May 29 - 6:50am EDT   On the heels of its C7-based OpenBook reference design, VIA Technologies on Thursday formally introduced its VIA Nano processor family based on the "Isaiah" architecture. VIA claims that the Nano family, which uses Fujitsu’s 65 nanometer process, offers as much as four times the performance of its previous-generation within the same power and thermal envelope, while offering pin-compatibility with VIA C7 processors. Introduced in January, the new low-power CPU features out-of-order processing, a large 1MB L2 cache, and an improved FPU for 2-4 times the performance of the previous-generation C7 processor at the same clock speeds. While already sampling the chips to vendors, ... [full story]

April 30 - 2:00am EDT   Hoping to garner a greater mobile marketshare, AMD says that around 100 laptop designs will be based around the Puma laptop chip platform, which is scheduled to launch in June. A company spokesman told PC World that the launch will feature twice as many designs as the launch of its last mobile platform. With plans to launch Puma during the Computex trade show, the platform will offer greater power efficiency, improved graphics, and AMD's upcoming Turion X2 Ultra "Griffin" processor. The report notes that Puma also includes a chipset with integrated graphics (an ATI Radeon HD3400) and integrated wireless connectivity (via a third-party chipset) supporting 802.11a, 802.11b, ... [full story]

April 19 - 7:10pm EDT   AMD engineers this week said that the company plans on introducing new 12-core processors later this year. The first processors based on 45nm Shanghai platform are due later this year and will be nearly identical to the B3 variant of the Socket 1207 Opteron (Barcelona) shipping today, according to DailyTech. The processors will reportedly use the faster HyperTransport 3.0 for inter-CPU communication and will debut later this year as a "native six-core" Shanghai derivative, currently code-named Istanbul. That processor, the report claims, is "clearly targeted at Intel's recently announced six-core, 45nm Dunnington processor." A few months later, Shanghai and its derivatives ... [full story]

November 26 - 4:05pm EST   Apple earlier this month quietly updated its MacBook Pro by offering a larger hard drive as well as faster processor speeds via its build-to-order shopping option. A new test using Geekbench 2 results for the MacBook Pro 2.2GHz, 2.4GHz, and 2.6GHz models reveal slight speed differences as expected, driving the tester to conclude that the performance gains of the fastest MacBook Pro are only worth the money to those users who require maximum CPU speeds. [full story]

November 24 - 8:40pm EST   Apple should buy AMD, according to a report that outlines the ten reasons to do so. Financial analysis website Seeking Alpha has created a top ten list of reasons that it thinks Apple should buy processor manufacturer AMD. The report argues that Apple's best features, such as its system architecture, operating system, and applications will compliment AMD's multi-core CPUs and energy saving technology. The new AMD Spider chip that combines the processor and graphics chipset would be a benefit, and with Apple's unique position, they could still sell to AMD's current customers and it would not compete with either of the companies' customer bases. Intel would gain a more ... [full story]