On Friday, December 23, 2005 1:23 AM GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Does anyone use the Via series? They are supposed to be coming out > with a new model in a laptop after the first of the year, I was > wanting to play around with wardriving. Other then that, I have no > real need for a laptop. How good would they be for something like > that? > VIA processors are nice to work with as long as you dont have any serious processing requirements. You average 1GHZ C3 has performance comparable to a P3 500MHz. There are a few reasons that lead to this, first, VIA processors have a total of only 192KB of cache (L1+L2), second their FPU runs at half the clock speed, and is not fully pipelined like the intel P3 or the AMD Athlon. The only place where VIA processors shine is data encryption because VIA has added a bunch of instructions aimed at accelerating cryptographic operations (provided that your software makes use of those instructions). The average data throughput for a 1GHz C3 is ~500MB encrypting data with a 128-bit cipher, compared to 50-70MB on the best x86 processor your money can buy you. Don't expect to get much of an improvement from their new C7 because its just a process shrink of the C3, increasing the clock from 1-1.2GHz in ther Nehamiah C3, to around 1.5-1.7GHz in the new C7 chip. On the other side, in return for all that sacrifice in performance, you get a processor that consumes little amounts of power. Even compared to Intel's P-M, the C3 and C7 consume much less power. The P-M has a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 25W (if we exclude the low and ultra low voltage versions that cost way more) compared to 13W for the C3 and 17W for the C7. Being cheap and power efficient, the VIA processors are very suitable for the development of embedded systems, which is why most of their sales are in VIA's own nano-ITX motehrboard format. Regards, IraqiGeek www.iraqigeek.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/u8TY5A/tzNLAA/yQLSAA/0XFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this list, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
