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.
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.
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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.