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Via Will Join The 64-Bit Fray
ancice with news that Via plans to introduce 64-bit chip codenamed 'CN.' "It was revealed at the Fall Processor Forum. The chip 'will have much better performance, particularly when handling video and audio information ... However, it won't depart from Via's emphasis on low cost, small size and modest power consumption.' Features include 'high-speed Front Side Bus, ... Floating Point Unit that can achieve floating-point additions and multiplies using only two clock cycles, an increased cache size, high-speed data movement, and out-of order, superscalar execution that allows the processor to achieve high clock rates while executing multiple, simultaneous instructions for high definition digital entertainment.' The story was
reported by ZDNet. The offical release is
here. Expected release date is first half of 2006." Update: 10/06 13:10 GMT by T : Also at the Forum, VIA showed off a dual-processor Mini-ITX board, about which more below.
An anonymous reader submits "Via gave a sneak preview at the Fall Processor Forum of what is likely the world's first dual-processor mini-ITX mobo. The "four-wheel drive Hyundai" is expected to ship in "early 2005," according to the article at LinuxDevices. Looks like Via is cooking up some higher-end hardware in hopes the security processing features in its CPUs can carry it into higher-margin markets. I don't know, though; I think I'd rather have a PocketPC cluster ... "
At this rate will INTEL ever release an x86 compatabile 64bit cpu? I think not I know flamebait kill me now.
VIA you say? *shudder*
After my last horrific experience with their 4 in 1 driver set, I vowed to never touch another board with a VIA chipset again. That way lies maddness and death.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
It's really funny VIA would name their chip CN considering that (in canada at least), the main passenger rail transportation company is called VIA rail and the main commercial rail transportation is CN.
"Constant nuisance" if the EPIA-M board I have is any indication.
Oh sure, it'll run simple applications that aren't all that demanding, but I had to stop running the distributed.net client on it because it would heat up and shutdown. Their video and sound drivers are also difficult to get running on anything other than the outdated distros they offer binaries for. Trying to turn the box into a linux-based PVR was just too much work, so I'll be turning it into a router and building my PVR with an EPoX MicroATX board and an AMD 2600+ XP CPU.
Bureaucracy loves company.
Hell yes. All of my friends were really impressed with the MythTV frontend I built with a Via EPIA motherboard. Just a tiny motherboard in a tiny book-sized case with no moving parts and network, video/tv-out, mpeg2 decoder, and sound all integrated into the box.
Amen! I've got a bunch of little mini-ITX systems that I use with LTSP, and I've got an 8U portable rack (the kind used typically for live audio gear) with a beefy server, a 16-port switch, a router/firewall, and other goodies. It's basically a network-in-a-box. I do gigs with a local DJ and set up quick and dirty cyber-cafe's. The boxes boot Linux and run Firefox (with a stripped-down browser.xul so they can't do anything funky like install extensions). People love it! You can run an event anywhere, and have a totally secure bunch of very responsive PC's. On my rig, I can get up to 15 of these guys going, and they're fast for just browsing! And cheap!
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
So the SP uses the nanoBGA CPU and CN400 northbridge. Does this mean we will finally see the long awaited nano-ITX board VIA originally announced last year and still has yet to deliver, despite announcing availability months ago? Or are they giving up on the Nano-ITX and just giving us Yet Another Mini-ITX?
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Maybe they are quite sufficient for most home users? Working on a 500MHz Athlon after being used to a 1800+ has made me quite indifferent to processor speeds.
I'd prefer a fast and responsive interface any time over high processing speeds. And watching the cpu usage on the 500mhz machine, I swear most things I do at home except gaming are limited by ram size. hdd seek speed may be an issue but only after the ram is full and the OS needs to swap. Swapping sucks that much, I'd invest insane amounts of money to have 2 gig of ram on my next machine when there's finally a notebook with a Radeon Mobility 9800 without a Dell logo available.
If there's no regular gaming habit, a strong VIA cpu is sufficient wide and far. MP3 encoding and DVD processing is the hardest task by now and I've no problem setting the machine aside for an hour or so. If the owner isn't going to play recent games, I'd save any money possible on the CPU and invest heavily in ram and fast harddrives. If there weren't all that noise and heat, a 15k rpm drive was perfect. But I'll never want to experience a machine bogged down while swapping ever again. Argh, I'll calm down now...
While they may have their 'niche', they suck at making decent products for it. Ask anyone with a Hauppauge card what they think about their Via chipsets..
Hey, a dual EPIA1000 is a great idea. I'm not so interested in the size as a cheap dual CPU system with low thermals.
Multi-processing is non-existant on a single, low power CPU system like the VIA M/E lines. But a low power dual system offers the kind lateral of processing power that a much more powerful single CPU platform can only offer.
Of course there's always the A64's great power characteristics, but if you're looking to live in the sticks off of solar power, you start dreaming of dual systems they'll run on 26Watts total.
Yes, but a little more competition never hurt. Remember AMD used to suck ass until the Athlon XP. Recall some of the earlier processors had compatibility issues and such too. I installed a Thunderbird 1.4, and using a $50 Alpha heat sink (and fan of course) I couldn't get that darned processor cooled enough. It ran so hot I had to underclock it to 1ghz...
Really, we've got VIA, and Transmeta coming to the table now to play. What's the worse that can happen? MORE competition to drive up performance while keeping down price? Hell imagine if Intel had a monopoly on the processor market right now eh...
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Problemo: even with gaming, I don't want a blistering fast processor. However, when I built my PC, the slowest proc available with an 800MHz FSB was 2.6 GHz. I don't NEED a 2.6GHz system to satisfy my addiction to GTA: Vice City, but that 800 FSB and the DDR 3200 ram was pretty sweet. Of course, now I'm finding that my 845 Intel chipset could quite readily be replaced by a mobo with an 865PE, but whatever.
The problem is that in the midrange the chips offer a lot more than just their raw processing speed. Honestly, if you need a low end system, just buy an old Intel or AMD on the cheap . If you want a midrange system and you're looking at a 64 Bit VIA, the problem isn't necessarily the speed of the processor as much as it's the feature set on it. So, even though you may not need the speed it offers, you may need some of the other features.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
The boards for the AMD64 have a lot of features a compute node would not need. A compute node needs a network connection, processor, memory and one hard-drive...I don't need 5 PCI slots etc.
This interesting solution offers:
Modest Power Consumption
Small form factor
Modest Price
Dual processor
This is worth a look at the detail specs.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The Athlons at work, on the other hand, have been nothing but trouble, but only because they were all shipped with ultra low budget fans that seem to have a MTBF of about 6 months.
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I feel your pain. I went out and got an Epia M6000 and Hauppage 250 with the idea of building a small, quiet (the M6000 is fanless) MythTV-based PVR that I would be happy to have in my living room. What a royal PITA that turned out to be! I don't doubt that it can be done on the M10000 using software decoding, but I was not able to get much more than a segfault out of the binary drivers Via had released for a distro I didn't want to run anyway.
I persevered though, and spent another WEEK compiling Gentoo packages before I finally decided that the extra $150 for a Shuttle SN41G2 and the noise that came with it was a reasonable sacrifice to make for something that would Just Work.
A day later, I had a fully functional PVR. I'm sorry, but I won't consider Via for anything running Linux again until they start providing proper driver support for their products.
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