Hardware VIA unveils dual-core Nano X2

Low-power chip specialist VIA has revealed its latest creation: the dual-core Nano X2.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/01/05/via-nano-x2/1

 

It can only be good if there's several manufacturers competing within the ULV-segment.

Netbooks and tablets will profit from a competition of ARM, AMD, intel and VIA.

 

Low power is the future.

Most people , even bit-techers, are coming to realize that they really really don't need the massive computing power of the modern top-end CPUs. This, coupled with the demand for portable computing will drive adoption of these kinds of chips.

I think we may well see a fundamental change in the CPU market in the next decade. Intel will continue to dominate the high end consumer market, but that will become less and less relevant as the industry moves towards low power instead of "OMFG Moar performance!". So far Intel has had a hard time adapting their mindset in this area as evidenced by the poor performance of their Atom line.

I also get the feeling that AMD has decided to quit competing with Intel for the absolute top end and has instead decided to plow its R&D dollars into Low power, APUs, mainstream and server parts. It's a lot cheaper to be good enough than to try to be the best and given AMDs more limited resources this is probably a sound business decision.

And one more thing...

I think this might make an awesome basis for my next desktop. It sounds like it is already adequate for everything I need to do.

 

Finally, VIA has an arena where it can compete performance wise.

 

unless the sandy bridge based atoms are really power efficient, it looks like for the first time ever intel will have the worst of all brands (with the exception of PPC and SPARC which are basically just server only).

based on what that zacate mini itx board said, it appears amd doesn't necessarily have the most power efficient product, however, zacate is an APU, not a CPU, and its probably a LOT faster than atom which makes up for its higher power demand.

 

I hope we can actually buy X2 netbooks. I'm fed up of only seeing Atom ones in the shops.

 

I don't know that there is such a thing as a Sandy Bridge based Atom....

 

I think he speaks about the low-power mobile parts. They don't look too shabby on paper performance-wise, but they come at a rather high price.

 

I'd like to see more Via consumer-oriented products. Comparatively, Atom is and has always been pretty awful as far as...well, everything. Via's weak spot, though, has been marketing. Apparently they've been doing fine aiming at the industrial/embedded sector, given that they're still around and still spending on R&D. But their consumer-oriented offerings have been a bit lacking. Prices are way too high given what you get for the money, and that's swayed a fair number of people to compromise with Atom, figuring it was good enough given that it was a third the price of an equivalent Via board. I always thought it would be a natural fit for netbooks, but my guess is that the pricing is too high. Given that their higher-end boards (which would be equivalent to the average netbook platform) retail for $200-$300, that would be a no-go for a company looking to retail a netbook for $400. I can get a crappy Atom board for $70, while a 800MHz Via is still well over $100. Given that word is out that there will be a Win8 release for ARM, I'm about to give up on Via entirely.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12124887

'Next Generation' Windows running on an ARM CPU.

 

So what -is- the TDP?

 

The fastest Via Nano, the L2100 (yeah, the number actually goes down as the speed goes up!) has a TDP of 25W. Given that Via promise that the X2 will offer increased performance without increased power consumption I would expect a similarly clocked X2 to have a similar TDP.