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    Interesting Idea

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by BBGus, May 27, 2008.

  1. BBGus

    BBGus Notebook Evangelist

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    Howdy all,

    I was thinking at work today about all the current and upcoming UMPCs that are going to be hitting the market fairly soon that could be my next laptop instead of the 12" ones I was looking at (primarily the MSI PR200). Out of the three major U.S. availabilities (EEE PC, HP 2133 Mini-Note, and the 1 week away MSI Wind), I personally like the design of the HP best. Obviously, I want to wait for a great review of the MSI Wind from notebookreview.com, but I was curious about the HP's current setup with the older VIA CPU and chipset.

    Sure, the HP currently uses the VIA C7-M ULV 1.6 GHz with Chrome 9 chipset which, when paired with a Linux or XP O.S., will run things like internet or word processing decently, but supposedly the new VIA Isaiah CPU platform and it's subsequent chipset are going to first come out in the same 65 nm architecture and pin-set as the current C7.

    From VIA's website:

    "The first generation of Isaiah-based products will be pin-compatible with the VIA C7 processor family and use the proven 65 nanometer technology for greater power efficiency to ensure the best performance per watt on the market."

    So, is it resonable to assume that you could switch out the CPUs when the new Isaiahs become available as an upgrade? The only thing I am not sure on would be if the chipset would support it. What are yalls thoughts on this? Everything I have read shows the new VIA Isaiah platform should hold its own if not perform slightly better than the first generation Intel Atoms.

    I have sent an email off to VIA today and hope they will get back to me on if this is a viable option or not.
     
    BBGus, May 27, 2008
    #1
  2. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    It's not a chipset problem. It think the bios will probable be locked to prevent that upgrade. And you should also now that most umpc have soldered cpu and don't have a socket...
     
    Ayle, May 27, 2008
    #2
  3. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    All Via processors are soldered directly to the board. Actually just about every ultra portable uses a soldered on cpu. VIA does this for power isolation issues, and for size. The via processors do not have a lot of punch behind them, but it will be interesting to see how it stacks up.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, May 27, 2008
    #3
  4. Nirvana

    Nirvana Notebook Prophet

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    those 3 are NOT so ultra mobile compare to these two:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    Nirvana, May 27, 2008
    #4