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 While past architectures have been considerably out-of-date in terms of modern features, the new Isaiah architecture looks to be very competitive with what AMD and Intel have lined up for future ultra-mobile products.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

Sorry, brother.

[RightSaidFred99]

"The current C7 processor is a sub 20 watt product.."

Then if I read right they go on to say Isaiah will be similar. Sorry, but that's not even in the same league as Silverthorn. Silverthorn will be more like a sub 5 watt product. If this is right, they'll be competing against Core 2 processors and performance won't even be close.

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

[Vellmont]

While the performance is pretty slow (Maybe 800 mhz PIII range), it's low power and low heat, which was what I desired. Email doesn't require much processing power, so why waste the electricity on a high performance machine?

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. I hate paying for more electricity, and then paying to get rid of the waste heat. I'd even consider it for a workstation PC if the performance is good enough. Quiet fans are desirable to me, super-duper performance matters fairly little.