http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/ Engadget Comments for VIA's power-sipping VN1000 chipset brings Blu-ray playback, DX 10.1 support to low-end rigs http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 10:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
that is the whole point of this chipset, to make it that those configs wont need an extra card]]>Dec 11th 2009 10:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
Competition is competition and these guys have to start somewhere.]]>Dec 11th 2009 4:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/it must be a mistake, you might want to talk to their chipset development staff if you want x16 in your pcie...]]>Dec 11th 2009 8:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
very nice.]]>Dec 11th 2009 10:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
For those that just need a cheap, low-power IT solution, I think VIA is an excellent choice.]]>Dec 11th 2009 11:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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?]]>Dec 11th 2009 5:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 11:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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.]]>Dec 11th 2009 12:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 2:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 11:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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.]]>Dec 11th 2009 12:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/how did you manage to get your hands on those chips??? they're hard to find.]]>Dec 11th 2009 8:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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).]]>Dec 14th 2009 2:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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/]]>Dec 14th 2009 2:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 1:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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..
]]>Dec 13th 2009 12:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 1:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/Dec 11th 2009 2:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
/cheers]]>Dec 11th 2009 2:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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.]]>Dec 11th 2009 8:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/vias-power-sipping-vn1000-chipset-brings-blu-ray-playback-dx-1/
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.]]>Dec 14th 2009 2:17PM