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VIA Introduces the Nano Processor
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 29, 2008 10:44 AM
from the more-better-faster dept.
from the more-better-faster dept.
Vigile writes "While the VIA Isaiah architecture had been previously discussed, the new x86 processor is officially being released as the VIA Nano. The Nano marks VIA's first 64-bit, superscalar, speculative out-of-order CPU design and is being built on Fujitsu's 65nm process technology. While direct performance comparisons are still missing, the products being released could bring Intel's Atom platform to its knees: clock speeds as high as 1.8 GHz or as low as 1.0 GHz with a maximum power draw of only 5 watts! VIA's recently announced mini-note OpenBook platform is a likely candidate for the Nano the processors but they will likely find their way into mainstream desktop and notebook computers as well." Reader MojoKid contributes a link to HotHardware's story on
the chip now known as the Nano , as well as a January interview with VIA's Centaur design center president, Glenn Henry, who
"went into fairly deep detail on what VIA had in store with Isaiah."
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Vigile writes "VIA is attempting to outdo the ASUS Eee PC with its new OpenBook platform reference design that not only offers up extra features but also supports many more operating system choices as well. The exterior design is pretty damn sexy and is built around (of course) VIA's own CPU and chipset products and can be equipped with WiMAX and/or 3G networking like HSDPA or W-CDMA. What is really impressive is that the device can run versions of Windows Vista or XP, Ubuntu, Suse or gOS." Update: 05/27 13:30 GMT by T :
alphadogg adds a bit more information on the "open" part of "Open Platform," writing "The CAD (computer-assisted design) files for the OpenBook reference design can be downloaded for free and made available to anyone under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license. The terms of this license allow the CAD files to be freely copied, shared and modified."
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Vigile writes "With AMD buying up ATI and Intel working on their own discrete graphics core, it makes sense for NVIDIA and VIA to partner together. It might be surprising, though, that rather than see the rumors of NVIDIA buying VIA come true, the two companies instead agreed to 'partner' on creating a balanced PC design around VIA's Nano processor and NVIDIA's mid-range discrete graphics cards. During a press event in Taiwan, VIA showed Bioshock and Crysis running on the combined platform. They also took the time to introduce a revision to the mini-ITX standard, which Intel has adopted for Atom, that pushes an open hardware and software platform design rather than the ultra-controlled version that Intel is offering."
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Mobile: VIA Nano CPU Benchmarked, Beats Intel Atom 279 comments
Vigile writes "Back in May, when the Isaiah architecture was first disclosed, VIA declared a performance victory over Intel's upcoming Silverthorne technology. Since then, Isaiah has become the VIA Nano processor, and Silverthorne changed to the Intel Atom — and now we can finally see tests comparing the two technologies. The Nano's out-of-order super-scalar design is definitely an architectural leap over the Atom's in-order single-issue design, but with Intel including HyperThreading technology in their CPU the competition is closer than expected. The Nano does win the performance tests by a considerable margin, but what might be more impressive is seeing the Atom use only 4 watts of power under full load!" As reader Mierdaan points out, that's 4 watts more than at idle, for about 60 watts total.
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Cue Apple's lawyers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I had this same thought. Imagine, though, if Apple agreed to run i[music player/phone name]s on the VIA Nano processor. I think the universe might implode!
Re:Cue Apple's lawyers (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Cue Apple's lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Apple fans would still buy it.
Re:Cue Apple's lawyers (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Intel's chip has a power draw of less than 2.5 watts for the highest-clocked chip. I don't see how a power draw that's twice that amount would bring Intel's atom to its knees.
Also, I don't understand this necessity for cheesy bad-action-flick terminology ("Intel's chip brought to it's knees!") when all that has happened is a bit player releasing a product with no performance figures.
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Re:Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that Atom is a CPU only, you have to add a north/southbridge to get something comparable to a current ARM cell-phone SOC. To give an example - the TI Omap2420 [ti.com] contains everything plus the kitchen sink -accelerated 2d/3d, 3G stuff, SD-card controller, USB interface, IRDA interface, memory controller, display controller (including TV-out)...
Currently, the Atom doesn't make much sense except on devices where X86 compatibility is a plus. In other words, subnotebooks.
Parent
Re:Really... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Really... (Score:5, Informative)
That's the CPU in the foreground, passively heated, oo groovy. But wait, what's that huge heatsink with the fan ?!
Intel have offloaded all the power requirements into the northbridge. That way they can say "our CPU is 2.5w matey".
Oh, and it was supposed to ship June '08 but that's been quitely cancelled so no MSI Wind for you for the near future.
Parent
Re:Really... (Score:5, Informative)
2) Intel's desktop Atom (Diamondville) is 4W, not 2.5W.
3) Intel's chipsets are 4x4s in comparison to the moped-like Atom, thus power consumption is widely unbalanced. VIA have a single-chip solution, but I don't know the power consumption.
4) CPUs spend most of their time in idle - Nano uses 100mW here for all but the highest-end Nano.
5) Nano is more powerful per clock than Atom.
Parent
Re:Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Power comparisons are a bit premature at this point as well. Noone knows what typical consumption is at this point; just idle and max. A lot depends on how effective the power management is in each processor. Depending on the performance delta between the chips it's also possible that a higher maximum TDP won't always be the disadvantage it seems to be; if the Via chip has higher instruction throughput, it means it can return to idle state that much quicker.
There's also the question of the whole platform, as well. The chipset from Intel manages an impressive TDP (about 2.3W) but is somewhat limited - only 400/533MHz FSB, low max resolution (1366x768 LVDS or 1280x1024 SDVO), one DDR2 400/533Mhz slot, only two 1x PCI-e ports, no SATA and only one PATA channel. So far as I know there are no hard numbers of graphics performance since they're integrating a licensed design (PowerVR SGX535) that has traditionally been used in embedded devices. However their own slideshows comparing the capabilities with their (over four year old!) 915G chipset show about half the memory bandwidth and less than a third the pixel rate. In other words, pretty piss poor. They do, however, include hardware acceleration for most common codecs, which should minimize the impact in their target market.
The new chipset Via is offering - the VX800 - consumes far more power at peak (though as with the processor this may or may not reflect typical depending on how the power management is implemented) but is a bit more featureful - 800MHz bus, up to 1920x1200, two DDR2 667MHz slots, a 4x PCI-e slot in addition to the two 1x slots, two SATA 2.0 ports and video capture support. They also offer a lower power version - the VX800u - which drops the peak TDP to 3.5W but drops the bus to 400MHz and nixes the 4x PCI-e slot and SATA ports.
My take is that the Intel offering is probably better suited to certain embedded applications as well as the MID market. The main market these two will likely compete in is the burgeoning UMPC market. Without real performance and power numbers it's hard to say who has the edge. More likely than not which chip is best will depend entirely on what trade-offs the manufacturer is willing to make.
Parent
So, how does it stack up against ARM products? (Score:3, Interesting)
-jcr
I should trademark some names... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm, that's not all that impressive (Score:5, Informative)
Also reading the article, 5 watts isn't the max, 5 watts is the TDP at 1GHz. Going up to 1.8GHz you go to 25 watts. This is very similar to the Core Solo (5.5 watts for 1-1.33Ghz, 27 watts for 1.66-1.83GHz). So it seems to me this isn't really a competitor to the Atom, more to the Core Solo. However the Core Solo is a pretty impressive chip,, so to be a real competitor this will need to be as well.
Also Intel has a 45nm factory up and running full steam, with parts available retail. Currently it's Core 2 desktop components it's making, but there's no reason that it can't do these Core Solo notebook chips as well. Of course, going to the smaller process would mean even less power usage.
So we'll have to see how this chip does in real world benchmarks once it's available to third parties. However, it isn't some new part that comes in below what Intel is offering, rather it is in the same segment as their Core Solo. That means it faces some reasonably stiff competition on the performance front.
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Intel won't be losing any sleep (Score:3, Insightful)
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Call me a cynic (Score:4, Insightful)
Intel Atom Line Info (Score:3, Insightful)
It appears Via has a decent product, but nothing that will cause Intel to break the crease in their designer jeans.
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