Wednesday, June 2nd 2010
VIA Demos Dual-Core Nano Processor
VIA demonstrated a dual-core variant of its Nano processor. With tiny board and power footprints, Nano is designed to be a competitive processor to Intel's Atom. The processor was displayed on a working demo platform. Although the chip in the demo system was built on the 65 nm manufacturing node, the final product will be built on 45 nm. The dual-core Nano runs at 1.60 GHz, with an FSB of 800 MHz. It is paired with the VIA VN1000 Digital Media chipset, that has a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller which supports DDR3 1066 MHz memory, and S3 Chrome 520 graphics that is DirectX 10.1 compliant. The Chrome 520 claims to pack enough power for 1080p Blu ray playback, and the Aero UI, while giving multiple connectivity options that include DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort.
Also located in the VN1000 is the PCI-Express 2.0 root complex, which gives out one PCI-Express 2.0 x8 and four PCI-E 2.0 x1 links. The southbridge packs all the bare essentials, including a 4-port SATA 3 Gb/s and IDE storage controller. Gigabit Ethernet and HD audio will also be part of the package. VIA expects the Nano dual-core to feature in nettops, netbooks, and ULPCs, especially for cloud computing.
Source:
Engadget
Also located in the VN1000 is the PCI-Express 2.0 root complex, which gives out one PCI-Express 2.0 x8 and four PCI-E 2.0 x1 links. The southbridge packs all the bare essentials, including a 4-port SATA 3 Gb/s and IDE storage controller. Gigabit Ethernet and HD audio will also be part of the package. VIA expects the Nano dual-core to feature in nettops, netbooks, and ULPCs, especially for cloud computing.
18 Comments on VIA Demos Dual-Core Nano Processor
What the heck does it need a PCI-E x8 for? And DX10.1? A bit pointless.
Just like on monitors you see vista ready, windows 7 compatible......those are the worst, every f'ing monitor works with everything as long as the display outputs/inputs match.
While I disagree with you wholeheartedly, I can see that DX10.1 isn't the first concern for a graphics processor with so little power, but there's nothing wrong with wanting a reasonable feature-set with that GPU. There's also a lot to be said for VIA's encouragement of the ultra small form factors, their commitment to low power consumption, and their products being quite competitive with much larger manufacturers. As it stands now the nano is faster clock-for-clock than the atom and as a system is lower power consumption than the initial atom/945gse (not sure about the current atom northbridge which had improved power consumption over the last generation). Adding a DX10.1 capable 1080p decoding GPU is MILES ahead of pinetrail's GMA500 as well. A system like this would make a great HTPC or netbook setup, with the basics to play back online HD content as well as Blu ray and much more.
Though I'll be the first to admit: I thought there already was a Nano dual core variant, the Chrome 520 (integrated or discrete) is not known for it's 3d performance, VIA's graphics drivers specifically leave things to be desired, and despite having fairly competitive (at least on paper) hardware for a while, OEMs have been slow to pick them up in terms of usage.
Netbooks arent really for gaming, encoding or any other intensive tasks - its a netbook man. & if your the one trying to use it for intesive tasks then its you thats the problem, not the netbook.
I suppose you are right though, having those features is something of a marketing ploy for netbooks which is where you would expect VIA to be aiming their sales.
One other question: is this chip a single die dual-core? Or two chips in one package?
damm, i want to try to built via ssystem but i never seen it on sale
Arch with Xfce would be much nicer.
they really should start shipping netbooks with 2Gb ram as standard. - or if Intel cares to take the 2gb ram limiter off you can slap a 4Gb module in which would just make your netbook tapdance.