Originally posted on May 13, 2011 @ 2:00 pm
Happy with the speed your laptop’s dual core processor gives you? If you are, then you’ll be even happier once you change it for one that uses a quad core processor.
Via Technologies just announced this week the release of their latest processor – the QuadCore X86. The X86 is designed with mainstream laptops and desktops in mind, but is also great for budget laptops and netbooks. It is meant to run multimedia, productivity, a Internet applications, and can do this easily operating at a speed of 1.2 GHz without drawing on too much power.
According to Via, the processor is one of “the lowest power quad core processors” you can find. With the X86 operating at merely 2.5 watts of power, their statement is clearly true. The low power consumption of the X86 is due to the fact that it is simply a combination of VIA’s two Nano X2 processors, which although released just last January, has proven itself in terms of power consumption. However, according to Jose Vilches of TechSpot, Brazos and Atom still has an edge over the X86 with a lower power consumption although it is competitively priced, being a low-cost processor.
Still, though we appreciate this quad core processor from VIA, we don’t expect them to oust Intel or AMD when it comes to being the processor of choice for PC manufacturers. With VIA having such a small marketshare of approximately 0.2%, it will have to content itself with slowly eating away at the market of AMD (18.9%), and Intel (80.8%). This is despite Intel’s quad core laptop processors performing much worse in terms of power consumption with their i7 processor operating at about 45 watts. Still, we’ll see what happens when VIA starts shipping of its newest chip to PC manufacturers later this year.
Via Tech Spot