VIA's power-sipping VN1000 chipset brings Blu-ray playback, DX 10.1 support to low-end rigs
By Darren Murph 
posted December 11th 2009 10:23AM
posted December 11th 2009 10:23AM
VIA may not have the clout that AMD or Intel have, but one thing's for sure: these guys sure love to bring as much heat as possible to the broke-as-a-joke among us. Take the all new VN1000 chipset, for instance, which is designed for Windows 7-based all-in-one PCs and other low-end desktops that yearn for the ability to handle modern day multimedia. The chipset is compatible with VIA's range of Nano, C7, C7-M and Eden processors, and aside from supporting DDR3 memory, up to five PCI slots, up to four SATA II drives, a multicard reader and 12 USB 2.0 ports, it also allows for Blu-ray playback. Users can slap up to 16GB of RAM around it, and the integrated Chrome 520 GPU is apparently potent enough to support DirectX 10.1 and BD films. Who says 1080p is reserved for royalty?
What no PCI X16? Boooo
@DeFlanko Low-end rigs and all-in-one PCs dont need X16 PCI
that is the whole point of this chipset, to make it that those configs wont need an extra card
@DeFlanko
Competition is competition and these guys have to start somewhere.
@DeFlanko
it must be a mistake, you might want to talk to their chipset development staff if you want x16 in your pcie...
this chipset sounds very nice 12 USB ports, DDR3 Memory. Thats what I wanted to hear.
very nice.
In my opinion Via should be given more attention. They make good low-power products and it's impressive that they still managed to survive in a market dominated by giants.
For those that just need a cheap, low-power IT solution, I think VIA is an excellent choice.
@Black
Speaking of which, how is VIA still surviving? None of their solutions have really been a "hit". Eden was supposed to revolutionize computing back in 2000, but nope. After its chipsets for the Athlon, what has VIA really done?
I had a board with VIA chips on it one time and it ran so hot it was barely usable. I spent a time keeping the side of the case open and running a oscillating fan into it...I've kinda stayed away from VIA since then...however, this sounds like an awesome concept, I just hope it get's executed well.
@Tesche
When was "one time"? VIA has specialized in low-power chips that run cool for years, the Eden line doesn't even need a fan.
@Fritz was probably a CPU I build in 2001....
The more the better, bring it on Via! If it's compatible with Windows 7, more miserly than the Atom, has decent graphics (hopefully something along the lines of ION?), and is less expensive, I would love to see it on the market, and I might even buy it! Atom's done a lot to reduce size, cost, and power use, but we can always go thinner and lighter. Doesn't need to be more powerful than current systems if it's tinier.
VIA chipsets are actually quite nice. My VIA Chipset Mobo outperforms other 3.06ghz P4 rigs with same RAM and GPU. Says something, does it not?
The VIA (S3) GPUs can do some light gaming, but they really excel in multimedia playback and CPU offloading when doing multimedia stuff.
Combine this chipset with a VIA Nano L3100 (2ghz), a S3 540GTX and you have yourself quite a competent low-wattage multimedia PC.
For reference, the 540GTX is around a Radeon HD4350.
@RITarded09
how did you manage to get your hands on those chips??? they're hard to find.
@xconan
I have not, unfortunately. I planned on building a VIA Trinity Platform PC but I have not been able to do so.
However, there are benchmarks out there for much of the VIA Trinity components and you can paint a fairly decent picture of the performance that computer would yield.
My current rig is an ASUS P4V533-MX which has a VIA Chipset, and as I stated, has outperformed other p4 3.06ghz rigs with 2gb of RAM and 7600GT. Much of that must be due to the chipset itself (all other hardware being equal).
@xconan
This link is my previous post (on the Nano 3000 news item) that compares the Nano benches against my P4 in SiSoft Sandra.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/03/via-nano-3000-cpu-series-finally-launches-to-rival-intels-atom/comments/22792918/
Would a "low-end rig" with blu-ray and 16gb RAM really be a low-end rig? Still a good concept to get some attention pointed in their direction I guess.
@MJGAMER 1991 XBL
My point exactly, you have Blu-ray capabilities but no PCIx16 Extra card to help back it up? or even TV card? unless someone please show me a TV card that is not x16..
My personal experience with VIA products is that they always deliver less than VIA claims, and that driver support is absolutely horrible. Having said that, I hope this newest chipset is every bit as good as they claim. More competition is always good.
i would like to see netbook with this chipset, give ION some competition.
Competition!!
/cheers
Sounds good on paper-- I'd like to see VIA deliver a GPU that can actually run 3D apps.
The Chrome9 HC chipset, currently VIA's top-end integrated GPU solution, is absolutely miserable. It's so bad that moving to GMA950 is a HUGE sigh of relief.
Sure, 3D apps might not be the most important thing around for netbooks and small media PCs, but Chrome9 HC literally cannot handle anything more advanced than the original Unreal Tournament at 800x600. Halo PC in DX7 mode at 640x480 would run at an awesome 5-10 FPS (2-5 FPS and all sorts of graphical corruption in DX9 mode), compared to 25 FPS in DX9 mode on GMA950.
That said, Via's CPUs are interesting. C7 was in many cases (and in almost all benchmarks) slower than Atom, but it actually seems to handle multitasking a bit better. I have an HP 2133 with a C7 1.6 and Chrome 9 HC, and compared to my Acer Aspire One with Atom 1.6/GMA950, it's actually able to handle much higher app loads (dozens of tabs open in Chrome + Opera, Photoshop, Visual Studio, etc.) without locking up. But in many cases, it's slower than Atom, which makes life quite annoying, and runs much hotter (and uses more power-- 2133 with 6-cell lasts 3.5 hrs). Nano fixes the performance issues in most cases-- not sure on real-world heat output.
Nano + ION should be an interesting combo, if it ever arrives.
@amb9800
VIAChrome is mostly good for mutlimedia playback and offloading from the CPU. As you have said, it is miserable in OpenGL/DirectX perf. Of note though, it should bench quite well for GDI operations (Windows drawing, composition, etc) compared to other similar chipsets. My Everex Cloudbook actually out-benches my 7600GT in GDI operations. Use CrystalMark 2004 to do a bench.
As you've stated, the C7 is interesting. I found it to be quite capable and certainly fast enough. The Nano is nearly twice as fast clock per clock, and the new Nano 3000 series are about 20-30% faster than the 2000 series Nano processors. This puts them at about the same performance level (for 2ghz Nano) as my Pentium 4 3.06ghz.
Not amazing in a world of i5/i7, but damned respectable.