Via [Isaiah]: low-power 64 bit CPU

PeterL · Post by **PeterL** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:40 am

Hi,

Here's 2 links:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... X1K0000532
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/ ... aiah.ars/1

I just noticed this announcement and it looks quite interesting for us silence junkies. Shipping from spring, this new processor means that the low power CPUs from Via get maturity they were sorely missing. Ignoring the long list of buzzwords for a second, the chip would give a factor of 2 to 4 increase of performance at about the same wattage (when run at the same clock speed). Given how the previous chips were very power friendly but had a major performance disadvantage, this is a very welcome upgrade indeed. The highest available clock speed is announced to be 2GHz (compared to 1.2GHz for the previous ones).

Unfortunately, most of the Via processors ship on a motherboard (mini-ITX or smaller) and I don't think these support third-party heatsinks, so we're dependent on their heatsink/fan designs.

Peter.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:06 am

Well, if it is indeed between 2 to 4 times as fast as the old one at the same clock, then it actually might have a reason to exist and will finally be able to compete with the celerons embeded on the intel boards. That would make the chip competitive clock for clock with Athlon64s. For most tasks including most HD video, a single core 2ghz athlon is enough. If Via can match that, which I highly doubt, then the chips might have a chance again. I'm not holding my breath though. I've been let down before by Via.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:12 am

For most tasks including most HD video, a single core 2ghz athlon is enough. If Via can match that

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... brand-core

There were three demonstration units out at Via/Centaur HQ today, a 1.2GHz fanless model running 720p video, a 1.4GHz running a 1080p Blu-Ray movie, and a 2GHz model running various games. With an NV 7950 on board, it ran Crysis acceptably but not at frame rates that would make a Skulltrail blush.

djkest · Post by **djkest** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:19 am

Do you think a 2.0GHz 65nm CPU with a 25W TDP is much different than some of the offerings from AMD. Some of the Athlon 64s or Sempron LEs could probably match this performance, with a lower cost and more flexability. Not to rain on your parade, or anything.

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:50 pm

25W is too much. They're overshooting their niche market, i don't think that's gonna work. I've been a fan of cyrix since the M2, but now the whole CPU industry is dropping power consumption, if they go in the opposite direction they're just gonna lose it. And asside from that, why are their motherboard+cpu combo so god damn costy. It should be low power, low performance, and low price.
For a simple architechture, low power CPU, i think instead of upping the frequency, they should go multi-core. Not that i know anything about CPU design.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:55 pm

25w is probably for the 2GHz model, I'm sure they will have sub-15w models that run at a lower clock and voltage.

If the 2x to 4x increase in performance is true, wow! This is definitely what Via needs, this could really make them competitive with Intel and AMD in the embedded market. Now all they need to do is work on their pricing.

As I suspected, it looks like they ditched the in-order execution in favor of out-of-order. Based on what I've read this was one of the most crippling aspects of the C3 and C7 chips, nice to see they've finally put together an architecture that can compete with the big boys. AMD and Intel have been doing out-of-order for a long time (don't know exactly how long, but I want to say it's been around since the P2/P3 days, maybe earlier).

But even with the improved performance I doubt a 1.4GHz Isaiah could handle software decoding of 720p and 1080p H.264 and VC-1. The display box mentioned earlier must have had a video card with hardware acceleration, or maybe they plan to introduce a new northbridge along with the CPU that has HD decoding acceleration.

djkest · Post by **djkest** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:09 pm

A CPU that is just as fast as a Sempron LE, but more expensive and the same power demand, won't sell for crap. I don't see any advantage to it.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:59 pm

djkest wrote:A CPU that is just as fast as a Sempron LE, but more expensive and the same power demand, won't sell for crap. I don't see any advantage to it.

same power demand? 25W vs 45W is almost half the power usage. sure, you can say the slower Sempron LEs won't use 45W, but then I'm sure the Isaiah doesn't use anywhere near 25W in normal usage either.

dragmor · Post by **dragmor** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:44 pm

jaganath wrote:
djkest wrote:A CPU that is just as fast as a Sempron LE, but more expensive and the same power demand, won't sell for crap. I don't see any advantage to it.
same power demand? 25W vs 45W is almost half the power usage. sure, you can say the slower Sempron LEs won't use 45W, but then I'm sure the Isaiah doesn't use anywhere near 25W in normal usage either.

Yeah but Isaiah will be soldered onto the motherboard. So its really Isaiah @ 2ghz with a via board vs An embedded AMD Sempron 2100+ @ 9w with a 690T motherboard.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:14 pm

The system that was playing the BluRay disk had an AMD 3850 doing all the decoding of the disc. Since h.264 BluRay discs use 10% of my S754 3400+, I would hope the new chip could handle that. In fact, I bet a 500Mhz P3 could handle that. As for 720p video, if the chipset has DxVA acceleration, which has been in video cards since the Geforce MX200, then it can accelerate a mpeg2 720p file, also resulting in low CPU load. Overall, I'm not impressed yet.

=assassin= · Post by **=assassin=** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:39 pm

I was reading about this during my lunchtime. It's good to see via coming out with something more powerful performance wise, but I didn't realise it used to much more power, as 25watts sounds relatively high for their market.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:13 pm

You guys do realize that the C7-D 2.0GHz has a TDP of 20w, right? As with all their previous CPUs I'm sure they will release lower speed and lower voltage models that fall into the sub-15w range. 25w is just the top-end.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:10 pm

VIA seem dead in the water now that Intel are attacking the ITX market and when Silverstone is released later this year this will surely look like a power hog. I know Silverstone isnâ€™t primarily aimed at the ITX market but when combined with a decent chipset it should be excellent for the ITX market.
Take a look at this article on Digitimes which shows Viaâ€™s overall market share dropping from 1.42 to 0.28% between 2006 and 2007. I canâ€™t see this helping them now that AMD and Intel are addressing this market area.

autoboy wrote:As for 720p video, if the chipset has DxVA acceleration, which has been in video cards since the Geforce MX200, then it can accelerate a mpeg2 720p file, also resulting in low CPU load.

This surprises me as even the recent ATI HD 2400/2600 cards struggle a bit with acceleration of HD MPEG2 although this may be in reference to 1080P rather than 720P.

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:02 pm

The interesting thing is they are promissing this to be compatible with current mobo for C7. I wonder if their dual-core will also be backward compatible. Wonder if i should go ahead and get a cheap via pc2500 mobo+c7 combo and replace the chip with an isaiah later on. But then i don't know how availability will be the standalone cpu, don't think many etailer will be carrying them.

EDIT: it seems like it's soldered on, what the suxxor

AiZ · Post by **AiZ** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:30 am

Hello,

Not just as fast as a Sempron LE...

http://we.pcinlife.com/thread-882062-1-1.html

(Last CPU on graphs is Celeron 440, afaik)

AiZ

Mariner · Post by **Mariner** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:10 am

Unfortunately, those figures aren't really a great deal of use without knowing how much power the Isaiah was drawing.

The performance figures shown might not seem overly impressive but if it was drawing considerably less power than the other chips it could be that this new CPU is another good option for Silent PC enthusiasts.