We suppose dreams really do come true. Nearly a full year after
we heard that VIA was toiling on
a new processor line to really give Intel's aging
Atom a run for its money, the company has come clean and confessed that those whispers were indeed true. The Isaiah-based Nano 3000 Series is a range of six new CPUs clocked between 1GHz and 2GHz, all of which boast an 800MHz FSB, 64-bit support, SSE4 instructions, Windows 7 / Linux compatibility and power ratings that check in some 20 percent more efficient than
existing VIA Nano processors. There's also the promise of 1080p multimedia playback, and VIA swears that we'll see these popping up in all-in-one desktops as well as thin-and-light laptops in the very near future. How soon, you ask? Samples are shipping now to OEMs, with mass production slated for Q1 2010.
posted Nov 3rd 2009 10:10AM
"...all of which boast...Windows 7/Linux compatibility"
Because we all now know it probably won't boast OS X compatibility.
Because we all know Intel and Apple wouldn't allow the VIA to support OSX.
Er...no, because Apple just went "thppbbbt" all over the Atom processor, meaning its AMD counterpart likely won't get much love either. Unusually industrious hackers aside.
I see no reason why this CPU would not support OSX kernel. It has x86/x64, as well as NX bit and full SSE support. Technically, it should work fine.
@Shunnabunich
VIA is neither a subsidiary or joint stock firm of AMD. The two are direct competitors in low-cost last-gen processors.
But will it shoot lasers out of its eyes?
even later after the long waited ion platform...
Don't forget the Apple builds all their OS's raw, that way they an migrate to any platform whenever they wish.
roadmap =\= launch
launch =\= available
available =\= success
I honestly believe we should wait and see.
Too little, too late
Actually these new cpu's from VIA are almost 50% faster than the Atom at the same clockspeeds. Intel could have some serious competition here if VIA plays it right.
Why and how? Not like Intel has improve Atom significantly in the last year.
I'm sure it is faster, but Intel got the jump on the Netbook market. Any normal walk in consumer is going to go with Intel over Via anyway (speculation) just because they are so familiar with Intel.
@NOCknock
Your normal walk in doesn't give a squat about which processor is in it.....they simply want the machine to do what they want it to do......inexpensively.
Correct you are, but many times I have been at the local Microcenter just browsing the laptops and hear things to the effect of:
Salesperson: Can I help you?
Customer: Yes, I'm looking for a new laptop.
Salesperson: Ok. Do you have any particular brand in mind?
Customer: Yeah, Intel
Just saying...
"Actually these new cpu's from VIA are almost 50% faster than the Atom at the same clockspeeds. Intel could have some serious competition here if VIA plays it right."
Than this generation of Atom, which is shipping, and set to be replaced shortly, vs. the next generation of nano which is supposedly going to OEM soon, but if anything like the last generation of Nano, will disappear into the ether shortly thereafter, never to be heard from again.
Then there's graphics. VIA's graphics/drivers/support make Intel's look good.
20% ?? more crap windows 7 still crash.
I can guarantee you that OSX will never crash on this chip.
I can guarantee you that the Titanic will never sink.
I can guarantee anything you want.
I can guarantee there wont be a single comment after this.
You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.
But does it run OS X?
Fantastic.
Um... uhhh... DUUUHHHH, COMPETITION IS GOOD!
::waits for 10,000 upranks::
Upranked for sheer style.
very, very, very excited for this
I heard similar things about Tegra in 2008. I hope to see products in 2010, not 2011...
How is Atom aging? Wiki says it cameout in 2008
the architecture
it will be 2010 in 2 months.
Low power chips is all VIA dose this will be good and hopefully no shotty tactics from INTEL on this one. Finally a chip strong enough for me to think about getting a net book and definitely a media pc.
Oh and I doubt Nvidia will use atom with this out
Well the Ion2 Platform is supposed to support VIA Nanos. If the power draw is in step with Atoms or close enough, Intel could have some serious competition.
IIRC, the previous gen Nanos were definitely comparable performance-wise to an Atom even at a lower clock speed.
The more competition, the better.
It is still a single core CPU
@sk:
It indeed is a single-core chip. VIA had stated that they will be producing a dual-core or multi-core variant of the Nano some time after they first launched the Nano.
They work in evolutions, and frankly, I'm glad to see this evolution of the Nano. It looks to be much improved over the first runs of the Nano.
It is produced on a 65nm process. Imagine if that was a 45nm or 32nm unit the power usage would be even less.
@SK:
I've heard rumblings that VIA intends to switch to 45 or 32nm process but I don't think that Fujistu is ready for them to do so yet. Or they may now be ready, last I read about it was a year ago.
But yes, having even this generation Nano on 45nm or 32nm would greatly reduce their TDP and boost performance a bit as well.
I'm really excited for VIA, this is a HUGE step up from the C7-M (which I honestly did not mind in my Cloudbook).
So VIA when I'm I going to be able to buy your CPU with an ION for less then 500 Dollars. When that happens they've got a winner.
I think they should have come up with a more original name, 'nano' is so stale and generic, and nano 3000 sounds like some fake thing.
I would like to see the performance across all 6 CPUs. The 1.0GHz VIA has a TDP of 5W while the 1.8GHz has a TDP of 25W. The Z-series Atom has an 800MHz at .65W and a 2.0GHz at 2.4W, both have 0.01W idle.
At 25W, you can get a Core 2 Duo SP9600 at 2.4GHz, which is also probably a lot more expensive, but I bet will smoke the VIA.
This is probably a good CPU for nettops
Sounds like it is DOA for netbooks then. Battery life is generally seen as the killer feature for these. Which means this won't get much of any traction there. Sure nettops can use it, but that's got to be a market that is 1/50th the size of the netbook market.
Put it this way:
The VIA Nano L2100 (1.8ghz) is 11% faster in ALU tests than my Pentium 4 3.06ghz with HT and 13% faster in FPU tests.
It has a crypto bandwidth far better than even the best i7, hashing bandwidth slightly lower (single core, no HT, and lower clock-rate reduce hash bandwidth, but still very close to i7), and a very low thermal envelope. In other words, with about half the clock speed and half the TDP, the Nano is slightly better than my dual-thread 3.06ghz Pentium 4.
I've been waiting for these since forever. I would certainly not mind replacing my aging P4 with the 2.0ghz Nano as that should completely destroy it in terms of performance, and will give me some much wanted SSE instructions, 64-bit support, NX bit, VIA padlock, and all the VIA Powersaver features.
geeze how pathetic. Who would think to ask if OSX runs on this? It's a rival to Atom. It's to push 1080p in small devices. It's for HTPCs.
All you Apple haters need to take a break and get some air. I am an Apple fan and I use windows to game. I have a WDTV Live and PS3 connected to my home theater.
Now to an important question. Can this thing push full screen 'HD' Hulu to my 1080p TV. If not, please try again.
Good question, but it could be that by the time this thing is actually available Adobe will FINALLY have their flash GPU offloading done for the Ion et al, and so it won't really matter that much. Course I don't trust them to ship it when they said, and I don't really need an Ion for a nettop otherwise, so it would be nice if this thing could handle it for less $ without an Ion. We'll see...
I once had a 24/7 home server running off a PCChips M789CG based on a VIA C3 800Mhz... It was a power sipping machine, and I choose that particular board because of that... It was at about $40 then, and I believe the same model is still available. I'm using an old Pentium M for that server now (The C3 processors lack the CMOV instruction, so they are 5x86 and some Linux distros and software have problems with that).
But, look at the current C7 or Nano boards... All of them are at around $150 and more.
With those prices is hard to justify choosing their technology over the $60 or so Intel Atom MiniITX boards.
I have even mailed VIA about this... If they release or design a MiniITX or FlexATX board with those Nano processors, with a couple of DDR2 slots, at least 2 SATA connectors (I would love 4 for a RAID setup) and sell them at $50, they have a nice chance of capturing the nettop, home server and thin client niches. Something like the ECS 945GCD-M but with a Nano processor would be very interesting (PCI-E x16 and x1 slots, gigabit ethernet, 4GB ram support, 3 sata ports, etc)...
But continuing to deploy $150 to $200 boards is like loving to shoot themselves in the foot so much. Both of them, considering the ridiculous prices of the Intel Atom boards.
They should learn about market segments and act accordingly, release cheap and good enough boards for the masses, and expensive and specific boards for the embedded industry and they might have a winning formula.
I'd like to see a low-cost, low-power (and quiet) HTPC built around one of these + a graphics chipset, much like Atom + Nvidia Ion is. I know a few of these are out using Atom, some newer versions of which are dual-core, so if the Nano is more powerful in the same basic power, price and thermal envelope, maybe it could handle running W7 WMC + plug-ins like media browser (or maybe XBMC or it's cousin, Boxee).
What I'm *really* wondering is how close Via and Intel are to building an x86 CPU that can compete with ARM in the smartphone segment, though. It just seems inevitable that the architecture will extend down past MIDs to Android phones...
so christmas 2011
I don't think I have ever seen anything with a Nano processor listed for sale, so you'll pardon me if I think this smells like vaporware.
Lenovo S12
Samsung NC20
Well... if no one else is gonna say it, I will....
CRYSIS?!
XD
Yes, actually. There was a test video showing the Nano (first gen) running crysis on a mini-itx board.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Obx7ZYTTU
Provided it had a beefier GPU (not a rather paltry 8600gt) it would most likely have done a bit better.
Certainly, the first gen Nano was not as powerful as this generation, but still, its impressive.
Interesting, the highest TDP on the processor, according to VIA's website, is 0.5 watts!