VIA Isaiah Processor scheduled on Q108

VIA Technologies is scheduled to launch its new processor core, dubbed Isaiah, in the first quarter of 2008. The Isaiah core (engineering codename CN) will replace VIA's Esther processor architecture, which was introduced in 2004.

Isaiah features a 64-bit architecture and will be manufactured on a 65nm process, as compared to 90nm for Esther. Other features include a V4 Bus speed of 1333MHz, up from 800MHz previously, and support for ECC (error checking and correction) memory and virtualization technology. The L2 Cache will also increase to 1MB from 128KB previously.

Although Isaiah's core frequency will not see any obvious increases and power consumption will be higher compared to Esther, its performance so far has been measured to be twice as fast as that delivered by the Esther architecture, and the floating point unit performance is four times greater, according to makers that are testing the new architecture.

First Look of AMD Phenom in action

Photos of AMD Phenom test system began to appear on the web. From the looks of it AMD is just about ready to drop the Hammer and give us something Phenomenal.



More Phenom details from Hot Hardware emerging on AMD Consumer Electronics Event at New York City, where the Phenom test system was also exhibited.

More photos on Phenom running Stranglehold game can be seen here at Gizmodo gallery.

Update 07/26/07: The Inquirer report on Phenom being shown-off at 3.0GHz, equipped with 3 Radeon HD2900XT.

X-Bit Labs also reported that AMD demos Phenom chips at 3.0GHz and AMD dispels K10 clock-speed concerns. Rick Bergman, who is senior vice president and general manager of graphics product group, said that all the demonstrated high-end products will be available before year end.

Update 07/31/07: Charlie Demerjian from The Inquirer did a good post to dispels some of the FUD surrounding Phenom at 3.0GHz.

Here is the YouTube video for the Phenom X4 3.0GHz demo : http://youtube.com/watch?v=R7EZmYth6TM

VIA to focus on chipsets for its own processors

For months now, VIA's ability to renew its license to produce chipsets for Intel processors has been in jeopardy.

Back in November 2006, Intel said to be pressuring VIA to exit CPU market. The Inquirer says Intel is attempting to squeeze VIA out of the processor market altogether. Although not nearly as popular as Intel and AMD chips, VIA's C7 processors have something of a following in mobile and small form-factor PCs and embedded systems. Taiwanese industry sources quoted by The Inquirer claim Intel has attempted to strike a deal with VIA whereby, in exchange for retaining a license to produce Intel-compatible chipsets, VIA would agree to stop making x86 processors altogether.

According to DigiTimes, the license issue is still not settled and VIA has decided to shift focus from chipsets for third-party processors to chipsets for its own C7 line of CPUs. The company will invest more resources in platforms for "multimedia control, commercial embedded (thin clients, industrial PCs and point of sale terminals), home multimedia and mobile embedded (ultra-mobile devices, set-top boxes, LCD TVs and car electronics)" systems, DigiTimes' sources claim. VIA's existing license to make chipsets for Intel CPUs expires on April 7, 2008, so the move might forebode an eventual pullout from the Intel chipset world.