VIA's new low-power C7 processor

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

On 27 May 2005 07:41:57 -0700, "YKhan" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote:

>http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163701592

The question is: what will the performance be per watt?

Historically, the Via processors have significantly underperformed
Intel Celeron ULV clock-for-clock and watt-for-watt. The 64K extra L2
cache will help, but it's not a big jump from the 128K L1+64K L2 of
previous editions, and it's still in-order, as far as I can tell.

Nice that Via is working with IBM.

RM
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

When it starts getting into 1.5Ghz+ ranges, you may just enter the
realm of "fast enough". Pentium 4 entered the market at this speed
originally, and it was well behind Athlon or P3 at the same speeds --
but still fast enough.

Yousuf Khan
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

On 27 May 2005 14:45:58 -0700, "YKhan" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote:

>When it starts getting into 1.5Ghz+ ranges, you may just enter the
>realm of "fast enough". Pentium 4 entered the market at this speed
>originally, and it was well behind Athlon or P3 at the same speeds --
>but still fast enough.
>
Long pipeline and all, the P4 was out of order. Still, I've got an
800MHz PIII, and it's "fast enough," so I suspect that a 1.5GHz in
order Via C3 will probably be "fast enough." Just not a real
competitor with a Pentium-M.

RM
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Robert Myers wrote:
> Long pipeline and all, the P4 was out of order. Still, I've got an
> 800MHz PIII, and it's "fast enough," so I suspect that a 1.5GHz in
> order Via C3 will probably be "fast enough." Just not a real
> competitor with a Pentium-M.

It's doubtful Pentium-M is its target. VIA's current market seems to be
in fanless embedded systems, and it's likely this will be a big boost in
performance for some of its customers in that field. To the point where
it would be "fast enough" to run Windows XP at a reasonable rate,
instead of something like Linux.

Also it's possible that there is an emerging laptop market for the
developing world. I think it's main competition is Geode rather than
Pentium-M.

Yousuf Khan
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

On Fri, 27 May 2005 13:05:11 -0400, Robert Myers
<rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote:

>On 27 May 2005 07:41:57 -0700, "YKhan" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163701592
>
>The question is: what will the performance be per watt?
>
>Historically, the Via processors have significantly underperformed
>Intel Celeron ULV clock-for-clock and watt-for-watt. The 64K extra L2
>cache will help, but it's not a big jump from the 128K L1+64K L2 of
>previous editions, and it's still in-order, as far as I can tell.
>
>Nice that Via is working with IBM.

I might just be missing things, but I don't see any mention of core
improvements beyond the addition of SSE2. The extra cache will help
and bumping up the bus speed should help as well. I also expect that
there will be a few tweaks here and there, but it doesn't sound to me
like we're looking at any significant core improvements.

What this means is that we're probably looking at a 2.0GHz VIA C7
being roughly comparable to a 1.0GHz Celeron-M, though even that might
be a bit optimistic.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Tony Hill wrote:
> On Fri, 27 May 2005 13:05:11 -0400, Robert Myers
> <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>On 27 May 2005 07:41:57 -0700, "YKhan" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163701592
>>
>>The question is: what will the performance be per watt?
>>
>>Historically, the Via processors have significantly underperformed
>>Intel Celeron ULV clock-for-clock and watt-for-watt. The 64K extra L2
>>cache will help, but it's not a big jump from the 128K L1+64K L2 of
>>previous editions, and it's still in-order, as far as I can tell.
>>
>>Nice that Via is working with IBM.
>
>
> I might just be missing things, but I don't see any mention of core
> improvements beyond the addition of SSE2.

SSE3
NX
faster FSB (up to 800 MHz - probably 4 x 200)
90 nm
much lower idle power than C3 (100 mW)
hardware encryption engine

> The extra cache will help
> and bumping up the bus speed should help as well. I also expect that
> there will be a few tweaks here and there, but it doesn't sound to me
> like we're looking at any significant core improvements.
>
> What this means is that we're probably looking at a 2.0GHz VIA C7
> being roughly comparable to a 1.0GHz Celeron-M, though even that might
> be a bit optimistic.

The FPU now runs full speed instead of the half-speed in the C3,
so that should help VIA close the gap a bit.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

On Fri, 27 May 2005 18:44:14 -0400, Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@ezrs.com>
wrote:

>Robert Myers wrote:
>> Long pipeline and all, the P4 was out of order. Still, I've got an
>> 800MHz PIII, and it's "fast enough," so I suspect that a 1.5GHz in
>> order Via C3 will probably be "fast enough." Just not a real
>> competitor with a Pentium-M.
>
>It's doubtful Pentium-M is its target. VIA's current market seems to be
>in fanless embedded systems, and it's likely this will be a big boost in
>performance for some of its customers in that field. To the point where
>it would be "fast enough" to run Windows XP at a reasonable rate,
>instead of something like Linux.
>
I don't know how that market splits out, but Intel has periodically
produced competitive benchmarks of Via C3 vs. Celeron-ULV, which is
now a Pentium-M core, and I assume that will continue to be Intel's
entry in the embedded market.

RM
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Robert Myers wrote:
>
> On 27 May 2005 07:41:57 -0700, "YKhan" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163701592
>
> The question is: what will the performance be per watt?
>
> Historically, the Via processors have significantly underperformed
> Intel Celeron ULV clock-for-clock and watt-for-watt. The 64K extra L2
> cache will help, but it's not a big jump from the 128K L1+64K L2 of
> previous editions, and it's still in-order, as far as I can tell.
>
> Nice that Via is working with IBM.
>
> RM

Certainly fast enough for an internet computer. I use a P1 233MHz at
the moment for the internet (a 2.8GHz for other things). The 233MHz
uses 15 Watt and can run for long periods without CPU fan. I very
much look forward to dropping in a the VIA C7 processor.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Robert Myers wrote:
> I don't know how that market splits out, but Intel has periodically
> produced competitive benchmarks of Via C3 vs. Celeron-ULV, which is
> now a Pentium-M core, and I assume that will continue to be Intel's
> entry in the embedded market.

If it can be run without a fan, then I'm sure it will be.

The AMD Geodes are running at less than 1.0W these days, definitely in
the no-fan range.

Yousuf Khan