Via introduces its Nano 3000 series processors

ALTHOUGH VIA has had a rather poor track record in scoring design wins and putting products on store shelves, it has launched its Nano 3000 low-power notebook CPU, just 10-months after the official-unofficial announcement.

               We'll recommend putting the champagne back on ice, tho'. 

The Nano 3000 isn’t a new CPU. It’s still a 65nm-built CPU and not even dual-core for that matter. The introduction of the 3000-series brings out six additional SKUs. You can compare the old Nanos (2000-series) with the new ones, listed below.

 New vs. Old SKUs

What you can immediately see here is that there is little improvement in of raw power numbers on these devices. Via did not reveal Load values for these processors.

However, as Via re-spun the original silicon it added support for SSE4 instructions, which allows the Nano 3000 to gain some serious improvements in any SSE4-enabled game or benchmark. According to Via, the Nano 3000 processor outperforms the Atom by as much as 42 per cent in PC Mark and 34.5 per cent in Cinebench R10, clock-for-clock. Additionally, Via slideware claims the Chrome9 HC3 graphics kicks Intel’s GMA 950 around the block and back.

Via is pushing for thin and light notebook designs, netbooks if you will, but it doesn’t restrict its partners on their form factors or use of operating systems, something that Via has failed to leverage so far.

The Nano 3000 is on the way to becoming the second chapter for a promising architecture that didn't fully deliver on timings and execution, and by the timings on this one, Intel and AMD will steal Via's thunder again.

Why else has there been so much buzz about Intel releasing dual-core Atoms and loosening restrictions on netbooks in late 2009 and early 2010?

So, Via, we're still waiting for those dual-cores. µ