Via Unveils 1-Watt x86 CPU 276
DeviceGuru writes "Taiwanese chip and board vendor Via Technologies has introduced a new ultra-low voltage (ULV) processor aimed at industrial, commercial, and ultra-mobile applications. Touted as the world's most power-efficient x86-compatible CPU, the 500MHz 'Eden ULV 500' processor debuted at an Embedded Systems Conference in Taipei this week. Via says its chip draws a minimum of 0.1 Watts, when idle, and a maximum of 1 Watt, making it a great candidate for consumer electronics devices such as UMPCs, PVRs, and such."
How does it compare? (Score:5, Interesting)
The article doesn't say what socket and interface the chip uses. Are they still on Socket 370?
Re:laptop anyone (Score:5, Interesting)
A really low-power Dothan or single-core Yonah will sure draw a few multiples of this beast, but they will do so while giving much better performance.
holy cow! and their 1.5GHz is only 7.5W (Score:5, Interesting)
20-30W. With HDD, DVD, encoder card etc, it draws 80W on start,
and somewhere between 30-60W when running.
Take 10-20W off my figures by using their 1.5GHz ULV
and you get potentially more processing power at less
than 50W!
I know that VIA chips are pretty feeble (i.e. their 1.5GHz
chip is probably closer to a 1GHz intel chip), but with an
encoder card (dual actually) I can be recording two
channels with the CPU at 10%. Given their mobos have
mpeg decoders on board, I can add watching a DVD or TV
for another 30-40% CPU time.
The only thing is ad-skipping and re-encoding are pretty
slow.
Why not make 64 of these on a single chip? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)
Strange. (Score:1, Interesting)
No driver issues and the documentation has been more than adequate for my needs. The total cost of these off-the-shelf consumer-level setups is a fraction of that for an equivalent embedded system and can do more than just log and transmit data from a weather station, something techs and operators appreciate when they're working on them at remote locations.
Let's not forget that not everybody is fixated on kick-ass in-car theater systems, or uber-1337 gaming rigs.
Re:Redundand? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree though, this chip is never going to be the financial success that the Core2 is.
Re:How does it compare? (Score:5, Interesting)
When i was building a linux based PVR, x86 compatibilty was not a deciding factor *. What i wanted was a cheap fanless board that could playback mpeg2 and divx, with a PCI slot for a tuner card, TV-Out, and SATA.
When i was looking there were hundreds of Via C3/C7 based boards from heaps of manufactures, with countless different options. There were one or two ARM and PPC boards, even one with a transmetta CPU, but they didn't have TV-Out, or they had TV-Out but no USB or PCI.
I would have loved to go with another architecture but the market for retail consumers just isn't there.
* Actually, now i've said that i imagine compatibilty of the tuner drivers with non-x86 could be an issue.
Re:I wish mainstream CPUs / GPUs would focus on po (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wish mainstream CPUs / GPUs would focus on po (Score:3, Interesting)
In Denmark, a sizeable chunk of the total car park are small or family cars with engines in the 1.3-2.0L range. Sporty cars (Alfa Romeo et al, not Ferrari) are probably in the 2-3L range, no more. Of course the SUV-style cars will have way bigger engines (but I suspect that's more to help push the ego rather than the car).
A relevant tidbit: we pay ~7$ per gallon of petrol.
I drive a VW station wagon. It's 4 cylinders, 2L, 115bhp, ~1500kg. I don't have the stats for 0-60 (or 0-100) because I just don't drive that way, but its accelleration is quite adequate even without going over 3000rpm (usually I stay within 900-2500). I think I hit 4000rpm maybe three times a year. I average 7.3L/100km, or 32.2mpg.
My old car (Peugeot 206) had 1.4L and 75bhp to push its 975kg, and its performance was quite comparable (better low end, worse top end).
I lurk on an american classic car forum, and the rule of thumb there seems to be "(at least) 1bhp of power per 10lb og car", which translates to >300bhp for a station wagon, which again translates into race car (ok sports car) performance. I can't help wondering if that is really necessary for a family car, or a classic built for cruising.
Re:I wish mainstream CPUs / GPUs would focus on po (Score:3, Interesting)
Get a Diesel engine. Massive torque = massive acceleration. Not that much horse power, but that only matters at high speeds (100mph+) where you lose your driving license anyway.
In the UK, tax goes by carbon dioxide emission per km, engine size doesn't matter. There is a small number of cars that pay £35 per year, others pay between £115 and >£200 tax per year. But there are other differences: At the moment, you pay a £8 charge every time you drive into London. In the future, that will be free for cars with very low emissions, and up to £25 for very high emissions.
But the thing that really hits is company car tax. If you have a company car, you have to pay income tax on X percent of the value of the new car every year. X ranges from 15% to 35%, depending on carbon dioxide emissions. For a £20,000 car, you pay tax on £3000 to £7000, depending on emissions. At 40% tax rate, that is £1200 to £2800 tax, in other words up to £1600 punishment every year for high carbon dioxide emissions for a £20,000 car.
Re:I wish mainstream CPUs / GPUs would focus on po (Score:3, Interesting)
With the relatively low cost and high availability of computing speed nowadays, the green500 list might become very important, as it is not only the environment-friendliness but also a lot of the running cost that is involved here.
Power rating (Score:3, Interesting)
What about a "heterogeneous dual processor"? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:holy cow! and their 1.5GHz is only 7.5W (Score:3, Interesting)
The VIA epia platforms like the one you have weren't that great. I had their 600mhz chip and ITX board and on the meter it was still drawing about 40 watts idle at the plug. The power supply probably wasn't the greatest but still I had higher hopes. That was only the ITX board plus a normal 3.5" 7200rpm hard drive. The cpu was barely enough for most tasks and some tasks you didn't even want to do. It is probably much better with your cpu but you're still drawing more power than necessary.
As a comparison, I built an Athlon64 power efficient system with normal PC parts (no laptop parts, including the CPU). I clocked down the cpu to 1ghz and with a radeon 7500 video card plus a standard 3.5" 7200 rpm hard disk and a atheros 802.11g pci card, I was able to get it to draw about 46 watts at the plug idle. During boot and while it loaded the OS, the power draw was around 60watts to 80watts. Even with only 1ghz, the athlon box could do a whole lot more than the epia. Replacing the video card with something more useful like a geforce 6200 bumped the idle watts to the 50s.
I also have a dell 600m with a pentium M chip that has the "centrino" sticker on it. The power draw from the laptop while idle with the screen off is 26 watts. If you run something it can jump up to the 60 watt range.
I've found that when buying PC parts, the hardest part to evaluate for power consumption is the motherboard because there are no specifications that really help you and the amount of parts used on the board vary. Just by replacing the motherboard in the athlon64 system, I could increase the idle wattage by 10 to 20 watts. I've also found that all motherboards are coming with more and more junk these days. There are few bare and basic full size motherboards for PCs. There are some companies that manufacture and sell small form factor itx size motherboards with laptop grade chipsets and parts, but the prices are usually insane.