Via has long pushed to have its Nano CPU taken as seriously as the Intel Atom and ARM chipsets, but until now it has come up short. So could this be the answer?
Today the company has launched the ‘Nano 3000 Series‘, its second-generation Nano line and one which aims to pose a serious performance threat to current Intel Atom processors. How much? Well, Via is claiming the new line will outperform identically clocked Atom’s by as much as 42 per cent in industry benchmark PC Mark, while its ‘Chrome9 HC3′ integrated graphics can output 1080p high definition video. A final cherry on the top is the promise of a 20 per cent power reduction compared to the original Nanos.
So it’s all smooth sailing, right? Not really. Look closer and you’ll see the Nano 3000 Series isn’t really a second generation product at all. It remains a single core solution, is fabricated to the same 65-nm process as its forebears and has the same 800MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) and 1MB Level 2 cache. Instead, the speed boost comes from Via adding support for SSE4 instructions, while the flagship clock rate has been increased from 1.8 GHz to 2 GHz.
Sure these are all welcome, but the problem is one of timing. Via is looking for the Nano 3000 Series to enter mass production in Q1 2010 – exactly the same time as new, considerably faster Atom processors are due to arrive. Intel also claims it will considerably speed up Atom development with talk of dual core chips in the near future. Finally, couple this with Intel’s ubiquitous design wins, the arguably larger threat of CULV and multi-core potential of ARM’s Cortex 5 and the lean times for Via could well continue.
This is something of a shame since Via has shown its commitment to the smartbook cause with the Netnote, but in sum the Nano 3000 Series could be too little, just slightly too late…
Gordon
