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We remain unconvinced by Intel’s Atom. But it isn’t the only new chip vying for a piece of the burgeoning ultra-low cost PC (ULPC) market.

VIA has finally launched its much-anticipated Isaiah processor, which is now officially called the Nano. It’s looking very promising.

A WinChip winner at last?

Amongst all the acrimonious headlines revolving around Intel’s spat with AMD, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there is still another manufacturer making x86-compatible processors.

VIA’s CPUs haven’t been able to compete for the mainstream desktop market for some time – and indeed never really have. But they have been quietly ticking over in niche markets, particularly where low power consumption is most beneficial.

VIA purchased Centaur Technology from IDT in 1999, and with it VIA gained an x86 license. Centaur designed the WinChip, which was a Pentium-era competitor to Intel and AMD.

The WinChip was physically small, and therefore cheap to produce, but it never really won much attention. Its major failing was its floating-point performance. With entertainment software relying heavily on this – particularly video decoding and 3D games – its mainstream desktop appeal was limited.

VIA is no longer lagging behind

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There have been rumours circulating for a couple of years about Nvidia releasing processors. I've touched on this before in the post - Nvidia inches closer to CPU business

AMD and ATI are now joined in holy matrimony. While Intel’s discrete Larrabee graphics solution is fast closing in. So Nvidia is facing the prospect that it will only have graphics cards and chipsets to offer, where its two main competitors will have the full kit and caboodle.

Both AMD and Intel are promising CPUs with integrated graphics for 2009, potentially cutting Nvidia out of a high-volume chunk of the market.

Nvidia's next generation graphics cards, the GeForce GTX 280 and 260, look likely to steal a march on ATI’s Radeon HD 4800 series. But that’s just at the high end. The true volume has historically been in integrated graphics, which is why Intel has the biggest percentage of revenue.

Where Nvidia has some pretty credible integrated graphics chipset options, graphics built into the CPU itself will make for an even cheaper proposition – particularly for business and notebook users. Just look at the popularity of Intel's GMA X3100, which appears in everything from Dell XPS laptops to the new MacBook Airs.

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Ever since Intel released the Core Microarchitecture in the middle of 2006, the processor business has been a bit like watching Mike Tyson go a few rounds with Rick Moranis – amusing, but rather a foregone conclusion.

At least the never-ending slugfest between ATI and Nvidia has been showing some signs of life. In June, however, it will be shaping up to be a prize fight of heavyweight proportions.

Over the last few months, more and more conclusive details have been trickling out about what ATI and Nvidia actually have planned and when.

It’s looking like ATI’s RV770 will arrive on June 16, with Nvidia’s reposte officially launched just a couple of days later. We’re back to the synchronised releases of old, and there's the potential for a real grudge match ahead in the second half of 2008.

Enter the ATI RV770

Back in February, NordicHardware leaked fairly comprehensive information about ATI’s RV700 series cards. According to the Scandinavian rumour-mongers, the flagship Radeon HD 4870 will have 480 stream processing units (SPUs), which is 50 per cent more than the current Radeon HD 3870’s 320 SPUs. So the new card could be at least 50 per cent faster than the old one.

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