VIA C7 CPU with S478

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:48 am

Found this at x86-secret.com:

Babelfish translated with some help from Systran and wrote:It is curiously in CeBIT that we obtained confirmation of the launching of CPUs VIA C7 and C7-M at the time of Computex of Taiwan. Engraved in 90 Nm and announced with 2 GHz with a dissipation of only 7 Watts, C7 will support the SSE2 and SSE3 as well as the NX Bit. Gross innovation: According to our information, C7 will be available for Socket 478 (compatible Pentium 4) whereas the C7-M is available in the form of a CPU Socket 479 and can thus function on mother board Pentium M. If compatibility with the current designs could be assured, it one would be trés good point for C7 of VIA. One speaks to you about the remainder from here a few hours.

They seem to be starting at 1 GHz @ 3.5 W though according to this old press release. About name.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:56 am

Remember that settlement VIA and Intel reached about the lawsuit about P4 chipsets and variuos other patents?

[url=http://www.computerweekly.com/Article120801.htm]ComputerWeekly.com[/url] and dozens other websites wrote:Intel will grant Via a licence to sell microprocessors that are compatible with the x86 instruction set at the heart of Intel's chips, but not those that are pin-compatible or bus-compatible with Intel microprocessors.

Intel also agreed that for three years it will not assert its patents on Via's pin-compatible and bus-compatible microprocessors.

That was in april 2003. So they have till april next year and then Intel can decide to either go to court again or let them bungle some more.

Now considering the length of time between announcements and releases from VIA .................

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:14 pm

Yeah I remember now, think I read it at Slashdot. I can certainly see why VIA want to use S478,
but if they have such an uncertain future with then it sounds risky. Maybe VIA & Intel knows something we haven't heard yet.
The S479 is even more strange to use, since it's still the only socket for PM/Centrino computers, although not for long.
So strange that Intel would take any risk with that one. S478 is just a regular desktop socket growing old, really old.

nmuntz · Post by **nmuntz** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 5:10 pm

I sure hope VIA gets some S478 (or 479) C7 cpu's out soon, with the full RNG and AES features. Those are killer features for crypto buffs.

I'm a big mini-itx fan but sometimes you just need more slots and options. New socket 370 boards and C3's with the Padlock goodies are almost impossible to find.