HP picks Via processors for PCs in China

HP looks to be counting on Via to help it snag a bigger piece of the ever-expanding China market, with the company opting to use Via's low-power processors in a new Compaq-branded desktop intended for business use. At 1.5GHz, the processors of choice aren't exactly most powerful, but HP seems confident that the one-two punch of low-cost and energy efficiency will be enough to attract business in developing areas of the country. Exactly how cheap the desktops will be isn't clear, however, and there doesn't appear to be any word just yet on when they'll actually be available. They've certainly got their work cut out for them though, with Dell prepping its own low-cost PC for China, and plenty of the country's own companies already offering even cheaper systems.

[Jonathan Keim @ Apr 13th 2007 11:22AM]

The valentine heart in between two companies is getting trite.

[Kev50027 @ Apr 13th 2007 11:41AM]

Ouch.. I think AMD processors or even an old Intel Celeron would probably give you more performance for the money.

Right now, AMD is the leader in inexpensive processors.

[spam_from_engadget @ Apr 13th 2007 12:59PM]

Kev50027 wrote:
> Right now, AMD is the leader in inexpensive processors.

It's certainly true that AMD's Geode is inexpensive, and its use by the 'one laptop per child' program has got it a lot of mindshare. But a 1.5GHz VIA C7 is substantially more powerful than a Geode, and I haven't seen any evidence that AMD's offerings at the 1 to 2 GHz performance level are cheaper than VIA's.

One problem is that we can all see the prices (at least, the retail prices) for the high-performance socketed processors from AMD and Intel. But these VIA chips are not socketed, so there's no retail market for them, and so no retail pricing; we have no idea how much they cost to a PC manufacturer like HP.

I'm sending this from a machine with a 1GHz VIA C3 processor. Avoiding a processor monopoly, or duopoly, is a good thing, so I encourage people to support VIA.

[Kev50027 @ Apr 13th 2007 1:40PM]

But the problem if you Support Via like that is you can never be on the bleeding edge. Intel's Core 2 Duo line can smoke just about any other desktop processor line out there, and the Core Quadro I have in this machine nearly triples the performance of the normal C2D's.

[spam_from_engadget @ Apr 13th 2007 2:38PM]

> if you Support Via like that is you can never be on the bleeding edge

Yes, though I like to think that perhaps I'm on the bleeding edge of energy efficiency; this machine takes about 12W total. And what do people actually need all that processing power for? (Games I suppose.)

[Kev50027 @ Apr 13th 2007 4:56PM]

Yes, Games, Windows Vista, and CPU heavy programs, media players, video transcoding, audio transcoding, widgets, etc.

[tekdroid @ Apr 13th 2007 7:12PM]

My estimate is that 95% of the time spent on the pc of an average user (or family) is:

1) browsing the web
2) watching the odd dvd or streamable vid online.
3) Typing stuff. Emails. Documents. Spreadsheets. Invoicing.
4) Listening to music, creating simple graphics, playing 'standard' games...nothing too cutting-edge.

These things don't require major power consumption or performance (and haven't for many years...the hardware has been 'good enough' for some time). VIA processors are a good choice for these tasks, particularly if hidden costs like electricity are counted over the life of the product.

As with most decisions like this, I'm sure it makes great business sense for HP. Most people have stopped caring about processor performance, as long as their software runs.

[herve @ Apr 14th 2007 1:11PM]

With that huge dam they are building in China, is low power really necessary?