Thursday, January 8, 2009
AMD Phenom II X4 940
AMD is introducing yet another CPU- this time it’s the follow up to their high-end desktop CPU and is being labeled as Phenom II. We received the X4-940 version, which is currently the highest end in the Phenom II range, clocked at 3.0Ghz and featuring four cores. With the Core i7 from Intel already dominating the benchmarks, lets find out if the Phenom II can hold its own or if it’s a bit too little too late from AMD.
AMD Phenom 2 X4 940 Black Edition Processor Review
Today we will be taking a look at the latest processor in the Phenom family, the Phenom 2 X4 940 Black Edition. This CPU will be AMDs highest performing processor until the DDR3 variants reach the market later this year. Through a selection of benchmarks including media encoding, Photoshop and gaming we will establish how good the Phenom 2 is, and whether it is worth the upgrade for existing Phenom users.
AMD releases Phenom II X4 and Dragon desktop platform
Las Vegas (NV) - AMD took the opportunity to use the CES 2009 forum to officially release its latest update to its 64-bit line of 45nm microprocessors. Phenom II X4 and Dragon platform for desktop PCs represent an "elite-level" of computing performance for about $900. But what do the benchmarks say?
The new Phenom II X4 sports a new numbering convention. The 940 model relates more directly to Intel's number scheme, and runs at 3.0 GHz. The quad-core Phenom II X4 is built on a 45nm process technology, Deneb core, contains 758 million transistors, is Socket AM2 compatible. It has proven easily overclockable so far. HotHardware.com has gotten the 940 model to 3.73 GHz (a 24.3% overclock).
A 920 model was also released at 2.8 GHz. Both models sport a 6 MB shared L3 cache. Power consumption drops from previous high-end 140W TDP to a more common 125W TDP at 3.0 GHz. L1 cache remains the same, 64KB data, 64KB instruction; with an L2 cache of 512KB per core. It includes an update to Cool'n'Quiet 3.0, though most other specs remain the same as previous high-end Phenoms.
AMD's Dragon PC platform sports an ATI Radeon 4800 GPU and AMD 790GX chipset, with HyperTransport 3.0, support for DDR2-1333 (and DDR3 memory on Socket AM3 versions with 880G chipset - due out later, probably in February), DirectX 10.1 (DisplayPort available in future 880G chipset), Cool'n'Quiet 3.0 support along with platform idea concepts, such as a call for quieter fans. The previous Spider platform used a Radeon 3800-series GPU and 700-Series chipset, including 790FX or 790GX.
Additional conceptual features include AMD's Fusion for Gaming - which is a feature allowing users single-click access to suspend background tasks thereby increasing performance for gaming; AMD's OverDrive utility which helps with overclocking (though AMD indicates overclocking of any kind voids the warranty); ATI Catalyst 8.12 and ATI Stream technology for GPGPU acceleration of several popular apps; and a new AMD Fusion Media Explorer Beta which "Simplifies the entertainment experiencing by enabling a simple but powerful way for consumers to interact with their music, photos, movies, TV and social media on their PC. This utility offers one-button postings of photos to Facebook™ accounts as well as automatic related media searches when the system is online, etc."
Reviews out at Tom's Hardware, The Tech Report and HotHardware.com indicate that at idle the CPU throttles down to 800 MHz and 0.992 volts with Cool'n'Quiet 3.0, resulting in a CPU energy consumption of 10.3 watts for 940, 10.0 watts for 920, and a platform energy consumption of 113.4 and 112.5 watts, respectively - which is currently "best in class" platform-wise.
Under heavy loads power consumption increases to 93.3 and 87.9 watts for CPU alone, and 204.8 and 199.4 watts for 940 and 920, respectively, which is only bested by Phenom X4 9350's 127.7 watts and Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 (which Intel discontinued yesterday) at 203.1 watts.
On benchmarks, Phenom II X4 940 is roughly 15% to 19% faster than Phenom X4 9950 across the board in gaming and compute applications, with the highest differences coming in Mainconcept H.264 compression which is 19.8% faster, Unreal Tournament 3 which is also 19.8% faster. The slowest increase came in Supreme Commander, which was 1.5% and Studio 12 which was 6.9%. 18 other benchmarks on Tom's Hardware were at least 15% faster.
In a break from tradition, Tom's Hardware is showing a relative percentage comparison for comparable platforms and applications, but is not doing full graphs with individual specs. For example, on average Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 (now discontinued) is 9% slower on average than Phenom II X4 940 (faster on all benchmarks, min is 0.7%, max is 22.6%). With Core i7 920 systems, Intel's offering performs 22% better on average. Some benchmarks include better performances of 60.5% and 43.3%.
Products are immediately available. Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition, 3.0 GHz, 6 MB L3 sells for $275. 920 2.8 GHz version sells for $235. AMD claims the following system can be purchased for approximately $900: "Dragon platform technology consisting of the new AMD Phenom II X4 processor, ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 1GB graphics card, the AMD 790GX motherboard and 4 GB of DDR2-1066 memory."
The new Phenom II X4 sports a new numbering convention. The 940 model relates more directly to Intel's number scheme, and runs at 3.0 GHz. The quad-core Phenom II X4 is built on a 45nm process technology, Deneb core, contains 758 million transistors, is Socket AM2 compatible. It has proven easily overclockable so far. HotHardware.com has gotten the 940 model to 3.73 GHz (a 24.3% overclock).
A 920 model was also released at 2.8 GHz. Both models sport a 6 MB shared L3 cache. Power consumption drops from previous high-end 140W TDP to a more common 125W TDP at 3.0 GHz. L1 cache remains the same, 64KB data, 64KB instruction; with an L2 cache of 512KB per core. It includes an update to Cool'n'Quiet 3.0, though most other specs remain the same as previous high-end Phenoms.
AMD's Dragon PC platform sports an ATI Radeon 4800 GPU and AMD 790GX chipset, with HyperTransport 3.0, support for DDR2-1333 (and DDR3 memory on Socket AM3 versions with 880G chipset - due out later, probably in February), DirectX 10.1 (DisplayPort available in future 880G chipset), Cool'n'Quiet 3.0 support along with platform idea concepts, such as a call for quieter fans. The previous Spider platform used a Radeon 3800-series GPU and 700-Series chipset, including 790FX or 790GX.
Additional conceptual features include AMD's Fusion for Gaming - which is a feature allowing users single-click access to suspend background tasks thereby increasing performance for gaming; AMD's OverDrive utility which helps with overclocking (though AMD indicates overclocking of any kind voids the warranty); ATI Catalyst 8.12 and ATI Stream technology for GPGPU acceleration of several popular apps; and a new AMD Fusion Media Explorer Beta which "Simplifies the entertainment experiencing by enabling a simple but powerful way for consumers to interact with their music, photos, movies, TV and social media on their PC. This utility offers one-button postings of photos to Facebook™ accounts as well as automatic related media searches when the system is online, etc."
Reviews out at Tom's Hardware, The Tech Report and HotHardware.com indicate that at idle the CPU throttles down to 800 MHz and 0.992 volts with Cool'n'Quiet 3.0, resulting in a CPU energy consumption of 10.3 watts for 940, 10.0 watts for 920, and a platform energy consumption of 113.4 and 112.5 watts, respectively - which is currently "best in class" platform-wise.
Under heavy loads power consumption increases to 93.3 and 87.9 watts for CPU alone, and 204.8 and 199.4 watts for 940 and 920, respectively, which is only bested by Phenom X4 9350's 127.7 watts and Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 (which Intel discontinued yesterday) at 203.1 watts.
On benchmarks, Phenom II X4 940 is roughly 15% to 19% faster than Phenom X4 9950 across the board in gaming and compute applications, with the highest differences coming in Mainconcept H.264 compression which is 19.8% faster, Unreal Tournament 3 which is also 19.8% faster. The slowest increase came in Supreme Commander, which was 1.5% and Studio 12 which was 6.9%. 18 other benchmarks on Tom's Hardware were at least 15% faster.
In a break from tradition, Tom's Hardware is showing a relative percentage comparison for comparable platforms and applications, but is not doing full graphs with individual specs. For example, on average Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 (now discontinued) is 9% slower on average than Phenom II X4 940 (faster on all benchmarks, min is 0.7%, max is 22.6%). With Core i7 920 systems, Intel's offering performs 22% better on average. Some benchmarks include better performances of 60.5% and 43.3%.
Products are immediately available. Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition, 3.0 GHz, 6 MB L3 sells for $275. 920 2.8 GHz version sells for $235. AMD claims the following system can be purchased for approximately $900: "Dragon platform technology consisting of the new AMD Phenom II X4 processor, ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 1GB graphics card, the AMD 790GX motherboard and 4 GB of DDR2-1066 memory."
AMD debuts 45nm desktop CPUs
Advanced Micro Devices announced at the Consumer Electronics Show the second processor design to come out of its new 45nm process technology. The Phenom II is a quad-core family of desktop processors running up to 3 GHz with up to 8 Mbytes of on-board cache.
AMD officially rolled out its first 45nm CPUs just weeks ago. The Shanghai processors are quad-core chips aimed at PC servers.
Archrival Intel Corp. already rolled out its second-generation of 45nm chips, starting with desktop versions released in mid-November. The Core i7 CPUs are Intel's first to use an AMD-like architecture of having on-board memory controllers and high-speed processor interconnects.
The AMD Phenom II chips provide up to 20 percent improvements in performance over the original 65nm Phenom CPUs which ran at up to 2.6 GHz. The boost comes from faster data rates, doubling of total cache, improvements in instructions per clock and use of DDR3.
AMD is positioning its parts as having roughly similar performance to Intel's latest desktop chips at significantly lower costs.
"This will be a great spoiler product, well positioned against Core i7," said Simon Solotko, senior brand manager in AMD's desktop division. "There's no good reason to spend hundreds of dollars more on a platform," he added.
AMD is pricing the 3.0 GHz Phenom II for $275 and a 2.8 GHz version for $235. The chips are expected to appear in systems at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The competing Intel Core i7 chips include the 965 Extreme Edition, a 3.2 GHz part with 8 Mbytes L3 cache aimed at enthusiast systems and costing $999 and a low-end 920 part running at 2.66 GHz and selling for $284. They are already shipping in several OEM systems.
The CPUs initially come in versions supporting the company's AM2+ socket for DDR2 memory. Later this year AMD will ship versions for its AM3 socket for DDR3 memory.
AMD officially rolled out its first 45nm CPUs just weeks ago. The Shanghai processors are quad-core chips aimed at PC servers.
Archrival Intel Corp. already rolled out its second-generation of 45nm chips, starting with desktop versions released in mid-November. The Core i7 CPUs are Intel's first to use an AMD-like architecture of having on-board memory controllers and high-speed processor interconnects.
The AMD Phenom II chips provide up to 20 percent improvements in performance over the original 65nm Phenom CPUs which ran at up to 2.6 GHz. The boost comes from faster data rates, doubling of total cache, improvements in instructions per clock and use of DDR3.
AMD is positioning its parts as having roughly similar performance to Intel's latest desktop chips at significantly lower costs.
"This will be a great spoiler product, well positioned against Core i7," said Simon Solotko, senior brand manager in AMD's desktop division. "There's no good reason to spend hundreds of dollars more on a platform," he added.
AMD is pricing the 3.0 GHz Phenom II for $275 and a 2.8 GHz version for $235. The chips are expected to appear in systems at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The competing Intel Core i7 chips include the 965 Extreme Edition, a 3.2 GHz part with 8 Mbytes L3 cache aimed at enthusiast systems and costing $999 and a low-end 920 part running at 2.66 GHz and selling for $284. They are already shipping in several OEM systems.
The CPUs initially come in versions supporting the company's AM2+ socket for DDR2 memory. Later this year AMD will ship versions for its AM3 socket for DDR3 memory.
First Look: AMD Phenom II
As a new year begins, the seemingly age-old processor war moves on.
On Wednesday, Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) (AMD) is launching its first line of CPUs built with 45 nm technology. Dubbed the Phenom II, the pair of quad-core processors are the 3.0GHz X4 940 Black Edition and the 2.8GHz X4 920. The Test Center got a pre-release unit of the X4 940 and ran it through our standard tests to see how it stands up.
The Phenom II is considered the heart of AMD's newly announced Dragon platform, which also consists of ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics (AMD acquired ATI in 2006), AMD 7-series chipsets and AMD software. The goal of Dragon is to enable computers for high-definition gaming, video processing and entertainment at an affordable price.
The X4 940 carries AMD's traditional Black Edition moniker, which signifies its unlocked multiplier. As such, this will likely make it popular among the overclocking community. Keeping the latest AM2+ form factor, the new processors will be backward compatible with most current motherboards, although a BIOS update will most likely be needed.
Major feature enhancements include an 8 MB total cache (L2+L3) and additional power states that provide a lower power idle and lower power consumption under moderate load when used with the company's Cool'n'Quiet 3.0 Technology (enabled via the BIOS).
Our test system consisted of an NZXT chassis and PSU, with the X4 940 installed into an MSI DKA790GX Platinum motherboard and 4 GB of Kingston Technologies ValueRAM memory. We decided to stick with the motherboard's integrated Radeon HD 3300 GPU to focus on the capabilities of the processor.
After installing Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 and all the necessary drivers, and updating the OS with the latest patches, we ran the latest version of Primate Labs' benchmarking program Geekbench2, which returned a respectable score of 5,477. Since this is a Black Edition processor, reviewers then decided to do some minor overclocking to see how far we could push the X4 940. Using only a heatsink and fan for cooling, we focused primarily on the FSB frequency, slowly increasing the setting, and rebooting after each change to run Geekbench2 again. This allowed us to track performance gains, while at the same time putting the system under a load to check for stability.
As is usually the case, eventually the blue screens started appearing and we had to throttle back a little to get the OS steady again. In the end, we were able to bump the clock up to 3.50GHz and achieve a Geekbench2 score of 6,392. Were it not forIntel (NSDQ: INTC) (NSDQ:INTC)'s latest Core i7 models built on the Nehalem microarchitecture, this would have been the highest score the Test Center had seen for a desktop system. In the near future, we intend to resume overclocking the X4 940 a little more aggressively, with the addition of liquid cooling.
Of course, it really isn't fair to compare the Phenom II to the Core i7. Although their stock processor speeds are similar, the Core i7 is priced significantly higher.
Additionally, it brings with it a list of necessities, such as a new motherboard and DDR3 memory with specific voltage requirements. This essentially means you need a whole new system.
At the end of the day, both companies have their loyal fan base that will argue to the death why one is better than the other. What it basically comes down to is a balance between price and performance. Although a new system built around Nehalem will probably be the top performer, it will cost you. With the Phenom II and AMD's Dragon platform, a powerful system can be built for a relatively lower price.
At $275 and $235 respectively (priced in 1KU quantities), the X4 920 and X4 940 are great options for those with fairly new AMD-based computers who would like to upgrade to the latest processor. They also allow system builders and VARs to upgrade their standard models without adding a whole new list of SKUs to their inventory.
On Wednesday, Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) (AMD) is launching its first line of CPUs built with 45 nm technology. Dubbed the Phenom II, the pair of quad-core processors are the 3.0GHz X4 940 Black Edition and the 2.8GHz X4 920. The Test Center got a pre-release unit of the X4 940 and ran it through our standard tests to see how it stands up.
The Phenom II is considered the heart of AMD's newly announced Dragon platform, which also consists of ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics (AMD acquired ATI in 2006), AMD 7-series chipsets and AMD software. The goal of Dragon is to enable computers for high-definition gaming, video processing and entertainment at an affordable price.
The X4 940 carries AMD's traditional Black Edition moniker, which signifies its unlocked multiplier. As such, this will likely make it popular among the overclocking community. Keeping the latest AM2+ form factor, the new processors will be backward compatible with most current motherboards, although a BIOS update will most likely be needed.
Major feature enhancements include an 8 MB total cache (L2+L3) and additional power states that provide a lower power idle and lower power consumption under moderate load when used with the company's Cool'n'Quiet 3.0 Technology (enabled via the BIOS).
Our test system consisted of an NZXT chassis and PSU, with the X4 940 installed into an MSI DKA790GX Platinum motherboard and 4 GB of Kingston Technologies ValueRAM memory. We decided to stick with the motherboard's integrated Radeon HD 3300 GPU to focus on the capabilities of the processor.
After installing Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 and all the necessary drivers, and updating the OS with the latest patches, we ran the latest version of Primate Labs' benchmarking program Geekbench2, which returned a respectable score of 5,477. Since this is a Black Edition processor, reviewers then decided to do some minor overclocking to see how far we could push the X4 940. Using only a heatsink and fan for cooling, we focused primarily on the FSB frequency, slowly increasing the setting, and rebooting after each change to run Geekbench2 again. This allowed us to track performance gains, while at the same time putting the system under a load to check for stability.
As is usually the case, eventually the blue screens started appearing and we had to throttle back a little to get the OS steady again. In the end, we were able to bump the clock up to 3.50GHz and achieve a Geekbench2 score of 6,392. Were it not forIntel (NSDQ: INTC) (NSDQ:INTC)'s latest Core i7 models built on the Nehalem microarchitecture, this would have been the highest score the Test Center had seen for a desktop system. In the near future, we intend to resume overclocking the X4 940 a little more aggressively, with the addition of liquid cooling.
Of course, it really isn't fair to compare the Phenom II to the Core i7. Although their stock processor speeds are similar, the Core i7 is priced significantly higher.
Additionally, it brings with it a list of necessities, such as a new motherboard and DDR3 memory with specific voltage requirements. This essentially means you need a whole new system.
At the end of the day, both companies have their loyal fan base that will argue to the death why one is better than the other. What it basically comes down to is a balance between price and performance. Although a new system built around Nehalem will probably be the top performer, it will cost you. With the Phenom II and AMD's Dragon platform, a powerful system can be built for a relatively lower price.
At $275 and $235 respectively (priced in 1KU quantities), the X4 920 and X4 940 are great options for those with fairly new AMD-based computers who would like to upgrade to the latest processor. They also allow system builders and VARs to upgrade their standard models without adding a whole new list of SKUs to their inventory.
AMD readies low-cost, low-power "ultra value" CPUs
On top of prepping some very interesting hardware for ultra-portable laptops, AMD is also bringing some very low-cost CPUs to the market looking to capture more low-cost desktop PCs. AMD has released two new processors, both under 2Ghz, which will attempt to compete with the Atom and other processors the like lower-end Celerons.
The Athlon 2650e will be a 1.6GHz part with 512KB of L2 cache, and the Athlon X2 3250e will be a 1.5GHz part with 1MB of L2 cache. They will have TDPs of 15W and 22W, respectively, quite a bit more than the Atom which uses anywhere from a third to a fourth of that much power. The platform as a whole won't be more power-hungry than Intel's offerings, as the CPU + Chipset together will still have a TDP of 27W, the same as a 945G Atom-based offering. The CPUs will be sold at a fairly low price point, as low as $40, aimed at the “Ultra-Value Clients.”
The Atom is doing well right now, though there is clearly room for improvement in the low-power market. Via’s Nano has a lot of changes planned, some vendors (like Asus) are preferring the Celeron over the Atom and the performance of the CPU still leaves a lot to be desired. If AMD's low-cost, low-power CPUs can give the Atom a run for its money in both price and performance, they have a good shot at stealing away some of its market.
The Athlon 2650e will be a 1.6GHz part with 512KB of L2 cache, and the Athlon X2 3250e will be a 1.5GHz part with 1MB of L2 cache. They will have TDPs of 15W and 22W, respectively, quite a bit more than the Atom which uses anywhere from a third to a fourth of that much power. The platform as a whole won't be more power-hungry than Intel's offerings, as the CPU + Chipset together will still have a TDP of 27W, the same as a 945G Atom-based offering. The CPUs will be sold at a fairly low price point, as low as $40, aimed at the “Ultra-Value Clients.”
The Atom is doing well right now, though there is clearly room for improvement in the low-power market. Via’s Nano has a lot of changes planned, some vendors (like Asus) are preferring the Celeron over the Atom and the performance of the CPU still leaves a lot to be desired. If AMD's low-cost, low-power CPUs can give the Atom a run for its money in both price and performance, they have a good shot at stealing away some of its market.
AMD, Via Battle Intel's Atom
Mark my words: 2009 will be the year of the affordable portable computer. Last year people showed that they were hungry for netbooks, but this year we'll see the birth of a new class of computer, an ultrathin laptop that can offer a little more than just basic performance. About a month ago, nVidia raised the stakes when it started to show off its Ion platform concept, an nVidia GeForce 9400M GPU married to an Intel Atom CPU on a tiny motherboard.
Earlier this week, for CES, AMD made its case with its new Neo mobile processors (code-named Yukon). Think of the Neo as a step up from Intel's Atom and a competitor to the Ion. AMD sees the Neo as part of a new class of ultraportable that could cost between $700 and $1400.
HP's Pavilion dv2 seems to be the poster child for the new AMD processor. The dv2 is fully loaded with features, all packed into a 11.50-by-9.45-by-0.93-inch, 3.8-pound magnesium-alloy frame--the most obvious feature being the 1.6-GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 CPU. In addition, the dv2 hosts a full suite of external ports (three USB 2.0 ports, VGA, RJ-45/ethernet, headphone/line-out, microphone-in, a five-in-one digital media reader), Wi-Fi connectivity, and optional Gobi WWAN integration. I'm especially curious to see how well graphics from the ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 GPU will look on the machine's 12.1-inch-diagonal, WXGA (1280 by 800) LED screen.
Via Vies for Position
Via, which claims to hold 10 to 15 percent of the netbook market, was one of the first companies to dip a toe into the budget-processor waters. The C7-M (certainly not a speedy CPU) showed up in a couple of lightweight laptops, such as the HP 2133, early last year. And this year a few more models will be coming stateside; at CES, spokespeople are promising that several new laptops based on the C7-M are on the way. That's rather ho-hum news--unless, of course, we get to see some slick new designs. For example, I'm hearing rumblings about a company, WonderMedia, that will have ARM-based mobile products using Via chip sets, devices that will be mostly a screen and a pull-down keyboard.
The slightly more exciting bit is seeing what Via's Nano platform can pull off. One machine on hand is Dr. Mobile's FreeStyle 1300n, which breaks netbook rules (as handed down by Microsoft until now) with a 11.3-inch, 1366-by-768-pixel screen. This little number will measure 11 by 7.8 by 0.9 inches, and promises to be, as Via's Timothy Brown says, a flagship product. It'll pack in WWAN support and be WiMax-ready, and the 1.3-GHz Nano CPU will be able to run Windows XP or, Via claims, Windows Vista Home Basic. (Sorry, but I still have painful memories of watching a C7-M slog through Vista on the HP 2133. I hope never to repeat that.)
As I mentioned earlier, AMD and Via are obviously far from alone in this market--who knows how long it will be before we see a couple vendors biting on nVidia's Ion platform? (I sure hope to see some vendors demoing units behind closed doors.) That leaves the big, blue, 800-pound gorilla squatting in the middle of the room. Intel currently owns the low-end space with the Atom processor, but no news of a next-gen mobile CPU is coming out of the company during CES. Intel is, however, more than happy to show off its Personal Area Network tech, My WiFi (the artist formerly known as "Cliffside"). This technology, already built into Centrino 2 chip sets, turns a laptop into an access point--perfect if you want to do something like sync your digital camera with your laptop. The good news here: You're just a firmware upgrade away.
Earlier this week, for CES, AMD made its case with its new Neo mobile processors (code-named Yukon). Think of the Neo as a step up from Intel's Atom and a competitor to the Ion. AMD sees the Neo as part of a new class of ultraportable that could cost between $700 and $1400.
HP's Pavilion dv2 seems to be the poster child for the new AMD processor. The dv2 is fully loaded with features, all packed into a 11.50-by-9.45-by-0.93-inch, 3.8-pound magnesium-alloy frame--the most obvious feature being the 1.6-GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 CPU. In addition, the dv2 hosts a full suite of external ports (three USB 2.0 ports, VGA, RJ-45/ethernet, headphone/line-out, microphone-in, a five-in-one digital media reader), Wi-Fi connectivity, and optional Gobi WWAN integration. I'm especially curious to see how well graphics from the ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 GPU will look on the machine's 12.1-inch-diagonal, WXGA (1280 by 800) LED screen.
Via Vies for Position
Via, which claims to hold 10 to 15 percent of the netbook market, was one of the first companies to dip a toe into the budget-processor waters. The C7-M (certainly not a speedy CPU) showed up in a couple of lightweight laptops, such as the HP 2133, early last year. And this year a few more models will be coming stateside; at CES, spokespeople are promising that several new laptops based on the C7-M are on the way. That's rather ho-hum news--unless, of course, we get to see some slick new designs. For example, I'm hearing rumblings about a company, WonderMedia, that will have ARM-based mobile products using Via chip sets, devices that will be mostly a screen and a pull-down keyboard.
The slightly more exciting bit is seeing what Via's Nano platform can pull off. One machine on hand is Dr. Mobile's FreeStyle 1300n, which breaks netbook rules (as handed down by Microsoft until now) with a 11.3-inch, 1366-by-768-pixel screen. This little number will measure 11 by 7.8 by 0.9 inches, and promises to be, as Via's Timothy Brown says, a flagship product. It'll pack in WWAN support and be WiMax-ready, and the 1.3-GHz Nano CPU will be able to run Windows XP or, Via claims, Windows Vista Home Basic. (Sorry, but I still have painful memories of watching a C7-M slog through Vista on the HP 2133. I hope never to repeat that.)
As I mentioned earlier, AMD and Via are obviously far from alone in this market--who knows how long it will be before we see a couple vendors biting on nVidia's Ion platform? (I sure hope to see some vendors demoing units behind closed doors.) That leaves the big, blue, 800-pound gorilla squatting in the middle of the room. Intel currently owns the low-end space with the Atom processor, but no news of a next-gen mobile CPU is coming out of the company during CES. Intel is, however, more than happy to show off its Personal Area Network tech, My WiFi (the artist formerly known as "Cliffside"). This technology, already built into Centrino 2 chip sets, turns a laptop into an access point--perfect if you want to do something like sync your digital camera with your laptop. The good news here: You're just a firmware upgrade away.
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