VIA has begun allowing system builders the chance to get their hands on its ridiculously small Pico ITX motherboard, the EPIA PX, ahead of the product's wider availability later this month.

VIA's EPIA PX: useful for UMPCs?

Measuring just 10 x 7.2cm, the PX provides all the basics you need to build a PC. There's a 1GHz x86-compatible VIA C7 processor soldered on next to the company's VX700 chipset, which incorporates a UniChrome Pro II graphics engine.

The mobo has on-board VGA and Ethernet ports, and a parallel ATA connector. VIA's also equipped it with a SO-DIMM socket for up to 1GB of 533MHz DDR 2 memory, and an array of pins for hooking up USB ports, power and so on.

The whole lot consumes no more than 13W of power, VIA said.

The VIA EPIA PX mainboard is available now for developers, and will be available in limited quantities through authorized distributors in late May. Pricing was not disclosed.