VIA launches tiddly X86 IGP chipsets

VIA HAS announced a new range of IGP chipsets for what it terms very portable PCs (VPPCs)*.

The series comprises two skus: the VIA VX800 is targeted at mini "green" PCs, such as thin ’n’ light notebooks, and boasts a power consumption (TDP max) of 5 watts. The low voltage VX800U has been designed for the ultra mobile device market, and boasts a maximum power draw of just 3.5 watts.

Nevertheless,VIA says the VX800 Series is fully Microsoft Windows Vista compliant. The chipsets use VIAs C7, C7-M and Eden processors and also upcoming processors based on the VIA Isaiah Architecture.

The VIA VX800 Series integrates a chipset's North and South bridges into a single chip package measuring just 33mm x 33mm.

The VIA VX800U series delivers full Microsoft DirectX 9 3D graphics, high definition video and audio playback, and support for up to 4GB of DDR2 system memory.

Richard Brown, VIA's corporate marketing Veep (below, right), reckons, “The VIA VX800 Series goes a long way towards maintaining VIA’s leadership in the ultra mobile and other key market segments, and allows our customers to bring products with enhanced features and performance to market faster.”

Integrated graphics capability is provided by the VIA Chrome9 HC3 graphics core, which claims full DirectX 9.0 support while the VIA Chromotion video engine delivers a Hi-Def moving pictures, including advanced video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DiVX video formats.

Audio comes via VIA's Vinyl HD Audio controller which supports up to eight high definition channels with a 192kHz sampling rate. The memory controller supports the lower power, high-bandwidth DDR2 memory modules.

VIA said the VX800 Series chipsets starts shipping now. There's more information here. µ

* A term we just made up