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 ... "

Comments

And it will still suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a 64-bit chip doesnt mean its a great CPU. I've had a via, it was like having a moped. Sure it was fun to play around with and got you from point a to point b, But do you really want your friends to see you with one?

Re:And it will still suck

[Phosphor3k]

These are not high-end chips.

"it won't depart from Via's emphasis on low cost, small size and modest power consumption"

Just like all of Via's current line, they are meant for low cost low power systems. In combination with Via's SFF motherboards they are great for car PCs, media center PCs and firewall/router PCs. They are not meant to be high end workstations, so stop treating them as though they are. Just like any other product, they have their niche.

Re:And it will still suck

[AKnightCowboy]

Sure it was fun to play around with and got you from point a to point b, But do you really want your friends to see you with one?

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.

Re:And it will still suck

[Paladin128]

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!

Re:And it will still suck

[phoenix321]

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...

Re:And it will still suck

[the_mad_poster]

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.

Re:And it will still suck

[Paladin128]

In cases like that, most would just buy the second 2-way Opteron and max the RAM out on both of them. Seriously, if you're sporting a rig like that, you can get about 100 clients 2 machines with 4GB each. If you max them both out with RAM, (which going from 4 GB to 16 is only about $5000 each), you can push that to probably over 300 clients with just the two servers, assuming you've got enough disk bandwidth (probably fileserver with 15K RPM drives in a RAID-5 configuration). Segment your gigabit network nicely, and spend about $500 on each client ($350 if you're using CRT's instead of LCD's), and you've saved a TON vs. Microsoft solutions because of liscencing. Plus, management is a breeze! The clients rarely break down, as they have no moving parts. Upgrade an app on the server, and it's already upgraded everywhere else. Only need to backup one fileserver. I've talked to people who have set up LTSP or something similar and not entered the server room for 2 years!

Now, this solution doesn't work for everyone, such as my company, which does content production (using Flash, Maya, and plenty of other graphics-intenive apps that wouldn't work nicely in an LTSP setup). Where would it fit? Telemarketing call centers. Schools. Stock brokers. Largely clerical outfits. Anywhere where the needs of most of your workers are very simple (web, email, office stuff).

The other application is kiosks. My terminals are virtually unhackable. They boot straight into a non-priveleged user account that runs Firefox and Metacity in a chroot-jailed environment. Firefox is totally stripped to the bone -- no menus at all, all the shortcut keys for advanced stuff disabled, no file:/ about:/ etc, CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE is disabled, root logins disabled. They can't do squat. They're trapped in from boot to shutdown. Web browsing is filtered by a proxy, often using a whitelist to one specific site. I offer the kids $20 if they can open another app or go to a different website. No one has collected yet.

Re:And it will still suck

[phoenix321]

Ha ;) no way I'll mistake this for the real thing. No offense, but a mobility 9700 is in no way ever close to a mobility 9800 except for the successive character in their model numbers. ATI is just too errrm let's say hesitating to call this thing by its real name. The mobility 9700 was a version of the desktop 9600xt, the mobility 9600 was something older, but the new mobility 9800 is a slightly toned down X800(!).
60 percent more graphics power while only using slightly more energy. No way I ever buy my new gaming notebook without one, except when nVidia surprisingly unveils a blistering fast chip really soon now because I'd trust their drivers more than ATI's. Until then I prepare for the current mobile GPU flagship, trust me. But not from Dell, but that's a personal matter for me... ;)

VIA willbeat INTEL

[Unixfreak31]

At this rate will INTEL ever release an x86 compatabile 64bit cpu? I think not I know flamebait kill me now.

Re:VIA willbeat INTEL

[gilesjuk]

It's possible the Install disc is still 32-bit code, possibly to allow more widespread testing. It then boots into a 64-bit system.

If it actually ran on an Intel 32-bit box that would be interesting. I know Intel have x86_64 compatibility planned.

Re:VIA willbeat INTEL

[drsmithy]

Uh, you mean like the x86-64 Xeons Dell has been selling in servers for weeks (if not months) ?

Re:VIA willbeat INTEL

[ttldkns]

Ah yeah, also, if you plan to run linux on it (who wouldnt for any type of server) the EPIA wiki will be like a bible to you!
http://www.epiawiki.org/wiki/tiki-index.php

They have kernel patches for the M1000 board's hardware DVD decoding (among other things) as well as listing all the kernel options to optimise it for a via processor.

Cyanide?

[ImaLamer]

CN?

The new VIA Cyanide chipset, the killer of all other chipsets!!!

Too bad only half of the population will notice their presence.

Re:Cyanide?

[Alan Cox]

Well one of their previous processors was codenamed C4, and the story has it this was changed because "C4" is a high explosive and they feared confusion when shipping large numbers of small packages labelled C4 around

Re:Cyanide?

[mrchaotica]

DAMNIT! You have no idea how much I was looking forward to trying to get through airport security with a laptop labeled "C4 Inside!"

Sounds like a 'TiVO' target

[grunt107]

With the statement that it can be used in a digital media stream for output to HDTV (and Linux-type media center), it sounds like this chip is intended for TiVO-like services.

If it is as low powered as touted, I would use it in embedded systems (like house/applicance control). And of course low power means good for laptops.

Re:Sounds like a 'TiVO' target

[vidarh]

I bought a M12000 based machine in an e-Otonashi case to use for streaming to my TV, and it works great. The VIA CPU's are slow, but their Mini-ITX motherboards make up for a lot of it by having hardware MPEG2 decoding on most of them. I'd be careful (that is, test before you buy) about the M12000 for systems where you need support for other video formats, or high (as in higher than TV) resolutions, but I guess the newer VIA CPU's might be getting there.

The main appeal to me was that with the e-Otonashi case, I can run the system completely fanless. I was originally planning to tear out the HD and replace it with a 512MB compact flash, but after hearing (or rather not hearing) the system in action I decided to use the compact flash for my digital camera instead - I can barely notice the HD when the disk is heavily trashing and I'm reasonably close to the machine, but even then it's quieter than my old Sony DVD player.

Word of warning though: Setting up Linux on the VIA Mini-ITX boards can be a real pain. Getting the basic stuff up and running is trivial (For people in the UK I can recommend LinItx.com - they delivered my system quickly and with Fedora Core 1 pre-installed, but getting the best out of the TV out and hardware MPEG2 decoder was painful (thanks to VIA not being particularly forthcoming with specs) when I did it a few months ago.

Via? VIA?!?

[Toby_Tyke]

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.

Re:Via? VIA?!?

[mirko]

Via also made the EPIA processors which are mostly used in their barebones computers.
I have one at home which I use as a Linux server and it reached 400 days uptime before I had to reboot it because of a Linux ethernet driver failure.
So, I'd say VIA might be technically good if you keep using their products only.

Re:Via? VIA?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the guys a chance. After that disaster that is the via 686 chipset I sweared to never buy any of their products. That is, until I tried a Nehemia based mini-itx. Man, those systems rock. Absolutely silent, the perfect PC for that tiny firewall/small server you keep running 7/24.

I'm actually quite excited about the new 64bit version. I don't need a 8GHz monster that needs a 250W fan to keep it from burning, but a nice, low power, silent system.

After Smorgrav

CN is also China's TLD

[mirko]

As we recently heard about China'0s adopting their own chips and software, could it be the world version of the Chinese standard processor ?

Via or VIA?

[Inda]

From the linked Press Release:

Note to reporters, editors and writers: VIA is spelled in ALL CAPS.

Yes I read the F**cking article.

Finicky? Me?

Down Periscope

[hcob$]

I think this topic about a new via chipset requires my favorite quote from Down Periscope.

After Turbo "fixes" the radio... again... "It's running like a Swiss... Car....."

Funny name for the chip

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Code named.....

[hussar]

"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.

Another Competitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know what AMD did to the processor market with the introduction of the K7. It never hurts for more healthy competition. Via la 64bit!

Heck yah.

[Icegryphon]

Now my toaster can have more then 4 GB of memory. mmmmm toast.

Interview with CEO of VIA subsidiary Centaur

[UnderScan]

./-ers might not like VIA, but you should really give them a chance. Their subsidiary Centaur is the group that designs their chips.
CEO Interview: Glenn Henry, founder of VIA processor subsidiary Centaur

Re:Code named.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Counter-anecdote, away!

I've had no problems with my EPIA-M using open source drivers. I never bothered with the binaries. I use the 2.6 kernel and the alsa drivers for sound. I built the video driver from cvs recently. Works just fine. I use unstable gentoo, about as opposite as you can get from the outdated distros they support. By the way, I've never had heat problems even while doing long compiles.

It's perfectly capable of playing any video that there's a native driver for. (WMV9 is a pain in the butt.) The open source drivers even support mpeg-2 acceleration just fine.

The system is cool and quiet; something my dual Athlon monster could never be.

Nano-ITX

[Sketch]

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?

Re: Via? Via!

[Alwin Henseler]

"After my last horrific experience with their 4 in 1 driver set, I vowed to never touch another board with a VIA chipset again"

Maybe you simply lack some positive experience with Via hardware? The most stable x86 system I ever had, a 486, was Via chipset based. What I currently have uses Via KM266 chipset, performs solid and very stable. With non-Via chipsets, it's been a mixed bag for me.

I really like them advancing the art for power-efficient CPU's. For many applications, the underlying hardware is increasingly irrelevant, and other factors like power consumption become important. In the old days, computer hardware just couldn't be fast enough. Nowadays PC's are way faster than needed for almost any application. Next on the list is price, and as a result, ordinary PC hardware has become dirt cheap. What's next? Ergonomics, reliability, durability. Read: low power, small, low noise. Via CPU's fit in there nicely.

I think a big problem for Via CPU's market share in desktop systems is not their technical merits, but their availability. If you want to buy AMD or Intel, any computershop has something on offer. But if you want to buy Via C3, matching motherboard (socket 370), or Mini-ITX board, your choices in supplier are extremely limited (at least where I live, the Netherlands). If Via wants to sell more of this stuff, they should focus on making sure that you can actually get it somewhere.

Dual EPIA is a great idea!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Interesting, but....

[rainman_bc]

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...

This could be an interesting cluster machine

[Analogy Man]

I was considering putting together my first Beowulf cluster. I wanted to go with 64 bit processor to run CFD codes. To maximize CPU's I was considering dual processor boards. Also of concern is energy consumption/heat etc.

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.

Re:This could be an interesting cluster machine

[Analogy Man]

As a former Aero Researcher I am now more interested in the Beowulf side. I am in the request/approval process for obtaining some NASA solvers (CFL3D, XFOIL...).

I had considered going the e-bay route with box lots of older processors/motherboards, but from what I have read on the compute cluster groups that option is is high on the Watts/(Compute Power) scale. Factoring in HD, RAM, Power, Cases, Power Supplies etc the $/(Compute Power) is not that great either.

Going the AMD socket 754 route I was stuck with $120 MOBO, with and ATX form factor. Needing some heavy duty cooling if I went dual processor...

Just as a proof of concept on a cluster older machines are an inexpensive option, but in the long haul I have come to the conclussion that being about 6 months behind the bleeding edge at the time of purchase is about right.

Re:Prrof reading?

[Just Some Guy]

"will have 'will have" is not a quine.

Get it? Quine? Hah! Oh. See, there're these things called "quines", and they... oh, forget it.

Re:Interesting, but....

[TheRaven64]

The first generation Athlons blew the P3 (Intel's competitor at the time) away in floating point benchmarks and were slightly faster in integer (or maybe the other way around). They also had faster FSB speeds (200 MHz Vs 133MHz). I happily ran a 1GHz T-Bird at 1.33GHz (FSB changed from 200MHz to 266MHz) for several years (before I got a Mac. The machine is still working, but now someone else is using it). I replaced the fan with a Zalman flower cooler after a couple of years to reduce noise, but apart from that had no problems with it.

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.

Re:Code named.....

[C3ntaur]

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.

Just a note

[peeon]

This new processor most likey not be able to go fanless. This new via c3 core has higher heat than the Nehemiah cores. 20 watts to 15 watts I believe. I have one of the first 1 gig Nehemiah cores and it is on the brink of the max temp without no fan.