VIA Nano whoops Intel's Atom (again) on video

[saveus222]

I know the news was posted before. But this is a video.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/04/v...gain-on-video/

Do you cheer for the underdog? Would you love to see VIA unseat Intel in the battle for the hearts and minds of netbook market share just because Intel's, well, Intel? Good, then you'll love this highly emotive video produced by VIA showing its meager 1.3GHz Nano processor kicking Intel's 1.6GHz Atom to the curb in a 1080p HD video test. We'd be more suspect of the results had we not already seen VIA clean Intel's house in the head-to-head benchmarks. Now pull up a seat ringside and get ready to sputter along with the Atom-based netbook -- video after the break.

Source - Engadget

[Shintai]

Ye for GPU accelerated "CPU" benchmarks. Also this will come to the next version with a new chipset. 1080p is basicly 945G vs VIAs Chrome.

And we already have a thread for this.

[Hornet331]

funny how they are comparing the IGPs and not the processors in the "video showdown"...

everyone knows that the 945g sucks at playing WMV HD content...

[saveus222]

Ye for GPU accelerated "CPU" benchmarks. Also this will come to the next version with a new chipset. 1080p is basicly 945G vs VIAs Chrome.

And we already have a thread for this.

i already said i know there is. Im just posting this as a video read my post. Besides, they're comparing both as a platform.

funny how they are comparing the IGPs and not the processors in the "video showdown"...

everyone knows that the 945g sucks at playing WMV HD content...

really, so the IGP handles all the decoding and the processor has nothing to do with it ?

[Shintai]

i already said i know there is. Im just posting this as a video read my post. Besides, they're comparing both as a platform.



really, so the IGP handles all the decoding and the processor has nothing to do with it ?

More or less. Tried checking IGP/GPUs with 1080P accel and those that dont? You need a performance CPU without. The NANO would not even be near to do it without heavy IGP support.

[The Coolest]

Yes, but you also need software that can make this GPU acceleration happen.
Either way you can't buy the Atom with any other chipset other than the 945G, same goes for VIA's platform, so when you buy an Atom or a Nano, you're basically getting the whole platform anyway.
They should've called this article "VIA's Nano platform whoops Intel's Atom Centrino platform" to be more "politically correct", though.

[STaRGaZeR]

Yes, but you also need software that can make this GPU acceleration happen.

This is very important. Lots of people thing the DXVA acceleration works right out of the box always you play a video, and it's not.

[saveus222]

More or less. Tried checking IGP/GPUs with 1080P accel and those that dont? You need a performance CPU without. The NANO would not even be near to do it without heavy IGP support.

thought 945G had acceleration

Advanced Display Capability
Up to 2048x1536 resolution for both analog and digital displays
Consumer Electronic display (Digital TV) support
Display hot plug support to automatically detect new display connection while system is operating (CRT and DVI)
Two Serial Digital Video Out (SDVO) ports for flat-panel monitors and/or TV-out support via Advanced Digital Display 2 (ADD2) cards or Media Expansion Cards
Intel Media Expansion Cards available providing TV-out and PVR capability
Multiple display types (LVDS, DVI-I, DVI-D, HDTV, TV-out, CRT)
Dual screen support through ADD2 digital video devices
HDTV 480i/p, 576i/p, 720i/p and 1080i/p display resolution support
Interlaced Display output support
16x9 and 16x10 Aspect Ratio for widescreen displays
2x2 Panel Scaler

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/

or is that just support and not acceleration ??

[The Coolest]

Acceleration is one thing, hardware decoding is quite another.

[Hornet331]

thought 945G had acceleration



http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/

or is that just support and not acceleration ??

that only means it can display the resolutions, not that the igp helps with decoding.

[saveus222]

so bottom line is intel should have added that acceleration into their 945G chipset before they released the atom..

[Hornet331]

they should have used a whole other chipset to beginn with. Intel should have used the SCH US15W (Poulsbo) even for desktop and not only for UMPC.
http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=35443
http://download.intel.com/design/chi...hts/319537.pdf

the SCH supports
H.264, MPEG2 ,MPEG4, VC1, WMV9.


anyways current atom is more like a proof of concept, moorestown will be better.

[Calmatory]

Doesn't change the fact that VIA is kicking Intel's ass, big time. A bit like David whooping Goliath, again and again. No can do.

[saveus222]

im wondering why they didnt then

[saveus222]

Doesn't change the fact that VIA is kicking Intel's ass, big time. A bit like David whooping Goliath, again and again. No can do.

lol.. i wonder if bathsheba will come along and make david fall

[ToTTenTranz]

Doesn't change the fact that VIA is kicking Intel's ass, big time. A bit like David whooping Goliath, again and again. No can do.

But we're yet to see any nano-based netbook prices. And they don't seem to have many design wins.
That's what worries me the most.

[Shintai]

im wondering why they didnt then

Because the target segment dont play 1080P movies? Its targetted at cheap Eee laptops and such. Plus its alot cheaper than VIA.

Not even to talk about TDP differences.

Its like taking a Core 2 Duo, see its trashes the Nano and then say the Nano sucks. Instead of actually looking on what its market segment is.

[Karolis]

Because the target segment dont play 1080P movies? Its targetted at cheap Eee laptops and such. Plus its alot cheaper than VIA.

Not even to talk about TDP differences.

Its like taking a Core 2 Duo, see its trashes the Nano and then say the Nano sucks. Instead of actually looking on what its market segment is.

Platform with a showed 1.3 GHz Nano (max TDP is 8W, or at least should be) should be comparable against Atom platform in power consumption.

[Shintai]

Platform with a showed 1.3 GHz Nano (max TDP is 8W, or at least should be) should be comparable against Atom platform in power consumption.

Against a desktop Atom yes. But against the same speed mobile Atom that uses 2.5W? Not even to talk about how very expensive that Nano is compared to the Atom.

Also I can show you a 1.2Ghz C2D using 10W.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/det...px?sSpec=SLA2U

It wouldnt even be a competition if you used 4 Nano CPUs against that one.

But price, TDP and segment is very different for all 3.

[bowman]

The current Atom platform is more like a proof of concept for what's to come. Chipset is outdated, on old process tech.. Atom isn't really interesting until they get the size, power and thermals of the entire platform down, not just the CPU, and that won't happen until late next year.

Just to put into perspective how different the CPUs really are.. The Nano is not going to follow the Atom here. Until then they are actually competing and it's not so good for the Atom here in much larger platforms than its niche.

[Karolis]

Against a desktop Atom yes. But against the same speed mobile Atom that uses 2.5W? Not even to talk about how very expensive that Nano is compared to the Atom.

Also I can show you a 1.2Ghz C2D using 10W.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/det...px?sSpec=SLA2U

It wouldnt even be a competition if you used 4 Nano CPUs against that one.

But price, TDP and segment is very different for all 3.

Well, we haven't seen "mobile Nano platform" consumption numbers, only Nano with a desktop mobo. So we don't know how it stands against a mobile diamondville platform.

[alucasa]

I believe mobile VIA Nano is U2xxx series as seen from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icroprocessors

But even their mobile parts consume more power than Atom, and its performance is going to suffer.

Really, at the moment, people are comparing a nerd (Atom) and a newbie wrestler (VIA nano) in the ring. In such a sense, comparing VIA nano with Merom or even Penryn might make sense, too.

Actually, it makes a better comparison considering their TDP values.

[Karolis]

I believe mobile VIA Nano is U2xxx series as seen from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icroprocessors

But even their mobile parts consume more power than Atom, and its performance is going to suffer.

Really, at the moment, people are comparing a nerd (Atom) and a newbie wrestler (VIA nano) in the ring. In such a sense, comparing VIA nano with Merom or even Penryn might make sense, too.

Actually, it makes a better comparison considering their TDP values.

I think Nano should be compared to Celeron, because it makes even more sense. Price, power consumption, performance (kinda...). Well, at least that's what I think. Oh, sorry, Merom is Celeron M. D'oh...

[BrowncoatGR]

Not even to talk about how very expensive that Nano is compared to the Atom.

Iirc Nanos are quite cheaper compared to Atom CPUs

[alucasa]

Iirc Nanos are quite cheaper comparedto Atom CPUs

I am not sure about that. VIA doesn't sell CPU alone, and neither does Atom. They are sold together with a motherboard as a package. Currently VIA C7 packages are slightly more expensive than Atom package. And some are more than twice expensive.

Source : http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/mainboards/via_c7

I don't think Nano is going to be cheaper than C7? Though they will likely lower price of C7 once Nano takes over. Still being cheaper than Atom is a hard question to answer.

I think Nano should be compared to Celeron, because it makes even more sense. Price, power consumption, performance (kinda...). Well, at least that's what I think. Oh, sorry, Merom is Celeron M. D'oh...

Well, the thing is you need to compare CPU in a similar TDP range ...

Atom comes in two kind currently. One is for Ultra-Mobile PC, and the other is for netpc (Asus EeePC and the like).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom

As you see, their TDP range is 4w maximum for netpc. VIA Nano that is being compared to Atom has 4 times more TDP. (17w and 25w).

But as I stated before, those CPUs are not sold standalone. Atom comes with 945 chipset which consumes more, much more, power than the CPU itself. Intel needs to fix that. However, Intel has just gotten itself into where VIA C7 had been dominating. We will have to see how Intel matures their Atom platform.