VIA intros Nano 3000 Series processors

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Matthew DeCarlo

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VIA has announced its new Nano 3000 Series processors, which are said to offer enhanced digital media performance and less power consumption for ultrathin notebooks and all-in-one desktops. The new line brings strong competition to Intel's Atom CPU, and consists of six 64-bit Isaiah-based chips.

VIA's Nano 3000 processors are clocked between 1GHz and 2GHz with an 800MHz FSB, and feature SSE4 instructions, hardware virtualization, and Windows 7 and Linux compatibility. Along with being 20% more power efficient than current-gen Nano processors, they are also said to be capable of delivering 20% more performance, and are able to play 1080p video.

The latest Nano chips use the same NanoBGA2 package, which should allow hardware vendors to easily upgrade existing systems. Samples are currently available for OEMs and motherboard vendors, and mass production will begin in the first quarter of next year.

Product Name Speed VIA V4 FSB Idle Power
L3100 2.0GHz 800MHz 500mW
L3050 1.8GHz 800MHz 500mW
U3200 1.4GHz 800MHz 100mW
U3100 1.3+GHz 800MHz 100mW
U3300 1.2GHz 800MHz 100mW
U3500 1.0GHz 800MHz 100mW

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That’s pretty cool capabilities for little chip. I don't know much about the whole Nano thing but starting to really see the potential. In your words what is Nano technology?Looking forward to reading comments hear.Thanks
 
"How big are these things anyway?"

Ever see the movie Independence Day? These chips are about that size, you know, just large enough to settle over a major city and cover the majority of it. …

….
……..

Anyways, these are small chips, the size of Intels Atom (though I don’t know if the 3000 series is on the 40 or 45nm process).
 
It is all good for the customers. The prices of all those netbooks are going to go downnnnnnnn.
Maybe the good time to buy a gift for Christmas...
 
Well I can't say I'm happy enough with this news, more powerfull, battery friendly and yet cheaper netbooks are coming to meet customers requirements.

I have had gen 1 and 3 netbooks, and hoping this will get better and better because of the usefulness they have and all the capabilities they offer to us the users.
 
let's see, higher clock speed than the atom, 64 bit and virtualization? If there is a 2GHz dual core I'll consider it. Even if there isn't I find it interesting. Shouldn't be too hard to beat the Atom : P
 
I'm hoping VIA will have some design wins with this. I'm tired of seeing Atom in all netbooks, and if this performs better I won't mind if it takes a little more power (which I assume it will). The question is whether VIA can also provide a decent chipset to go with that.
 
these are impressive chips indeed, its nice to see, at last intel has some competition so we can finally see those atom chips start to do more than what they are currently doing (nothing) and i already thought what these anos could be used for, it does virtualization for windows xp mode in 7 and 64bit for over 3.5GB of RAM! now if they made a duel core version of the 2ghz variety, think about the possiblity's! a netbook with a 2ghz dule core, 8GB of ram! i look forward to what intel has against these, although i am worried company's like Dell won't buy them, even though Dell are relatively rubbish with cheap laptops and desktops, I have one of there netbooks and they are pretty good,
 
Don't get too excited, I've been saying that I'd like to see more netbooks with Nanos in them for a long time now. And its been known for a long time that the Nano is superior in lots of ways. I tried to find one of the reviews I looked at a long time ago, couldn't find the exact one I remember reading, but here is one from July 2008: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/reviews/2008/07/atom-nano-review.ars

So my point is, Via has had a superior product for over a year, and has made no gains in the marketplace. That implies that Intel has probably written into HP, Asus, Lenovo, Acer, whoever else makes netbooks that they can't produce ones with the Nano.
 
I don't think there is a deal like that, that would be monopolizing it and there are laws against that. Maybe the gains of power v/s battery consumtion and price aren't that great to compete with atom?

Also... who buys a netbook looking for power? If you actually do that you are not well focused to what they do and mean.

It's like buying a smartphone to replace a computer, it's just not meant for it.
 
I just wished they would make a full desktop CPU aimed at people who build there own computers. I'd love to put a couple of them in a Linux server.
 
You're right, kibaruk, but in some cases... you'd wish your smartphone or notebook to be as capable as possible, so if the Nano 3000 is going to offer a lot for the buck, why not? Sure, you won't need 1080p on a netbook, but why not have the chance to connect it to a HD screen and watch fullHD movies?
 
i like hte fact via is still trying. Althought I think they do need more publicity and get their products out so that they can make some news.
 
I know Clrabbit, the better they come the better for us consumers, but I was replying for a couple of posts back there to the one asking for the dual-core 2ghz for netbooks haha.
 
1080p on a netbook sounds unessesary, I really thought peopleonly bought netbooks for one reason...the net, but I mean if it gives better performance thats great I just hope prices stay fair.
 
Like has been said, although Intel still seem to be the market leaders, this will hopefully give Via a nice little boost. Alright, the average consumer might not care about the power of their laptop, just the shinyness, but as far as I can tell, laptop retailers should love being able to say "More power for less money" or some equally droll marketing message.

So as long as Intel arn't performing another market fixing strategy and Via manage to increase their legit marketing somewhat, this should be a nice addition to the notebook scene.
 
It'll be nice to have the Inhell behemoth see some competition once again besides AMD. With Vis giving up on the chipset arena overall maybe they can redeem themselves with a new low poer cpu actually worth the time to look at. However I won't hold my breath for such.
 
Are they available in several cores or is it just one?, I hope they start making cpu's in the desktop market too, I still think 200-300 bucks for a quad core is wayy to much.
 
I'm very curious to see how well this chip does in the market. It would be nice to see a mainstream chip from Via do well and become commonplace in the processor market. I guess that's just the capitalist in me.
 
In my experience with the atom series, I'd describe them as anaemic at best. I'm really looking forward to these offerings from VIA and the CortexA9 from ARM.
 
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