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Laptop Chips at the OK Coral - VIA C7-M Processor Armed and Aimed at Centrino and TurionThings are getting pretty tense in Processor town, but just when you thought it was going to be a straight up gun fight between Wyatt Centrino and Ike Turion, the saloon doors burst open, and in swaggers the C7-M Kid - 2GHz guns blazing. Can VIA Technologies send AMD and Intel mobile processors to boot up hill, with the release of their C7-M chip?Aimed at the ultralight notebook sector, with predicted speeds as fast as 2 GHz, the processor also boasts state-of-the-art battery management, performance, and security capabilities. For computer nerds, the processor makes a tantalizing alternative to Intel's Centrino, and AMD's Turion platforms. VIA designed the processor with its CoolStream architecture and "Esther" core, along with the PowerSaver feature. This optimizes its power usage, resulting in stats like: only 100mW (0.1W) of juice used in idle mode and 20 watts of max thermal design power at 2 GHz. The C7-M is capable of slipping into a sleep mode that is virtually catatonic and burns through barely no fuel. Meanwhile, the processor is versatile enough to manage as either a gaming center or a business notebook. The VIA can dance between tasks thanks to its one-of-a-kind TwinTurbo PLL implementation. And the processor also features 128KB L2 cache with 32-way associativity, Floating Point Unit at full-speed, 16 pipeline stages, StepAhead Advanced Branch Prediction, and support for SSE2 and SSE3 multimedia instruction sets. For security, the VIA Padlock Hardware Security Suite now includes a top-notch random number generator and AES Encryption Engine. These security measures, and more such as execute protection (NX) against malicious apps and code, are built right into the processor die. Can't wait to test the C7-M out for yourself? Well, you'll have to. VIA doesn't expect the processor to be available for the mass market until the second quarter of 2005. If you really want a notebook fitted with a processor other than a Sonoma offering from Intel, you'll be pleased to hear that AMD have just launched their 64 bit Turion processor. Companies like HP/Compaq, and Acer have already boarded the Turion train. By Matthew Brodsky Thursday, June 23, 2005 |
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