It looks like VIA has a winnerThe Inquirer is on-site at Computex, and they got a good, long look at VIA's C7-M, as well as a number of juicy technical details. Right off the bat, it definitely looks like VIA has a winner -- just looking at the thermal specifications is enough to make me want to buy one for an HTPC/PVR application. Performance still remains to be seen, but it should be considerably better than a C3.
One of the unique ideas behind this chip is two PLLs for fast speed and power switching. The C7 runs two PLLs , marketing name Twin Turbo, one at the high clock speed, one at the lower one. When you need to swap frequencies from a high use, high power mode to a lower one, you can do it in a single clock cycle. In contrast, they said the PM takes about 15K cycles to do the same, an eye-blink to be sure, but agonizingly long in comparison.
The power savings are fairly large, but as usual with this kind of thing, I'll wait for a real word test before I say anything conclusive. The TDP of the chip is set at 10.1W, an extremely low number to be sure. By comparison, PMs are about 25W for Dothan, 31W for Yonah, and 45W for Merom. Turions are 25W and 35W respectively.
The 30 mm^2 die size is also pretty amazing. Like I said, if the performance of the C7-M is decent, it could induce some competition in the very low-power mobile market -- one which Intel has been trying to snag with their Pentium M.
Article Link: Via pulls winner out of wraps
