still very low. So it is possible to bring the system under 10W energy consumption, if you use a CF Card or 2.5 inch hard disk drive. The CPU does not need any heatsink at all, but avalue put a little heatsink at the top of the CPU. Temperatures were nearly constant in our tests.