VIA Launching Tiny QuadCore CPU @ 1.2GHz

Where exactly is via implemented? I honestly haven't seen any VIA products on any websites, granted I haven't really been looking. Any one know where to find?

Sounds like a neat processor for low cost netbooks and tablets. I don't see any use in a desktop PC.

I really hope VIA can get a spot in the netbook world. It's nice to have a competitor to Intel Atom and AMD's Fusion.

No one told them about the power cord that goes in a desktop? Imma gonna stick with my 200W CPU if you dont mind.

27.5 watts is actually quite high when you consider that a Core 2 Duo P9600 clocked at 2.66ghz is around 25 watts and will run rings around the via processor.

If the price is right for these chips and their mobos, and depending on how good their implementation of adaptive overclocking is, I might pick up one of these for a low-wattage Folding@Home rig, throw a big hard drive in it, and use it as a home media server... if the mobos have a PCIe slot (8x or greater) maybe a discrete GPU, and use this instead of Brazos. Well, depending on how it fares against Llano.

My only concern is this: I thought we were past the days where we were slapping two dual-core CPU's together and calling it a quad. This design will not perform as well as if they'd built a native quad. Maybe they're recycling an older architecture that's just too old to make the complexity jump to being a native quad?

Where can I get these chips ... I actually want to build a VIA CPU machine ... good for a nice HTPC or a machine to replace my brother's slow dual core

Newegg has some VIA products:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 00%3A25791
Just generic low-power desktop usage. I know, at least a few years ago, they were being used a lot in the car PC market.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4332 [...] ets-bigger
you can find a little more details here.

Wow, Via is already past AMD! (I'm joking) but really... Crap out a

I'm surprised nVidia hasn't bought VIA out yet... I was under the impression they wanted in on the x86 market.

Not any more. Now they want to go play with ARM (Project Denver, I think its called)

I wish them the best with this CPU. Don't know why but I respect VIA and Centaur a lot

They probably won't be able to keep the x86 license if bought out by another company (especially nVidia).

But it's a quad core!

In all fairness though, the mobo chipset should also be quite low. Intel ones can be relatively high.

Price is where VIA will be competing, because it can't compete on performance with the Intel Core i7 dual-core/quad thread CPUs with 25W TDP (including GPU), at speeds of 2.1-2.3 GHz, and probably can't compete on power draw either. Here's the 2.3GHz Intel http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx? [...] odes=SR04N

You're comparing a quad-core processor, to a dual-core PGA478 mobile processor... If you added 2 more cores to that P9600....you'd probably end up somewhere around 45-50watts...



This processor isn't intended strictly for the desktop market, if you actually read the article. VIA doesn't target any 1 specific market with any single product. This processor will be marketed for desktop, notebook, netbook, server, embedded and PoS(Point of Sale aka Cash Registers) systems.

Good to see VIA is still around and release new products. While their products may not have all the new features of Intel and AMD or as small etc they are doing something right to continue to exist as a company and actually see a growth in the number of products they sell and profits.

too bad it can't topple an atom processor with 1/2 the power use. I hope the 27W TDP has graphics included?

Seems not so interesting to me, unless if it's ARM technology, in which case the 27W will be achieved very seldomly!

Kudos for VIA in chugging along in the shadows of the giants. Wish you luck.

Oh, and it's interesting to see people already know the performance although no benchmark has been released yet. I guess you guys already have the processor, eh? /s

its still fsb driven so it needs a chipset, add some 10-50W for chipset alone and it doesnt look that peachy anymore

Jesus so much bad info presented by posters.

If you want to see Via products try to lookup anything with Mini-ITX in it. Also Jetway makes some of the best Via boards in the world. They have special daughter boards that let you add 3 x 1Gpbs network ports, or 3 x Serial ports (the high speed ones for Telco and T1 connections).
www.logicsupply.com

In case no one's been checking, VIA CPU's stomp Atom CPU's into the ground. The only way an Atom can win is by someone playing fast and lose with "TDP" numbers and hoping no one catch's them. Via CPU's are meant to be married with an integrated motherboard in a low-end all-in-one package. So please do not compare Via Nano to Atom, the Via will win every time and is for a different market segment.

If anyone is curious as to where Via CPU's are used, just go to your local grocery store and take a look at their Point of Sale device at the front. You'll notice that its just a mini-ITX PC inside a cast with a small LCD on a swivel mount and a CC reader / Reciept printer attached to a serial port or a USB port. If you cracked it open you'd see a Via CPU inside that device. Damn near every PoS / ATM / Bank Teller system in the world is using Via inside. This is because while "at the top end" they can present fast CPU's their real market is at their low end. Making fanless 1 to 1.2 Ghz CPU's that can operate in small enclosed non-ventilated spaces at -20 degrees and +100 degrees without fail. And while they dip their toes into the "PC" market, mostly their not interested in competing with Intel / AMD.

For what its worth, my home is running a Via C7 based router using a Jetway board with a 3 x 1Gbps daughter board on it and 1Gb of DDR2-533 memory for a router. Using CENTOS with Quagga + OpenVPN, built to take advantage of the Padlock AES-256 encryption engine. My home server is a Via Nano L2200 1.6Ghz CPU with 2GB DDR2 667 memory and an eSATA 4TB array (4x1TB disks). Both of these systems use a Pico PSU for insane 90%+ efficiency, the router itself use's less then 40W of power.

For anything thinking about HTPC / Home server / router don't go Atom, instead go Via, you'll get much more for your money. Atom's are a ultra-light netbook processor, they have horrible performance and are barely better then a cell phone / tablet CPU.

He's right, you're wrong. You're comparing a dual core to a quad core, but the quad core is running at less than half the clock speed. The dual core would wipe the floor up even on highly threaded apps, 2 x 2.66 = 5.32 > 4.8 = 1.2 x 4. On top of that, the Core 2 is much more efficient per clock.

When you underclock like VIA did, you should have very low power. This thing takes too much power for what it is. Performance is going to be abysmal for anything that can't use all the cores. It's just not an attractive product.

regardless of performance, 1,2Ghz is quite outdated!
Even for netbooks!
The only good it has is 4 cores, 2 logical core blocks, each with their dedicated 2MB of L-cache, which is much better than Atom's 1MB cache.
Not using shared L-cache makes it necessary to increase cache, cache which uses most of the CPU TDP.

Sad there's no mention of graphics. If you need to add a dedicated graphics card you might be better off with a celeron processor, or ULV core2duo processor, and get an outdated (6 years old) laptop.

If atm's and cache registers are the only things running VIA, then we would not need to expect much of anything graphically if there was something of graphics embedded on this core!

Ow and, for some, TDP is more important than speed.
Especially on netbooks some would rather have double battery life, than loading a webpage 5% faster (or something).
Though I really believe this via will not be much faster than an Atom N570 (which is clocked at 1,66Ghz), unless the program is multi (3+) threaded which very few apps and games support, that are ran on computers of that calibre!
I'm sure most netbooks would benefit from higher clockspeeds rather than more cores!

Seems perfect for tablets and netbooks, hope to see how it performs when put in an tablet or netbook.

I can see the above posters never have dealt with a Via CPU. The GPU is integrated into the north bridge not the CPU. Look up VX800 and the other Chipsets that Via makes.

And for fck sake stop comparing TDP directly. This thing won't be running at 27W, no where near that. That is simply the maximum design window so as to ensure fanless operation.

But can it play Crysis ?

Actually, Crysis on the single-core Via Nano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Obx7ZYTTU

Can't tell what the settings are, but it's probably low.

TDP can be indicative of power consumption, but not as a perfect point of comparison. It's just the amount of heat (watts thermal) that your cooling system needs to be able to handle to ensure safe operation. That's why it's Thermal Design Power.

Sure this quad core processor can be used in embedded products, or even in a small home server.

I disagree. Core 2 quad is STILL better than AMD's quad CPUs. Mine is 3 years old now, and still punches through benchmarks higher than a phenom 2 x4.

I wouldn't be surprised if the military grade encryption in the quad core beats intel's latest offering.
This is a big strength for these things.