I want a VIA C7-M Motherboard :(

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technarch
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I want a VIA C7-M Motherboard :(

Post by technarch » Thu Jun 30, 2005 5:49 pm

Perhaps even more impressive however is the unique Twin Turbo design which changes the power consumption and clock speed of the CPU on the fly according to the required CPU utilization. CJ Holthaus, Director of System Validation at Centaur Technology demonstrated this technology on a 1.5GHz system. When the system was idle the speed sat just under 600MHz. When he opened a CPU intensive program it shot up to the full 1.5GHz. But most alluring of all, when he opened an MPEG2 movie the MHz remained at 599.82MHz whilst still producing perfectly smooth playback. A member of the audience also bravely put his finger on the processor after the heat sink and fan had been removed. It was not hot to touch and CJ revealed that they were actually not needed. The C7-M is manufactured using the 90nm system-on-insulator (SOI) process to produce the tiny 30mm2 processor die which only requires minimal cooling.
Of course, we can't buy it.

Mar.
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Post by Mar. » Thu Jun 30, 2005 7:05 pm

I wonder if it will be comparable to a C3 in terms of power vs. clock speed.

mb2
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Post by mb2 » Thu Jun 30, 2005 7:33 pm

if it can survive without a heatsink atall, then why does it even need a fan under normal operation?

yea, it annoys me when hardware exists that a normal person can't buy (in quantities of 1)

Mariner
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Post by Mariner » Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:50 am

Via are notoriously terrible at bringing these types of chips to market. They announce these chips months and months before they actually become available on the market. A real pain in the arse! I'm intending to build myself a nice new HTPC machine around Christmas time so hopefully the C7 will be available as an option then. I'm not holding my breath, though!

P.S. Can you give us a link to the original article?

BrianE
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Post by BrianE » Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:38 am

Mariner wrote:Via are notoriously terrible at bringing these types of chips to market. They announce these chips months and months before they actually become available on the market...
I bet you that's not really their fault though, since they're not a huge company with the manufacturing and (probably more important) marketing capacity of companies like AMD and Intel.

I'd be happy if I could find any trace of some implied-to-exist fanless 1Ghz+ chips, let alone one of these. :P

alglove
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Post by alglove » Fri Jul 01, 2005 2:55 pm

mb2 wrote:if it can survive without a heatsink atall, then why does it even need a fan under normal operation?
So that it doesn't hurt when you touch it, that's why! :wink:

I do not know if I would say that VIA is a small company, though. The CPU development team (Centaur Technology in Austin) is relatively small, but VIA itself is the second largest maker of chipset, after Intel. Granted, they do not have their own fabs, so everything they put out must be manufactured in somebody else's plant. They do have the ability to secure large contracts, however.

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