VIA is returning to the x86 architecture CPU scene in 2018 with a new CPU

[GoodBytes]

When you went to buy a computer ages ago, you had 3 big CPU manufacture: Intel, of course, AMD and VIA.

VIA has left the scenes due to lackluster CPUs products in the consumer market, and decided focusing on other chips, but still worked on specialized embedded system level CPUs where the company felt it be more competitive. Over the years, they introduced a hybrid ARM-x86 CPU and presented the lowest power consuming x86 CPU with pretty good performance for what it is, but again, for embedded systems. However, with funding from Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor for R&D, the company is planing a come back to the consumer PC scene with a powerful (claimed) low-powered consumer chip for 2018.

 

Quote

The only other active x86 architecture licensee than AMD, VIA Technologies, is planning a comeback to the x86 processor market, bolstered by R&D investment by Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor. VIA and Zhaoxin have been co-developing the ZX family of x86 processors for rollout in 2018

 

 

Already, late in 2017, the company has released a new x86 CPU which is powering Lenovo M6200 desktop PCs in China. This existing chip is the KX-5000 "Wudaoku" SoC (System-on-Chip), which includes everything, including the south bridge. It is available in 2 variant, 4 or 8 core version, without SMT (No hyper-threading like technology), 64-bit support, with a clock rate of 2.00-2.20 GHz, and can turbo boost to 2.40 GHz. It does support dual-channel DDR4, features PCI-Express gen 3.0 support, an integrated graphics chip (of course, it is a full SoC after all). And as you would expect: supports SATA 3 (6 Gbps), and USB 3.1 gen 2.

 

Quote

The KX-5000 chips feature 4 or 8 CPU cores without SMT, 2.00-2.20 GHz nominal CPU clock, 2.40 GHz boost clock, a dual-channel DDR4 IMC, a PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex, an integrated graphics core, and platform I/O that includes SATA 6 Gbps, and USB 3.1 gen 2

 

What is more interesting, is that the company say that its next chip that they'll release sometime in 2018,  will use 16nm process, reach clock rates of 3.0GHz. And the company boldly claim that it reaches performance closer to AMD Ryzen chip. So we will wait and see on what their definition of "close to" means.

 

 

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/240137/via-making-a-comeback-to-x86-cpu-market-with-zhaoxin-r-d-monies

 

 

Would you be open to a third competitor in the CPU scene? (ie: this means to be open to buying a product with the chip?). I for one, would be interested to see again small tablets running full Windows, something that disappeared quickly when Intel canceled its Atom CPU line. Now with Windows 10 ARM, it looks like VIA would be more in competition with the Qualcomm Snapdragon which will be powering many if not all of the Windows 10 ARM devices.

 

[Princess Luna]

I wish IBM went back in this business, it has always been a brand I really like

 

Any ways, hopefully this means more competition even if not directly in the mainstream computers scenario... I think that Intel/AMD should be forced to give out the rights of x64 to expand business competitors, they have been milking us alone for more than 10 years already... Hard not to call it monopoly already at least in this segment.

[Bananasplit_00]

Awesome, I'd love to see this! Hope it's actually a good chip, would be so funny to own a VIA chip because of how far they have been separated from the word performance

[EPPHO]

First time hearing about this company and hell yeah I would want them get into business.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

I'll just say what I said here:

The tablet/Chromebook platform will be a good starting point and it would get them the appropriate R&D money to compete with Intel and AMD.

[Guest]

Great to see more competition. The true winner of all this will be the first company to move beyond silicon and bring us into the next age of computing.

[Princess Luna]

3 minutes ago, Legendarypoet said:

Great to see more competition. The true winner of all this will be the first company to move beyond silicon and bring us into the next age of computing.

I can not wait for the first CPU that ditches silicon, will totally be an early adopter.

[TVwazhere]

... But I like overpaying for the same CPU every year. I dont want competition /s

 

Hopefully in a few years they'll be up to snuff .Now we just need a third GPU major supplier...

[Sauron]

24 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Would you be open to a third competitor in the CPU scene?

Sure, why not? As long as the performance per dollar is competitive I don't see why I'd be against it. My guess however is that they'll focus on low end products and compete against the 4 core ryzen chips. I could be wrong though, we'll have to wait and see.

[captain_to_fire]

16 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

When you went to buy a computer ages ago, you had 3 big CPU manufacture: Intel, of course, AMD and VIA

Uhm there’s PowerPC by AIM (Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance) as well for Macs prior to Apple’s transition to Intel in WWDC 2005. Just saying. ? 

19 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Would you be open to a third competitor in the CPU scene? (ie: this means to be open to buying a product with the chip?). I for one, would be interested to see again small tablets running full Windows, something that disappeared quickly when Intel canceled its Atom CPU line. Now with Windows 10 ARM, it looks like VIA would be more in competition with the Qualcomm Snapdragon which will be powering many if not all, Windows 10 ARM devices.

Definitely. Tbh I think Microsoft’s attempt to revive the lust for W10 on ARM with SD835 is kinda meh for me and couple that by a highly redacted Windows 10S and hopefully it’ll be a successful third player to x86 processors. That’s quite the bold claim for say they’ll rival AMD Ryzen when it comes to performance. 

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

I can not wait for the first CPU that ditches silicon, will totally be an early adopter.

Some are in the works https://phys.org/news/2014-06-silicon-alternatives-key-future-consumer.html 

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, Legendarypoet said:

Great to see more competition. The true winner of all this will be the first company to move beyond silicon and bring us into the next age of computing.

The "problem" with that is that we may have to ditch x86 entirely for that to be possible, or deal with unnecessary overhead. What works on silicon may not work as well on different manufacturing technology. All 3 players will probably delay that moment for as long as possible.

[Jito463]

28 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

When you went to buy a computer ages ago, you had 3 big CPU manufacture: Intel, of course, AMD and VIA.

Honestly, my first thought apart from Intel and AMD wouldn't be VIA, it would be Cyrix.  I know VIA made chips back in the day, but to my knowledge they weren't even as popular as the Cyrix chips.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

The "problem" with that is that we may have to ditch x86 entirely for that to be possible, or deal with unnecessary overhead. What works on silicon may not work as well on different manufacturing technology. All 3 players will probably delay that moment for as long as possible.

Yep. I just hope it doesn't end up as a long, bloody format war.... even though it definitely will.

[GoodBytes]

5 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Honestly, my first thought apart from Intel and AMD wouldn't be VIA, it would be Cyrix.  I know VIA made chips back in the day, but to my knowledge they weren't even as popular as the Cyrix chips.

In 1999, VIA acquired Cyrix making them a solid third position behind AMD.

[KenjiUmino]

24 minutes ago, frozeNNN said:

First time hearing about this company and hell yeah I would want them get into business.

VIA was a big name in the late 90's to early 2000's - they had CPU's, GPU's and mainboard chipsets - but the performance ranged from less-than-awesome to terrible.

 

8 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Honestly, my first thought apart from Intel and AMD wouldn't be VIA, it would be Cyrix.  I know VIA made chips back in the day, but to my knowledge they weren't even as popular as the Cyrix chips.

cyrix has been acquired by national semiconductor and the Cyrix Microprocessors Division then has been sold to VIA in 1999

 

 

i thought via x86 CPUs appeared earlier but i guess my memory is not correct and it was after this deal that via appeared on the CPU market. 

[NumLock21]

Via needs to prove themselves their cpus are good. No one wants to be guinea pigs, by buying something no one has ever supported before, and waste time and resources to troubleshoot any problems that might occur.

 

 

[Jito463]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

In 1999, VIA acquired Cyrix making them a solid third position behind AMD.

D'oh, you're right.  I was thinking of the old Cyrix chip I have that's labeled IBM Cyrix (yes, I have an actual IBM Cyrix chip ).

[Bananasplit_00]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

In 1999, VIA acquired Cyrix making them a solid third position behind AMD.

I thought Cyrix just kinda died, but VIA was pretty damn big and I still see them when looking at smaller than ITX options

[Bcat00]

I will bet my life savings the Chinese government is  majorly backing this company to take a chunk of the market. 

 

Oh man, the CPU market is going to be really fun to see in the coming year.

 

All hail the new competition

[Jito463]

2 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

I will bet my life savings the Chinese government is  majorly backing this company to take a chunk of the market. 

Considering the quote below from the OP, I believe you'd win that bet.  That was my first thought when I read that line.

44 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Already, late in 2017, the company has released a new x86 CPU which is powering Lenovo M6200 desktop PCs in China.

 

[KenjiUmino]

10 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

Oh man, the CPU market is going to be really fun to see in the coming year.

 

All hail the new competition

i don't know ... monopoly isn't good - that's for sure.

but too many fish in the sea is not good either.

 

but that will level itself on its own with redundant and superflous competitors falling back through the grid sooner or later.

 

from what i have seen in tech so far, it can only be three players maximum.

two "big boys" competing with each other and maybe the odd 3rd one that does not even need to compete in the same categories to be successfull. 

 

if via makes a return to consumer market, their best bet would be to position itself as the "nintendo of CPUs"

[Doobeedoo]

It would be interesting to see a 3. competitor, though I still find it be a far reach now. As said 'performance closer to Ryzen' is quite a goal all of a sudden. 

 

While AMD returned in CPU market in 2017 hopefully they do in GPU market as well with Navi in 2018 too. 

Also would be interesting to see a 3. GPU player as well. 

[Bcat00]

23 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

 

you are right, its time AMD died for good already so intel actually get real competition.

[Matu20]

More competition is always welcome in my book, I wish them luck.

[KenjiUmino]

1 minute ago, Bcat00 said:

you are right, its time AMD died for good already so intel actually get real competition.

i don't think AMD as a CPU brand will go away any time soon - they are about as old as the x86 architecture itself.

 

they just need to wake the fuck up and re-learn how to actually compete - i was pleased to see AMD actually make some noise again after how many years of faildozer overhauls ?