Thursday, January 3rd 2008
VIA Focuses on Own CPUs
VIA Technologies, a firm which is probably best known for producing chipsets for AMD and Intel motherboards, has merged its CPU and chipset divisions to allow it to focus on supporting its own brand CPUs. This is according to the Chinese Apply Daily, which says the company plans to slowly phase-out development of chipsets for third-party products, although it will continue to support both its AMD chipsets and any older Intel chipsets not affected by patent issues. The firm has not yet completely given up on negotiations with Intel to acquire a patent contract, but it certainly seems to have its sights set on bigger things with its CPUs.
Source:
DIGITIMES
25 Comments on VIA Focuses on Own CPUs
1.It will come out to be some low rate underpreforming chip like cyrix
2.come out with a mad fast not compatible with anything mainstream like sparc
3.actually come out with something like intel and amd's chips.
As for the VIA products, they're aimed at the low power market, not performance.
@solaris, the C7 was the successor to the C3 which was named Cyrix III before. It's the same product.
In fact, AMD's first Geodes were relabeled Cyrix MediaGX chips as well. And Cyrix used to perform quite decently in its days. Only the last generations were crap, ie the once that faced the later generation Pentiums. But in that respect AMD was a joke as well, so it's rather unfair to call Cyrix low rate underperforming chips. Unless you wish to apply the same logic to AMD. Besides, after the S7 days they made a few SS7 chips and then VIA turned them into low power S370 things in which they did their job well. Sure they offered relatively low performance but they could be cooled passively and later even run in dual setups.
Even funnier, just like people call AMD innovative nowadays Cyrix was way ahead, the MediaGX chips had sound and video in the CPU. Now that's innovation.
A walk down memory lane:
www.tomshardware.com/2001/09/02/accelerating_athlon/ Nice idea in theory, but AMD is cash strapped at the moment, and besides VIA has nothing to offer. I mean nothing at all. Kind of sad when you think about it.
Intel: Stop making CPU or we'll cut your design patents for making chipset for our processors
VIA: FO!
Intel: Huh!?
VIA has been a brilliant chipset maker and an equally viable CPU maker...just because we don't see them on Newegg doesn't mean they don't exist. Tey very much do and their low-cost, low-power processors in the nano-BGA package find immense application in embedded systems environments. Their prioritising on CPU production is just indicating that they are willing to expand from the market that are selling these processors. They're just playing it safe and not making statements on what they're making after they fumbled in making the S3 Chrome S27 (A powerful graphics processor that wasn't good enough to face NVidia or ATI but was powerful nonetheless). Acquiring the likes of Centaur and Cyrix they do have a decent team of engineers, just that if Intel is not willing to license them the latest SIMD instruction sets they can always work with AMD. VIA is not a company you can write off, they've made enough money selling IEEE 1394 controllers to high-end motherboard vendors. They're the single company that kept AMD alive after ALi went down and before NForce took over.
anyone remember PT880? it outperfromed i865PE in every test but one. source
how about K8T800 PRO? it outperformed Nforce3 250GB in most tests yet again source
how about K8M890? performs with the current 580X/590SLi boards source
funny all of its competitors boards cost what 4X as much sometime 5X or 6X as much?
oh yea they are jus terrible when you want to spend the least you can for the fastest board you can afford.
www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/artigo/
i already have the PD for those of you reading this wanting to tell me to get a C2D and have had it for a while now
VIA's chipset offerings are as of 2008 simply outmatched and way behind what their competitors are offering. UniChrome is no match for IGP solutions offered by ATI or nVidia. Their primary and overused south bridge offering, VT8237, is nearly 5 years old at its core with occasional "catch-up" refreshes over the years and it is woefully lacking by modern standards. VT8251 is no better. On the Intel front they are doing little better, their north-bridge offerings are inadequate and antiquated when compared similar Intel offerings. But then again, comparing 5 year old VIA and Intel tech is hilarious, considering where Intel was 5 years ago. I guess it goes to show how Intel has indeed progressed. VIA’s xxx8xx chipsets are ancient considering what AMD, Intel, and nVidia are producing nowadays, and xxx900 lineup was a textbook example of too little too late.
Also, I noticed people refuse to mention their CPU lineup, if it can be even called that. Their core architecture hasn't changed in over half a decade, with occasional refreshes over the years purely for marketing purposes and to keep the shareholders from panicking. Having your "latest" CPU get beat by a nearly decade old Celeron half the Mhz count is pretty embarrassing. Their latest EPIA offerings are simply inadequate and overpriced, although this has more to do with nVidia and AMD under pricing their stuff than anything. As far as desktop and laptop market is concerned, largely they IS dun. Their 2007 roadmap promised much, but little of it materialized, again an obvious and desperate signal.
I can’t see anyone buying a VIA product unless they are looking for something extremely low-power where VIA's EPIA offerings certainly fall into this category, but even then they are simply inadequate and lack the raw power for any sort of modern HD HTPC machine. So, only thing I can think of is either firewalls or tiny file servers, or some third-option specialty setups but even then I can think of several better and cheaper alternatives. Also, if you are able to get their older desktop tech for cheap, and you should be by now, then I recommend it. But buying a $25 dollar VIA based motherboard, with 5+ year old tech onboard and then pairing it up with a $300 CPU from AMD or Intel is simply effing dumb. I mean seriously?
Glory days of KT266A and similar VIA products are long gone. This latest internal merger only highlights this.