Already that year, all progressive community tirelessly computer monitors "battle" two processor giants, the companies Intel and AMD. And among these perennial disputes, disagreements and discussions on "who is better?" we inadvertently forget about other Members processor market, and in particular on products company VIA Technologies, Inc.

By the standards of the processor, VIA went on the market relatively recently, but "her conscience" already has considerable staff processors with a variety of features, performance and price. The original orientation of the first VIA C3 (this is referred to as data processors) assumed office on inexpensive machines, and the recent visit to Russia, Vice-President of Marketing VIA Richard Brown (Richard Brown) only confirms this. The spokesman of the company said that plans VIA remains the creation of small low-cost PC designed, mainly for office programs and Internet - surfing. Also, one of the tasks VIA participation in the program is to raise the number of Internet users up to 1 billion.

Officially, the project is named PC-1 and, as you can guess, is aimed at the realization of available PCs in countries such as India, China, Brazil and other developing countries. It is understandable that promote high performance solution (which is usually the road) in low-income citizens unwise and, moreover, simply unrealistic. Therefore, VIA creates affordable platforms based on their own set of logic, including the embedded video, sound and, as it is not strange sounds - processor. The main trump card this PC, of course, are the small size, low, but sufficient performance, automatically kompensiruyuschayasya low power consumption and heat release, and, of course, low cost. This computers VIA adapted to work on volatile electricity lines, which allows the use of the platform in villages and towns.

One of the main prospects and hopes VIA - is the future of C7 processor, which the company brings conquest niche entry-level PCs. In his dignity architecture can be written compatibility with the standard x86 (and, consequently, compatibility with a large number of PA), support for the core set of instructions and, again, low power consumption and heat generation.

But while we are waiting for the official release of the new processor, and hope to implement the plans the company will come back to what started this article - VIA C3 processor.

It will be recalled that in the market there are several options VIA C3 processor, to be more precise to say nuclei on which it is based. CPU early development company based on the kernel Samuel 2 and executed on 0.13 micron technological process. Last announced VIA C3 Samuel 2 had a frequency of 800 MHz with a maximum heat release 13 W, and the relationship with the chipset conducted on a similar Pentium III processor from Intel and licensed tyres with 133 MHz.

By the end of 2003, VIA C3 moved to the new kernel Nehemiah, the main advantage of which were increased (from 64 to 256 Kb) cache second tier lengthened from 12 to 17 stages conveyor, support MMX processing units and streaming SIMD instructions, as well as the increased frequency capability - now up to 1.4 GHz. Regarding the FPU unit, which is responsible for mathematical operations, the absence of C3 Samuel 2 resulted in almost all programmatic implementation of SSE-like and multimedia instructions (with the appropriate speed of execution), while in the nucleus Nehemiah, he went to work at a frequency of the processor.

Plans for further development platform VIA C3 is not (unless you take into account minor modifications and transfers of architecture at 0.11 micron IBM technological process using SOI), but curtailed production company is not going and so are several reasons. First, the beginning of the release of VIA C7 processor is scheduled only for next year, and, secondly, VIA has some of the more revolutionary projects (such as the northern and southern bridge in a single chip with the processor), which also require funding. Care (even a year) processors from the market will mean a loss for VIA one of the articles of income that would affect the pace of new products and announcements would otherwise not bleschuschie speeds…

But not about sad. In the end, there is now a VIA C3 processor is reliable, able to cope with almost any office work, as well as multimedia for watching movies and listening to music. However, last longer belongs to the kernel C3 Nehemiah, which severely "disadvantaged" in the "Mathematics", support multimedia instruction sets and clock frequency C3 Samuel 2, frankly, "pulls no" DivX movies. It would be wrong, and it sounded unusual, but today, we will study in detail on the example of this processor motherboard PCCHIPS M789CLU-2000 chipset for CLE266 c integrated C3 2000 + (or C3 Samuel 2800 MHz).

But before we move on to the characteristics most boards, I would like to say a few words regarding chipsetnoy ligament CLE266 c southern bridge VT8235.

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The number "266" in the title is no accident chipset, it indicates the maximum standard supported DDR memory. In this case - it is quite old DDR PC2100 memory.

As you may have noticed, CLE266 chipset not only allows the VIA processors, but also is compatible with Intel Pentium III / Celeron performed in the shell Socket 370.

A characteristic feature of the northern CLE266 bridge is the presence of embedded graphics with a beautiful name UniChrome Pro S3 Graphics Design. Showing it results in 3D applications difficult to call "productivity", so VIA limited to the characteristics of their offspring as "embedded graphical kernel with good quality 2D images." Another would have only one pixel conveyor with two TMU hardly conducive to obtain even any results, even in games 98-99 years. However, that none of the built-graphics never demanded.

VIA VT8235 South Bridge enables use two IDE channel, which allows up to four devices without the support of PATA RAID functions. Otherwise, the possibility of modest and VT8235 privychny - 6 USB ports, the possibility of the realization of 5.1 - channel audio and modem.

Yet in CLE266 chipset is a small salt - a hardware implementation of MPEG2-accelerator is designed to help the processor while decoding DVD movies. However, our C3 Samuel 2800 MHz such a function quite indifferent because it is simply not able to cope with the workload.

Well, now proceed to consider the possibilities itself Boards PCCHIPS M789CLU-2000…