Nvidia's <$45 processing platform

[Sylvanas]

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Most interesting:

During NVIDIA's financial analyst meeting today, the company revealed plans for what it calls "The World's Most Affordable Vista Premium PC". The platform use a VIA Isaiah processor coupled with an integrated NVIDIA chipset. NVIDIA reckons that the Isaiah + NVIDIA IGP combination is good for a total of 36 GFLOPS in comparison to a mere 6.4 GFLOPS for a comparable Celeron-based system with an Intel 945 IGP/ICH4 chipset.

NVIDIA also claims that its platform will be Windows Vista Premium capable, support Blu-ray HD and DX10, and cost less than $45.

 

[Zenoth]

I would have never thought that Vista sells were so low to justify such a grotesque try on the naive consumers.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Hmm, this sounds perfect for the HTPC that I am building for my grandmother this summer. When can we buy it?

 

[SickBeast]

Do they mean that the motherboards will be $45, the CPU will be $45, or the whole lot will be $45?

If it's $45 for the CPU/motherboard, that's crazy cheap!

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Do they mean that the motherboards will be $45, the CPU will be $45, or the whole lot will be $45?

If it's $45 for the CPU/motherboard, that's crazy cheap!

Its a good question...they are keen to use the term platform and not system, so they mean something less than all of the above.

Is it just me or does this basically look like Nvidia/Via attempts to copy AMD's plans, albeit on the uber cheap end of the pricing spectrum?

Seems like a pretty easy segment for AMD to make a killing in if they wanted to (seriously underclocked single core CPU to compete with Isaiah's performance, coupled with ATi chipset + integrated graphics).

Surely AMD could outperform the Nvidia/Via combo for simple reason that the AMD CPU core can easily be clocked so as to be superior to Isaiah's performance with same or better TDP (SOI on AMD's own process tech versus Via having to use bulk Si on foundry process tech) combined with their intrinsic zero-degrees of seperation between CPU/chipset/GPU business units since they bought ATi.

In other words, this seems a natural progression for Nvidia, but the upper hand has got to be AMD's for the time being if they choose to play it in that market price segment.

Intel is obviously trying to come in from the other angle, CPU + chipset while organically growing their own internal GPU technologies. They have the $$$ to do this, which affords them the time. Nvidia and AMD do not have that luxury.

 

[Vesku]

That's why AMD grabbed ATI, they did the right thing in that regard. The demand for efficient all in one chips is there. Just hope AMD can make it through this rough patch and produce a solid solution.

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: Vesku
That's why AMD grabbed ATI, they did the right thing in that regard. The demand for efficient all in one chips is there. Just hope AMD can make it through this rough patch and produce a solid solution.

It wouldn't be the first time AMD would have to make it through a rough patch

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Vesku
That's why AMD grabbed ATI, they did the right thing in that regard. The demand for efficient all in one chips is there. Just hope AMD can make it through this rough patch and produce a solid solution.

Im not a fan of all in one. Expecially in the earily stages. Too many things need to be left out, and the end result isnt what you exactly expected.

Also if any of you guys ever tried a via processor, there incredibly slow. a T7300 lappy processor would spank it hardcore. >.<

Lets not even get into intel's new hyperthreaded atom. <-- ill take that over via please
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3276&p=1

Basically to me it sounds like nvidia is trying to step inside intel's territory, Intel is gonna respond by busting out the spanking stick soon. [Not speaking as a fanboy]


but yeah those numbers do look impressive on that system for sub 45 dollars. But only time will show. One thing i learned about nvidia, they like to lie now.

 

[Vesku]

You may not be a fan of all in one, but I guarantee you that companies selling to the masses are. It's all about reducing costs without losing much performance.

 

[zfooz]

THey make it sound like it's an integrated motherboard/cpu/video. Basically non upgradable, probably not many external ports, but extremely cheap. This would be perfect for my kids' computers.
The only problem is.. Who cares if the hardware is $50 when stupid Vista is $200+
I'd buy $150 hardware and spend $80 on XP.
Oh well.. If I can buy a $50 board/cpu and $80 for XP and $20 for a case and some kb/mouse combo for my kids I'd be happy.
Wonder if the board has built in wireless...that's probably asking too much

 

[hnzw rui]

$200+ for Vista? Retail you mean? Retail XP costs about the same. I often see Vista Home Premium 32-bit for $90 on Fry's ads. You can probably find it for cheaper elsewhere.

 

[bfdd]

Maybe we'll see 200 dollar OEM pc's with monitors cause of this?

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: bfdd
Maybe we'll see 200 dollar OEM pc's with monitors cause of this?

Return of the eMachine.

If you think about it the majority of what the world's masses use their desktops and laptops for I am impressed Intel/AMD have been able to convince the market to pay $100's for 2-3GHz CPU's just to surf the web and check email.

The G3/3.5/4 cellphone markets have the same issue...they can sell you 12MP camera-phones right now (the technology already exists) and television on your cellphone but practically no consumer market exists (who wants to pay for it?).

Gamers will always want more, but gamers aren't 80% of the PC market.

 

[waffleironhead]

This sounds like one of these jetway combos with a better gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153045

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Vesku
That's why AMD grabbed ATI, they did the right thing in that regard. The demand for efficient all in one chips is there. Just hope AMD can make it through this rough patch and produce a solid solution.

Im not a fan of all in one. Expecially in the earily stages. Too many things need to be left out, and the end result isnt what you exactly expected.

Also if any of you guys ever tried a via processor, there incredibly slow. a T7300 lappy processor would spank it hardcore. >.<

Lets not even get into intel's new hyperthreaded atom. <-- ill take that over via please
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3276&p=1

Basically to me it sounds like nvidia is trying to step inside intel's territory, Intel is gonna respond by busting out the spanking stick soon. [Not speaking as a fanboy]


but yeah those numbers do look impressive on that system for sub 45 dollars. But only time will show. One thing i learned about nvidia, they like to lie now.

This is not another VIA C7... Isaiah is much faster, probably 2x as fast, per clock and is actually competitive in terms of performance. A 1.8GHz Isaiah was able to play Crysis according to Tech Report.

Atom probably won't even be faster than Isaiah as it is an in-order core and if Isaiah systems come in at <$45, then it is priced much higher as well.

 

[CTho9305]

People keep comparing Atom and Isaiah, but they're just falling for Via's marketing. The products are in different worlds. The die size alone tells the story - ~60mm^2 for a single core Isaiah, versus ~20mm^2 for a single-core Atom. If you went dual-core, Isaiah would be over 100mm^2 but atom would probably be around 30mm^2. That alone means Intel can afford to drop prices on Atom through the floor if they really feel like doing it. Also, Atom is much lower power than Isaiah. Sure, Via likes to pretend that you spend enough time in sleep states that it doesn't matter, but the fact is, even when they're "sleeping", Isaiah is going to be higher power.

Keep in mind that "able to play Crysis" doesn't mean anything. The only reason a q6600 @ 3.2GHz + 8800GTS SLI "isn't" able to play Crysis is that the people here define "unplayable" as "any setting lower than the highest, and any window of time at <100fps". If you're willing to play on medium or low settings and in the 25-30fps range, lots of hardware handles Crysis just fine.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
People keep comparing Atom and Isaiah, but they're just falling for Via's marketing. The products are in different worlds. The die size alone tells the story - ~60mm^2 for a single core Isaiah, versus ~20mm^2 for a single-core Atom. If you went dual-core, Isaiah would be over 100mm^2 but atom would probably be around 30mm^2. That alone means Intel can afford to drop prices on Atom through the floor if they really feel like doing it. Also, Atom is much lower power than Isaiah. Sure, Via likes to pretend that you spend enough time in sleep states that it doesn't matter, but the fact is, even when they're "sleeping", Isaiah is going to be higher power.

This is line of thinking is even further legitimized when you consider the process technology delta between a generic 65nm logic-node at a foundry (TSMC for VIA) versus the process technology titan that Intel is (at any node) combined with ATOM being a 45nm leading edge product.

There should be zero wonder or uncertainty as to why VIA occupies the market niche (and nothing more) that they currently do. Does Intel really have plans to occupy that 0.3% market share and snub-out VIA? Doubtful. Doubly doubtful they actually made a dedicated product with snubbing out VIA in mind.

ATOM is there to go after creating new markets of ubiquitous computing (as Vditor and V8envy pointed out elsewhere, this is necessary in order for Intel market cap to move anywhere but sideways), not to trip up VIA and take away their 0.3% market share.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
This sounds like one of these jetway combos with a better gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153045

holly crap !

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: alfa147x

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
This sounds like one of these jetway combos with a better gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153045

holly crap !

That's just an old C3 chip, you got to check out the C7's (prices are ~$120) to get anything close to usable performance for windows stuff.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153092

I wonder how it compares to the jetway with an AMD Geode:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153096

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
People keep comparing Atom and Isaiah, but they're just falling for Via's marketing. The products are in different worlds. The die size alone tells the story - ~60mm^2 for a single core Isaiah, versus ~20mm^2 for a single-core Atom. If you went dual-core, Isaiah would be over 100mm^2 but atom would probably be around 30mm^2. That alone means Intel can afford to drop prices on Atom through the floor if they really feel like doing it. Also, Atom is much lower power than Isaiah. Sure, Via likes to pretend that you spend enough time in sleep states that it doesn't matter, but the fact is, even when they're "sleeping", Isaiah is going to be higher power.

Keep in mind that "able to play Crysis" doesn't mean anything. The only reason a q6600 @ 3.2GHz + 8800GTS SLI "isn't" able to play Crysis is that the people here define "unplayable" as "any setting lower than the highest, and any window of time at <100fps". If you're willing to play on medium or low settings and in the 25-30fps range, lots of hardware handles Crysis just fine.

Comparing Atom and Isaiah by die size isn't really a fair comparison- Atom is ~25mm^2 on 45nm, Isaiah is ~60mm^2 on 65nm. On the same 45nm process you could expect Isaiah to be around 35-40mm^2 in size; bigger than Atom for sure but not to such an extent. Remember Isaiah as 1MB of L2 vs 512KB in Atom, so that's one of the reasons why die size is larger.

You can say the same things about Atom that you are saying about Isaiah. Atom is much lower in power consumption compared to Isaiah, but it is no where near as low as ARM-based CPUs and the form factor isn't small enough to compete in the same sector, either. So while Atom features higher performance than ARM CPUs, it doesn't compete in the same thermal/power envelope.

So where does Atom compete? For low-end desktops, it is priced higher than Isaiah if this nVidia rumor comes true. And performance won't be higher and will likely be lower, not even considering the likely advantage of an nVidia-based GPU compared to an Intel GPU. Atom might be lower power, but that isn't such a huge advantage for desktop systems. I mentioned price earlier, but it is significant that Intel is pricing Atom way above where Isaiah seems to be heading. If an Isaiah platform costs $45, then it is surely a better deal than a 1.1GHz Atom w/o SMT for the same price (not including the system cost.)

Notebooks, then Atom's lower power comes into play but Isaiah can still be competitive if it outperforms Atom per clock. The Isaiah line goes up to 20W TDP and AFAIK that would be for the high frequency models like the 1.8GHz model that was shown playing Crysis. If a lower frequency, lower power version can compete with Atom, then power consumption might be a lot closer than we are speculating.

 

[Vesku]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: alfa147x

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
This sounds like one of these jetway combos with a better gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153045

holly crap !

That's just an old C3 chip, you got to check out the C7's (prices are ~$120) to get anything close to usable performance for windows stuff.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153092

I wonder how it compares to the jetway with an AMD Geode:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153096

I believe the Geode NX series are basically the 32 bit Sempron cores. Which means it will stomp the C7 clock for clock.

 

[zach0624]

Originally posted by: Vesku

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: alfa147x

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
This sounds like one of these jetway combos with a better gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153045

holly crap !

That's just an old C3 chip, you got to check out the C7's (prices are ~$120) to get anything close to usable performance for windows stuff.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153092

I wonder how it compares to the jetway with an AMD Geode:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153096

I believe the Geode NX series are basically the 32 bit Sempron cores. Which means it will stomp the C7 clock for clock.

that geode looks freaking sweet. I may get one just to fool around with for a linux server. Although if Via/Nvidia can pull off a $45 dollar combo with resonable performance I may have a new media center pc.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

nvidia should hurry up and buy via, to secure a seat at the table with intel and amd. the more competitive platforms, the better. discrete anything is a dinosaur, and the asteroid is on it's way.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: zach0624

Originally posted by: Vesku

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: alfa147x

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
This sounds like one of these jetway combos with a better gpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153045

holly crap !

That's just an old C3 chip, you got to check out the C7's (prices are ~$120) to get anything close to usable performance for windows stuff.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153092

I wonder how it compares to the jetway with an AMD Geode:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153096

I believe the Geode NX series are basically the 32 bit Sempron cores. Which means it will stomp the C7 clock for clock.

that geode looks freaking sweet. I may get one just to fool around with for a linux server. Although if Via/Nvidia can pull off a $45 dollar combo with resonable performance I may have a new media center pc.

The Geode LX (that newegg link) is completely different from a Geode NX. Don't expect Athlon-like performance from a Geode LX. I think the LX is in-order.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Back on topic, let's guesstimate how good the Isaiah architecture is...