Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

While most of the products coming out of China are powered by Intel, AMD, and VIA chips, the Chinese government is investing heavily in a new chip called the Godson-3 in an effort to be “technologically independent.” The Godson-3 is a third generation, quad-core design — the project was started in 2001 — and the goal is to use it to bring PCs to most Chinese citizens by 2010. Importantly, the 65nm Godson-3 will be x86 compatible through simulation, which means it’ll be be able to run Windows about 80 percent as fast as a comparable Intel chip — although other Godson chips are already on the Chinese market in Linux-powered desktops and laptops under the name Loongson, or “dragon chip,” they’ve been hampered by incompatibility with x86 software, so this should open things up significantly. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one — hopefully it’ll bring about more than just another flood of cheap netbooks.

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

NVIDIA might be on a big GPUs-as-CPUs kick right now, but rumors of the company developing a straight-up x86-compatible CPU are as old as the hills, and it looks like they’re back for another round. This time it’s the Inquirer doing the mongering, with whispers of a release at Nvision next week — we’ve got to say that we doubt it, especially given how much trash NVIDIA’s talked about Intel and Intel CPUs recently, but we’ll certainly be watching this one.

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