End of Intel, AMD duopoly near? Via readies Isaiah chip

Is the end of the Intel-AMD duopoly nigh? Via Technologies is hoping this may be the case when it announces the "Isaiah" processor later this month.

Via Isaiah processor is targeted at mainstream notebooks and desktops; top: Isaiah processor; bottom: $398 15-inch Everex gBook

(Credit: Via, Wal-Mart)

The company's first high-performance x86 chip will be targeted at the mainstream PC market--another first for the Taipei-based chip supplier. Via processors have historically appeared in ultrasmall mobile devices (such as the OQO), embedded computers, or thin-client computers.

"It puts us into the mainstream market for the first time," said Richard Brown, vice president, corporate marketing at Via.

Isaiah, like Via processors before it, will still hew to the lower-power line, however.

Correction: Isaiah's TDP (Thermal Design Power or power envelope) is not confirmed at this point. However, Glenn Henry, president of Centaur Technology (the Via subsidiary that designed Isaiah), said in a previous interview that Isaiah will consume more power than Intel's Atom processor but "has the same power curve" as Via's existing C7 chip.

One of the main differences between Isaiah and Atom is that Intel's chip uses a more simple "in-order execution" design compared to Isaiah's Superscalar, out-of-order design.

Because of this more sophisticated design, Isaiah may deliver higher performance than Atom, though independent benchmarking will be the final judge. But more to the point, Isaiah may be competing more with Intel's low-end Core 2 or Celeron lines than with Atom in some cases (since Isaiah will be initially targeted at mainstream notebooks and desktops).

Via subsidiary Centaur Technology designed the processor. "Centaur has been working on this for the last three years. It's between two and four times the performance of C7 (Via's current processor). So, it' very, very close to (Intel's) Core 2. Core 2 solo (single core)," Brown said.

The Via C7 processor is currently being used in a design that may herald more Isaiah-based mainstream notebooks. The $398 Everex gBook is being sold at Wal-Mart with a 15-inch screen, a 1.5GHz Via C-7M processor, 512MB of DDR2 system memory, a 60 GB hard disk drive, optical drive, Ethernet, and wireless. It uses the gOS Version 2 operating system, a Linux distribution.

"We're in full agreement with the optimized PC concept," Brown said. An idea put forward by Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, it postulates that a consumer will get better PC price-performance by adding a $50 graphics card rather than a two or three hundred dollar quad-core processor. "You can have a processor like Isaiah matched with a better graphics card," Brown said. "There's opportunity in both desktops and notebooks."

Last month, Via and Nvidia announced a platform billed as the "The World's Most Affordable Vista Premium PC," the sub-$45 processing platform will combine Via's Isaiah processor with an integrated Nvidia graphics chipset.

[Mam00th]

Via will need to do a bit of publicity if it wishes to be a competitor to Intel or AMD, but as we all know, a good PC is not CPU centric (isn't that an oxymoron?) so I do think that the door is open them

[bjlevine]

Core 2 -SOLO-? Even Apple abandoned that as an underpowered slug after the first Intel Mac mini disaster.

Mainstream? I can already see the crash and burn.

[edborden]

Obviously they're in agreement with optimized PC. When you've got a processor that isn't "high-performance" I guess you're going to have to bank on the fact that something else will pick up the slack. Optimized PC is irrelevant, IMO.
http://www.edbordenblog.com/2008/04/nvidia-wants-everyone-to-know-gpu-cpu.html

[AppleSuxLeo]

Competition is great for consumers. It gives us better processors at lower prices and spurs innovation. I hope AMD gets back on track.
Without AMD`s competition we would still be using P4`S with the PressHott chipset !
Oh wait...I AM !! (3200 megahertz hyperthreading P4) 5 YRS old and with XP it still performs very well. Just a RAM (ONE GIG IS ALL)and video card upgrade is all it has needed in 5+ years. That`s PC value.

[fieveljmousekewitz]

This is kind of disturbing. We really don't need another large scale CPU manufacture.
AMD and Intel are already enough. They will both be in a hurry now, just to come out with a CPU of this type themselves.
Furthermore, it's going to make it tougher for inverters. All you really had to do, is watch both
companies, and who ever brought out the most CPU with not too bad a price tag, that's who you wanted to invest in.
It's going to make it harder, having to watch three companies. And I'm guessing more companies will follow, just to compete. It's almost surprising that companies like Asus hasn't tried this yet. They do just about everything else, including selling their own laptops and notebooks.
You can get them, with ASUS on the laptop/noteb0ook in big letters, it's hard to miss.


Fievel..