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VIA unveils Nano 3000 series processors

by Parm Mann on 3 November 2009, 12:06

Tags: VIA Technologies (TPE:2388)

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Taiwan's VIA Technologies has today unveiled its latest attempt at capturing the thin-and-light notebook market with the introduction of its Nano 3000 series processors.

Six new chips, scheduled to enter mass production in Q1 2010, promise support for 1080p HD video along with lower power consumption.

VIA first launched its Nano processor in May 2008, introducing Isaiah - its first first 64-bit, superscalar, speculative out-of-order architecture. Yet, despite its promise, VIA's Nano 1000 series and Nano 2000 series have thus far struggled to gain traction in a market dominated by Intel's low-power Atom processor.

Building on the Isaiah architecture, the Nano 3000 series adds support for the SSE4 multimedia instruction set and VIA's VT virtualisation technology, and claims to deliver up to 20 per cent higher performance whilst draining 20 per cent less power.

Arriving in the NanoBGA2 package, the 3000-series parts are backward compatible with VIA's existing sockets, providing OEMs with an easy upgrade path.

VIA will be hoping its latest Nano parts prove to be successful in thin-and-light notebooks or all-in-one PCs running Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, but it faces an uphill battle against Intel, who is expected to launch a new wave of Atom processors early in 2010.

The Nano 3000 series will initially be offered in the following six SKUs:

Product Name Speed VIA V4 Bus 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


HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Ohh! Cool. If I hadn't just built a Core 2 Quad based HTPC I might consider one based around of of these. ;)
Why bother with the virtualisation extensions?.. Nobody is going to be running a dozen VMs on a VIA chip.
aidanjt
Why bother with the virtualisation extensions?.. Nobody is going to be running a dozen VMs on a VIA chip.

Ahh but to know that you could…. :drool:
Yippee, sounds perfect for a low power fileserver.

Anyone notice the ironic heavy usage of intel adverts on the page publishing the latest VIA processor ?
Pair one of these with ION2 and it would sound promising…