New VIA x86 CPU Takes Aim At Intel Silverthorne

Kaz writes "While not operating on the same scale as the two major CPU designers, VIA has been gaining traction in the world of UMPCs and thin clients with its Eden and C7 lines of processors. While past architectures have been considerably out-of-date in terms of modern features, the new Isaiah architecture looks to be very competitive with what AMD and Intel have lined up for future ultra-mobile products. It features an out-of-order, superscalar execution core, 64-bit support, virtualization, and even SSE3 — all on a 94M-transistor, 65nm process die. The initial offering will be single-core only, though VIA says that multi-core ability is already designed in. Is Isaiah going to replace your Core 2 system for gaming? No, but it might give Intel's Silverthorne a run for the money."

Comments

Re:I've got a C7 running a home email server.

[evilviper]

Email doesn't require much processing power, so why waste the electricity on a high performance machine?

Better question: Why waste money on a new VIA C7, when an actual PIII-800 (cheap these days) uses less power?

If they make a higher performance chip that get within the range of a Core 2, I'd consider buying one to replace my higher performance server in a few years.

That's a huge "if" there. VIA doesn't make high performance chips, and they don't make low power chips. The only thing VIA does effectively is heavy marketing, that has quite effectively tricked people into believing their CPUs are either... I can't see any reason to believe their next CPU will be any different.