Electronic Business Asia bericht dat VIA meer info heeft vrijgegeven over de Samuel processor. Deze opvolger van de VIA Joshua is socket370 compatible en zal op kloksnelheden van 500 tot 700MHz draaien, bij een busspeed van 66 tot 133MHz:
The Samuel is essentially a migration of the Winchip 4 core which came from VIA's acquisition of the IDT Centaur division. Richard Brown, a spokesman for VIA in Taipei, confirmed that Samuel will run at clock speeds in the 500-700 MHz range and will most likely be fabbed by National Semiconductor with a 0.18 process. The resulting die size, coupled with low power consumption, should make it an ideal processor for embedded applications and information appliances, according to Brown.The quoted clock speeds are at "true megahertz," says Brown, and are not PR rated. Samuel will probably incorporate the AMD 3D Now! multimedia instruction set and run at bus speeds of 66-, 100-, and 133 MHz. According to VIA, Samuel will be formally announced in the second quarter of 2000. Samuel is designed for socket 370 and will be pin-compatible with the Intel Celeron processor.
Niet meteen opgewonden raken : dit CPU'tje is nog steeds "targeted firmly at the value PC", dus wat betreft performance hoeven we niet echt veel soeps te verwachten.