Hardware VIA Nano Dual-Core Preview

VIA's first ever multi-core CPU part: its aptly dual-core Nano platform, gets a grilling on our test

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/11/02/via-nano-dual-core-preview/1

 

have had a glance read over this and looks fairly promising, will there be further reviews once ITX versions are availible

 

looks half decent if they can get th video optimisation and pricing right

 

It's a great product, but it should come up earlier... When AMD unleashes it's Zacate cpu/apu, it will totally kill this VIA... I don't know how VIA can survive for much longer.

 

are you certain? it's AMD we're talking about... the days when they showed awesome stuff to the consumer is long gone (well in the CPU marketplace anyway)

 

It looked promising right up until I read this:

 

Yeah, it's exactly 50 days when AMD last showed some awesome stuff

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3920/amd-benchmarks-zacate-apu-2x-faster-gpu-performance-than-core-i5

 

heh, i didnt realise you used the planet earth bird scene.

 

I has Socket A flashbacks on that motherboard and cooler. From the stencilled lettering and baby-poo colouring, can I assume the board was made by Asus (or is that Pegatron now)?

When was the last time you saw a product with a VIA CPU? My guess it has been a while. I only see them occasionally in corporate thin client laptops (HP ones). I understand that VIA platforms are more common, and more popular, in Asia. I assume this is where VIA is focussing their energies now, and incidentally, probably why Richard was the only Euro journalist to get to try it out.

It looks pretty poor when the 1.3GHz SU7300 outperforms it.
And they will have no chance against AMD's Zacate/Ontario. All the strengths of this VIA platform pale when compared Zacate. With TSMC spewing forth in January, the Nano is too little, too late.
Which is sad because I like VIA, the little computer company that could.

 

I know the board is a engineerign sample, but the 3rd PCIe 4x slot and the 2 1x slots in the first pic of the board looked back to front to me???

 

It not only out peforms it, it does so whilst using 10w less which in ultra portable terms is a massive amount.

 

My analysis is over at The Daily Circuit (if you remember what dual celeron 300a's are, you will enjoy that site). You Nano naysayers are thinking about it wrong. Regardless of the any laptop claims, it is a netbook or mini-tablet processor, and a darn good one of that. It toasts everything out there right now, and it is an open question as to whether that crown will be taken before it's hard launch. If not, it will have its day in the sun, and we will all benefit from some refreshing, real, actual, honest-to-goodness competition (remember what that was like?)

 

A 20W tablet and netbook processor? Good luck with that.

VIA folks told me themselves it's not really aimed at netbooks. It's value laptops, budget 'ultra-thins' and nettop PCs for emerging markets predominantly.

 

Ha Ha Ha. This is either a terrific troll, or a clueless commentator.

You are incredibly confused I think. You are probably looking at the specifications of all those Chinese tablets running Android floating around, seeing that they have a VIA CPU, and then you mixed them up with the Nano.
Mate, the WM8505 is an ARM-based System-on-Chip design that has nothing to do with the Nano.

 

Anybody remember the QX9650? It had less than 65w power consumption under load but was rated by Intel at 130 watt TDP despite receiving a 65nm to 45nm die shrink. TDP ratings rarely reflect actual power consumption and can easily be off by 2x, as was the case with that processor.

The article clearly shows the performance is not on par with current good laptop processors like the Core 2 Duo, and why should it be, the die area of that C2D is about twice what the dual core Nano will be in 40nm and the C2D is priced more than double what the Nano needs to be at to make money for VIA. Zacate will also be larger than Nano and cost more. Ontario will probably consume less power but won't perform as well as Nano.

The Nano delivers good performance for netbook applications at what will probably be a low price. If the power consumption really is 25 watts whenever you browse the web, then that is another thing, but that is very unlikely.