Preview: VIA VN1000 And Nano DC Platform: An IGP With Game?
Table of contents
- 1. A New Player In The Desktop Game?
- 2. VIA’s Preview Platform
- 3. Competing Platforms
- 4. Test Settings
- 5. Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- 6. Benchmark Results: Crysis
- 7. Benchmark Results: DiRT 2
It's been a long time since we've previewed a VIA chipset. And yet, here we are with an S3-based DX10 GPU that VIA claims is ready for gaming. How does the VN1000 compare to Intel's Atom and Nvidia's ION? Is it strong enough to ward off Core i3?
It seems like AMD and Intel have always been the only two players in the CPU game, battling each other for market supremacy through price wars and technological advancement that continue to make their parts ever-denser and more power hungry. That hasn't always been the case, though. And it's actually not even the case today.
Intel took a big step in the direction of efficiency by killing its Pentium 4, but many of its newest parts still push more than 100 W under load. It seems that every time a new competitor steps out with something interesting, Intel is right behind them with its foot on the accelerator. Further limiting this game is the fact that Intel owns the x86 instruction set, and isn’t ready to issue any new licenses.
Yet there was one other company (besides AMD) with an x86 license, back from the days when IBM had the power to force Intel to sell them. VIA bought Cyrix and turned what had been a mediocre desktop CPU into a highly-successful low-energy part. A few generations worth of improvements later, and VIA is ready to re-enter the desktop market with a high-frequency dual-core version of its popular Nano processor.
With a pre-production CPU clocked at 1.80 GHz, the Nano DC (dual-core) platform that arrived in our lab is more a testament to the company's ingenuity than a representation of production-ready hardware. Yet, VIA is confident in the CPU's performance as it waits on its manufacturer to supply a die-shrunk version. Moreover, it wanted us to see what it’s doing with IGP graphics. Today’s article isn’t just proof-of-concept for a CPU, but an entire platform with a DX10.1 integrated GPU expected to lay waste to low-energy competitors.
VIA flew out from Taiwan to hand-deliver this sample to our lab and reminded us that it was still around, alive and kicking. Will that tenacity carry over into entry-level computing success? The company has had almost an entire year to polish up this platform, which was announced in December of 2009. Let's see how it fares in today's much more competitive market.
- Hardware,
- chrome-520 ,
- nano-dc ,
- vn1000
Latest Motherboards News
- 25/05 – Thunderbolt Will Become Key Motherboard Spec in 2H 2012
- 22/05 – Does Your AMD FX Platform BSOD with Steam? Read This.
- 04/05 – 54 Million Enthusiast and Performance PC Gamers Globally
- 01/05 – Intel's Next Unit of Computing Rivals Raspberry Pi in Size
- 10/04 – Intel P67 Express Chipset Begins Product Discontinuance Cycle
Latest Motherboards reviews
- 30/04 – Six Sub-£160 Z77 Motherboards, Benchmarked And Reviewed
- 23/04 – Video Teaser: Intel's DZ77GA-70K Motherboard
- 17/04 – Overclocking: Asus Rampage IV Extreme Versus EVGA X79 FTW
- 08/04 – Intel’s Z77 Express And Lucidlogix MVP: New Features...
- 27/02 – Six £165-£215 LGA 2011 Motherboards, Reviewed
Good to see someone taking the fight to Intel. Very cool if it's faster clock-for-clock than Atom. I use a single core Atom Netbook sometimes and TBH it's fine for web use, light office use and watching the odd saved movie. My i7 Desktop is monstrous overkill for most of the real work it does, even running a translation package in Office 2007.
Therefore, surely if this platform is the middle ground, and from VIA, and dare I say it affordable [how much does it cost anyway?], then bloomin' good luck to them. Hope business customers, and low power system builders buy them and keep VIA in the running.
However, is Bobcat going to hang them all out to dry?
Am I the only one that shivers or feels their heart sink at the mention of the words "VIA chipset"?
Sorry VIA but you just failed way too often in the past with flakey USB chipsets, bad motherboard config issues and the like to really trust again.
If you cant get a USB chipset right then what can you do?
Am I the only one that shivers or feels their heart sink at the mention of the words "VIA chipset"?Sorry VIA but you just failed way too often in the past with flakey USB chipsets, bad motherboard config issues and the like to really trust again.If you cant get a USB chipset right then what can you do?
I personally own 2x P4M900 Via chipset boards and I would say its rock stable. Also it doesn't allow boot from USB drives but I was able to pull off a 33% overclock on my E5400 from 2.7Ghz to 3.6Ghz.
You're missing the point, its good to see competition. More choices for customers like us and competetion = cheaper products. Personally I would like to see Via crank up their CPU to like 3GHz and move onto 32nm and then pwn the i3? It wasn't far off despite being clocked 1.2Ghz slower than the i3. But it ain't happening, Via come out with good products but they never get into the market. Say the S3 Chrome 540 and Nano, it was good but it never made it to the actual market. I would love to see a Via Nano netbook.
Yeah but its too late. Too many of us got burnt with VIA KT7 boards back around the turn of the century. Those USB ports that couldnt push enough voltage, the old soundcard/PCI slot switcheroo lottery.
No thanks. VIA are a spent force. Time to sell their CPU licence to someone who can make better use of it.
A Via + Nvidia compliation would be ideal. Via Nano DC + Nvidia Tegra or ION. Now we will see serious action.