14 DAY TRIAL // VIA has recently published a whitepaper in which it compares the performance of a dual-core 1.2GHz Nano X2 processor with that of Intel's current flagship Atom chip, the D252, both in single-threaded and multi-threaded applications.
The VIA CPU surpassed its counterpart in all the benchmarks run, delivering between 22.9% and 39.2% performance increased depending on the application and the compilers used.
The biggest difference was observed in the SPECfp2000 benchmark, which measures the single threaded floating point performance of the system, while the smallest change was spotted in the same benchmark when compiled with Intel's C++ Compiler.
Multi-threaded applications also seem to benefit from moving to a Nano X2 processor as they get an average speed increase of about 35% when run on the VIA processor, according to the company's findings.
As many of you know, the Atom D525 was primarily developed to be used inside nettops and other small form factor desktops and sports dual processing cores, with Hyper-Threading support (can run up to four threads simultaneously), and comes clocked at 1.8GHz.
In comparison, the VIA Nano X2 processor used for running these tests also sports dual-processing cores, but comes clocked at a lower 1.2GHz clock speed and lacks support for the Hyper-Threading technology.
However, the CPU does manage to counter all of these shortcoming through its more advanced out-of-order architecture that delivers higher IPC (instructions per clock) performance.
Outside of the out-of-order architecture, the Nano X2 processors also come with native 64-bit software support, VIA's PadLock hardware security features including AES hardware encryption, and VT CPU virtualization technology.
Despite the improved feature set and performance, VIA still has a problem with getting hardware makers to install their chips in mobile and small form factor systems. The Nano X2 is available since Q1 2011, but it has been used only in a few systems released in Asia.
