UMPC Portal has published benchmarks of a VIA processor, the Ultra Low Voltage Isaiah, set at 1 GHz and accompanied by a VX800. Results of a C7-M 1.2 GHz combined with a VX700M were also included.
Centaur Technology, the CPU branch of VIA, previously announced that it would have performances 2 to 4 times higher than the C7; however with integers we cannot ignore that it’s well below these claimed results. On the other hand in FPU, while there has been undeniable progress (at equivalent frequencies, it’s even more significant), something is left to be desired because the power of the C7 on floating point calculations is more than weak.
Knowing that they should attain 2 GHz and that the TDP of the benched version will be 3.5W, it’s not impossible that VIA could offer CPUs with an attractive performance/power consumption ratio if all promises are kept.
At any rate, this is what Nvidia is hoping for because according to
Digitimes, the two firms may sign an agreement for cooperation on the development of a
VN platform based on the VIA C7 and C8 and Nvidia IGPs in order to rival the Atom Centrino. However, there is still some time for Intel because concretization of this partnership isn’t expected before the first quarter of 2009 and this when the Isaiah should be released in May or June 2008. So will Nvidia prefer to wait for the release of the dual core version of VIA’s CPU?
