VIA Demos Dual-Core Nano Processor

[btarunr]

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.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Cuzza]

Ahhh VIA. As much as I want to buy your products, I know it will be 2 years until this actually gets to market. But it's nice to know you're trying.

What the heck does it need a PCI-E x8 for? And DX10.1? A bit pointless.

 

[a_ump]

pointless to us, however as it stated these'll only be able to possible do anything worthwhile in netbooks, low power stuff. stuff that we enthusiasts don't purchase. to the general public when shopping for a netbook or "tiny laptop", the more features they can read on the box the better it is. saying its dx10.1 another feature to list, a gimmick.

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.

 

[cdawall]

Doesn't look to bad should still beat the atom in everything

 

[DaJMasta]

pointless to us, however as it stated these'll only be able to possible do anything worthwhile in netbooks, low power stuff. stuff that we enthusiasts don't purchase. to the general public when shopping for a netbook or "tiny laptop", the more features they can read on the box the better it is. saying its dx10.1 another feature to list, a gimmick.

That's quite an opinion, no enthusiast would want a netbook? Adding features to such hardware is just a gimmick to attract customers?

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.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

pointless to us, however as it stated these'll only be able to possible do anything worthwhile in netbooks, low power stuff. stuff that we enthusiasts don't purchase.

I myself wouldnt mind a netbook - they might not be the most powerful thing in the world but that doesnt mean I have to have quadcore in every peice of technology I have,

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.

 

[(FIH) The Don]

ROFL looks like a old ASUS board hahah

 

[cdawall]

It is an asus mobo its got the name printed in the middle in the normal asus font

 

[a_ump]

That's quite an opinion, no enthusiast would want a netbook? Adding features to such hardware is just a gimmick to attract customers?

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.

It is good to include features...but dx10.1 is useless for the graphics processor from VIA, as it'll never be able to run any dx10/10.1 game at lowest settings, i don't know this forsure but i wouldn't count my statement as unreasonable. So i agree there's nothing wrong with wanting a good feature set, but what is the purpose of a feature that can't even be used?

I myself wouldnt mind a netbook - they might not be the most powerful thing in the world but that doesnt mean I have to have quadcore in every peice of technology I have,

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.

true true, and i wouldn't use it for intensive tasks, but 1.6ghz single core+1gb ram on vista/7 and trying to use Word while listening to music just sang lag to me. i could be wrong on the perf/ghz of the atom but i've never heard them talked very highly of.

 

[Cuzza]

low power stuff. stuff that we enthusiasts don't purchase.

Speak for yourself! There are a whole lot of people such as myself interested in low power, small form factor type stuff that VIA is big on, pico-ITX boards, silent HTPCs and so-on. It's a different type of enthusiast from the gamer/overclocker, but still an enthusiast.

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?

 

[a_ump]

Speak for yourself!

I DO DAMIT!!!!! lol yea i realized i spoke alot of my opinion, read my last post .

 

[wahdangun]

wew, just launch it via, and make it AVAILABLE


damm, i want to try to built via ssystem but i never seen it on sale

 

[pr0n Inspector]

Ahhh VIA. As much as I want to buy your products, I know it will be 2 years until this actually gets to market. But it's nice to know you're trying.

What the heck does it need a PCI-E x8 for? And DX10.1? A bit pointless.

RAID card for custom NAS

 

[FreedomEclipse]

true true, and i wouldn't use it for intensive tasks, but 1.6ghz single core+1gb ram on vista/7 and trying to use Word while listening to music just sang lag to me. i could be wrong on the perf/ghz of the atom but i've never heard them talked very highly of.

yeah the netbooks are extremely poor at multitasking. but installing 2gb ram in it gives it a leap in performance. but 5-8hrs average battery life. im not gonna argue with that. if lag is still a problem then id downgrade the OS to XP Pro or something but it depends how badly you want that perfromance.

 

[a_ump]

yea, in all honesty i'd probly install linux ubuntu or mint if i ever got one as i've seen 10.04 run dam good on a pentium 4 and 1gb of ram. wonder how a 1.6atom compared to a 3.0ghz p4.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

yea, in all honesty i'd probly install linux ubuntu or mint if i ever got one as i've seen 10.04 run dam good on a pentium 4 and 1gb of ram. wonder how a 1.6atom compared to a 3.0ghz p4.

I won't even consider installing Windows on netbooks. too much stuff I will never use on a netbook.

Arch with Xfce would be much nicer.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I won't even consider installing Windows on netbooks. too much stuff I will never use on a netbook.

Windows 7 starter has many of the features of the Premium & Ultimate editions cut off it. but resource wise its still a little overwhelming to a netbook.

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.

 

[Tartaros]

yea, in all honesty i'd probly install linux ubuntu or mint if i ever got one as i've seen 10.04 run dam good on a pentium 4 and 1gb of ram. wonder how a 1.6atom compared to a 3.0ghz p4.

p4 wins

 

[pr0n Inspector]

Windows 7 starter has many of the features of the Premium & Ultimate editions cut off it. but resource wise its still a little overwhelming to a netbook.

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.

Windows integrated too many enterprise-centric features that I will never need nor able to remove without blowing it up. In fact I will go as far as saying Windows is build for corporations then adapted for consumers.