Socket 479 VIA C7s spotted

THE FOLKS DOWN in Tokyo's famous Aki Habara district have got their hands on some fascinating chips from VIA - a hybrid version of the 1.5GHz C7 that fits in Socket 479 Pentium M boards with Intel chipsets.

The tiny lump of 90nm silicon is dwarfed by a Dothan that runs in the same socket, and offers a much lower power output, albeit for less performance.

Notably VIA seem to have moved towards a processor numbering scheme, as used by the Pentium M, with the 1.5GHz part now called a C7-M 754. Other than the package difference, this processor seems identical to its nanoBGA2 versions, with 64KB of L1 cache and 128KB of L2.

This raises all sorts of questions to us - like are there any actual differences between the VIA V4 bus and the Pentium Ms? What are the nasty legal implications of this given Intel's removal of VIA's licence to manufacture CPUs that work in its motherboards?

Akiba Watch shows the CPU running in a 915GM + ICH6-M motherboard, and shows all the usual CPU-Z data. Curious stuff indeed! µ

L'Inq
watch.impress.co.jp