VIA Nano whoops Intel's Atom (again) on video

Do you cheer for the underdog? Would you love to see VIA unseat Intel in the battle for the hearts and minds of netbook market share just because Intel's, well, Intel? Good, then you'll love this highly emotive video produced by VIA showing its meager 1.3GHz Nano processor kicking Intel's 1.6GHz Atom to the curb in a 1080p HD video test. We'd be more suspect of the results had we not already seen VIA clean Intel's house in the head-to-head benchmarks. Now pull up a seat ringside and get ready to sputter along with the Atom-based netbook -- video after the break.

[Via UMPC Portal]

[broli @ Aug 4th 2008 6:23AM]

What's with the epic music and over presentation of the guy.

[Techie @ Aug 4th 2008 6:40AM]

Eh.. I'm skeptic... I want to see the test again but with Engadget testing it."Same PC power, same amount of ram, same amount of programs open or close, same video codecs!!!!!!!"

[white_ultras @ Aug 4th 2008 6:43AM]

Hmm, atom is slower then celeron. the only reason why this ***** exists is that it is 45nm &new fab cheap manufacturing and small waffer footprint that will make intel big money. amd help us here!! this **** is just unbearable. this is not a side step, but a big step backwards and slap to customer's faces. buying a new umps? just be sure it doesnt have the atom inside. some minutes saved on battery? what a joke.

[broli @ Aug 4th 2008 6:46AM]

Something tells me you guys abused the reply button just to be be seen at the top.

[Metkis @ Aug 4th 2008 6:55AM]

@broli:

I do deserve to be noticed! :P

[Someone on the Internet @ Aug 4th 2008 7:49AM]

I thought it was trying to be campy/funny. Music for an epic battle between tiny laptop = attempt at humor?

[Nytrojen @ Aug 4th 2008 8:04AM]

Judging by the look of the presenter... I don't think he'd know humour if it threw a pie in his face...

[Nytrojen @ Aug 4th 2008 8:05AM]

Judging by the look of the presenter... I don't think he'd know humour if it threw a pie in his face...

[Blackstar @ Aug 4th 2008 8:15AM]

...THIS... IS... NAN-O!

[Ian @ Aug 4th 2008 8:18AM]

My Atom (albeit I only got it last night, in the form of the MSI Wind) is not discernably slower than my CoreDuo 1.83ghz Dell D620 with 2gb of ram and a 7200rpm drive. My Wind is 100% stock as of now, and in daily use (web, IM, Email etc) its MORE than fast enough. Programs open quickly, it does not get hot or barely even warm either. Would more power or speed be great? Sure. Is it NEEDED? Absolutely not.

[Ian @ Aug 4th 2008 8:19AM]

My Atom (albeit I only got it last night, in the form of the MSI Wind) is not discernably slower than my CoreDuo 1.83ghz Dell D620 with 2gb of ram and a 7200rpm drive. My Wind is 100% stock as of now, and in daily use (web, IM, Email etc) its MORE than fast enough. Programs open quickly, it does not get hot or barely even warm either. Would more power or speed be great? Sure. Is it NEEDED? Absolutely not.

[Mobius_1 @ Aug 4th 2008 8:41AM]

@ Broli

I do pity your inbox

[David @ Aug 4th 2008 11:45AM]

@ Ian:

that is probably because of all the crap you have on your c2d system.
I have a lappy with the t5600 in it and it gets slower with every piece of crapware I get fooled into putting on it (I need to clean)

[Blaine Oliver @ Aug 4th 2008 6:24AM]

Sign me up for a Via Nano netbook please :)

[jon @ Aug 4th 2008 2:34PM]

well, before doing that, you should also notice that the via consumes 3.2x the power (8W TDP vs. 2.5W TDP), so the fact that the atom can even run it stuttering is pretty amazing. These two processors are aimed at two different segments, the nano at low power and the atom at freakishly low power.

Intel's site on the atom that's in the Eee Pc:
http://processorfinder.intel.com/Details.aspx?sSpec=SLB73

Via's page on the nano:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/downloads/whitepapers/processors/WP080529VIA_Nano.pdf

[jatin747 @ Aug 4th 2008 6:27AM]

Via unleashes a can of whopass on intel, right after nVidia.

[jay.viz @ Aug 4th 2008 6:45AM]

nVidia and VIA should merge and bring Nano/Cyrix (back) to the desktop.

[Ghen @ Aug 4th 2008 8:28AM]

no

[jay.viz @ Aug 4th 2008 8:52AM]

yes

[TravisO @ Aug 4th 2008 9:36AM]

no, Cyrix performed horrible, benchmark wise, all those Mhz never added up to anything. My 486DX100 upgraded to a Cyrix P166+ wasn't any faster, especially not in FPU (ex: Quake) performance.

[SuperQ @ Aug 4th 2008 10:50AM]

@TravisO: I went from a 485DX50 (not a DX2) to a 166+. The Cyrix was great for me, but I also switched everything from VLB to PCI on the new board, and upgraded to a really nice diamond stealth video bard that did 2D acceleration under XFree86. (S3 Vision chip I think)

The thing that was really great about the 166+ was the low power hack. It didn't work on windows because win9x didn't have a proper idle loop. Under linux you could add a small patch to the kernel, and then when the system was idle you could remove the heatsink and it would only get a bit warm. This is basically the same thing that the athcool app does.

[Mns @ Aug 4th 2008 6:32AM]

Does it make sense with 1080p playback on netbooks, given the limited screen resolution?

[Metkis @ Aug 4th 2008 6:37AM]

It's not about the fact that it's illogical, it's about the fact that it's possible. The demonstration is about power. and how the VIA processor can go above and beyond.

[VitalyTheUnknown @ Aug 4th 2008 6:39AM]

vga-out
tv-out
hdmi-out
dvi-out

[jay.viz @ Aug 4th 2008 6:39AM]

How else am I going to watch eps of Dennou coil?

[pji @ Aug 4th 2008 9:02AM]

How about this being a good test case for small, low power htpc. Seeing an unbiased test of the two, head-to-head, using mini-itx with hdmi out would be great.

[Pochi @ Aug 4th 2008 9:15AM]

@VitalyTheUnknown

"tv-out"?

I don't think you're running 1080p over something called "TV out." Those other 3, sure.

(is component "tv-out?)

[E71 @ Aug 4th 2008 11:15AM]

Lots of people have plenty of 720p/1080p media they'd like to watch on the go, without having to convert them to lower resolution using more popular codecs like XVID.

For me, I ain't going anywhere near the VIA processors. I'm just going to wait for a UMPC-style unit using a dual-core Atom and use it as my new PMP since Archos doesn't seem to be too bothered about supporting 720p/1080p H264-encoded MKVs.

[Johan S @ Aug 4th 2008 1:30PM]

Not only that .. there appear to be some dropped/freeze frames in the Via nano playback as well (look at around 2:00 to 2:03 in their video).

That makes it inadequate for video to me. I hate skip or freeze framing randomly through a movie.

[JR @ Aug 4th 2008 6:32AM]

Just a reminder that this vid is from Via's marketing dept, so it's not entirely unbiased

[Stereodude @ Aug 4th 2008 1:12PM]

FWIW, HardOCP tested them on 1080p video and said neither could do it.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzNSw0LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

[Metkis @ Aug 4th 2008 6:34AM]

Via kicking ass and taking names. Somehow I like seeing Intel bite the dust on this.

[雙魚 @ Aug 4th 2008 6:36AM]

I remember that VIA Nano 1.3Ghz drains 6W power?? So if this is true, Nano is really great.

[Ben @ Aug 4th 2008 6:40AM]

Perhaps via's marketing department could afford to buy a $100 boom mic or body mic. It'd make their video watchable.

Or just dub the thing over on a PC for free..

-Ben

[meist3r @ Aug 4th 2008 6:41AM]

I need more specs to be impressed by this. What's the RAM installed in both machines? If they give the Netbook 2+ GB and the other one a measly 1 gigs or even less then this is not half as impressive. But I think it's a cool step in the competition, we're definitely going to see lots more efficient and powerful mobile hardware from now on.

[Nick @ Aug 4th 2008 4:10PM]

I agree with ya, all this hype about the netbooks.. I'm still waiting to the Dell E Netbook to come out sometime soon..

Dell E for $300?.. Got my money for that., But we'll see soon just who will perform better. Making a fake vid is also the perfect way for VIA fanboys to start bieng smart-asses.

I still see that AMD is dead on the netbook industry.... what the hell... I might just as well wait until December when everything gets solved out.

Cheers,
Nick

[rob @ Aug 4th 2008 6:50AM]

it's to VX800 chipset that's doing the heavy lifting. The via (s3) chipsets have been capable mpeg2 hardware decode for a while now - my ancient mini-itx HTPC can do 1080p as long as it's mpeg2 :)

The vx800 has "MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DiVX video formats, a VMR capable HD video processor and 8-channel HD audio"

Still, an impressive package.

[bartoron @ Aug 4th 2008 6:58AM]

I don't see how this really proves anything. All they're doing is playing a video, and the way the Intel netbook keeps starting and stopping makes it look like the video merely hasn't finished loading. If that's the case, then it would have nothing to do with performance.

[Vanillacide @ Aug 4th 2008 7:09AM]

No it doesn't ... it looks like the Atom based netbook cannot render 1080p at the required frames per second, it stutters and freezes when decoding the WMV-HD (otherwise known as VC-1) encoded content.

Alternative proof would be for anyone that owns an Asus EeePC to try running this WMV-HD 1080p click and seeing what happens. It's called 'Robotica' and it's available from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

[Kald @ Aug 4th 2008 4:30PM]

vanilla is right. I just tried running that same video on my eee 1000h in WMP at 1080p and it was just as choppy

This is in super performance mode (overclocked CPU-Z showing 1.71ghz) with bluetooth and w-lan turned off, all programs closed, running preinstalled winxp with stock hardware.

I did however play the same clip in media player classic and it ran perfectly. /shrug

[LowTeckh @ Aug 4th 2008 7:10AM]

Wasn't it mentioned that the power consumption and heat were higher on the VIA's too? Sorry but for a UMPC I'm much more interested in the longevity of the battery not how many FPS it can score; that's what my desktop is for.

[Aaronage @ Aug 4th 2008 7:19AM]

Its great when the underdog pwns the monopoly :)

[Booshack @ Aug 4th 2008 7:32AM]

The via has 5 times higher TDP at load, so this is bullshit. Completely different product segment, even if they want to cram it in netbooks too.

[雙魚 @ Aug 4th 2008 7:57AM]

According to the clip, It's the 1.3Ghz Nano that drains 6Watts.

[JR @ Aug 4th 2008 8:15AM]

I think it's more likely to draw a 6 watt difference from idle to full power, for example it might put 30 watts at idle, but at full power it draws 36 watts.

[ShadowKain @ Aug 4th 2008 8:49AM]

You mean a higher power draw? TDP is thermal design power, and constitutes the maximum heat at the main junction of the chip. This is not always and should NOT be confused with how much powe the chip can draw mind you.

[Booshack @ Aug 4th 2008 9:04AM]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[ShadowKain @ Aug 4th 2008 3:27PM]

Welcome

[tim @ Aug 4th 2008 8:03AM]

Its a VIA Nano 1.3GHz processor so the TDP is lower than Atoms... also to understand power as it affects battery life:

It is not only power draw needed to execute a task that is important but the time period of drawing that power while executing the task as well that will actually affect your battery life. So that you can know the total amount of energy drawn during the completion of the task.

Ryan Shrout the editor of PC Perspective actually did some sample tests of measuring power usage over time comparing the VIA Nano and Intel Atom:

“Using the same method to gauge the results of our CineBench 10 test, we find that the VIA Nano used 63,434 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy to render the scene while the Intel Atom used 65,893 watt-seconds (Joules) of energy - an advantage of 3.8% to the VIA CPU.

These kinds of power comparisons are incredibly insightful and you can clearly see how both teams of CPU designers have made trade offs for the either power consumption or speed. The VIA Nano L2100 is able to perform these tasks faster (by as much as 30% in some cases) while still using less total energy than Intel’s Atom. ”

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=597&type=expert&pid=8

So in most “real world” usage scenarios… Nano also beats Atom with less power consumption.

Power consumption/TDP/ is a tricky area that most people don’t understand well.

[Nytrojen @ Aug 4th 2008 8:07AM]

Thank you Tim. It's nice to see an informed, knowledgeable post with figures and results as opposed to... well... nothing... anecdotal evidence at best