The Chipset

VIA have deliberately focused on power management and heat economy in this VX700 chipset through various ingenious power saving technical methodologies. They build them directly into the design. The technologies include a Dynamic clock gating control which runs functional blocks that turn off parts of the chip not in use. In addition there is support for the latest power management specifications including ACPI 3.0 and APM v1.2, and also support for CPU clock throttling and clock stop during ACPI C2/C3/C4 reduced activity states. Furthermore, there is support for multiple system suspend types, all with automatic hardware wake-up. The other features are fairly common and include Power-on Suspend (POS) with flexible CPU/PCI bus reset options, Suspend to DRAM (STR) and Suspend to Disk (soft-off). Essentially this system is perfect for a small, unobtrusive device such as a UMPC.

Looking through some interesting diagrams courtesy of VIA we were able to see that the C7-M integrates with a single solution chipset called the VIA VX700 IGP, designed to take the place of the double chipset platform, traditionally made up of a Northbridge and

Looking through some interesting diagrams courtesy of VIA we were able to see that the C7-M integrates with a single solution chipset called the VIA VX700 IGP, designed to take the place of the double chipset platform, traditionally made up of a Northbridge and Southbridge

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This all-in-one VIA solution from chipset to CPU incorporates the 8 channel Vinyl HD Audio capability and the UniChrome™ Pro II graphics core too. The DDR or DDR2 memory controller; depending on the configuration, has two DIMM slots. The Gigabytes U60 has the two slots configured for DDR2 667Mhz PC2-5300 and shares the memory with the VGA display. The chipset supports four PCI devices, six USB 2.0 connections as well as the usual mouse/keyboard capabilities. In addition, Gigabyte has enabled many wireless devices such as Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), & Wi-Fi making this UMPC ultra portable, ultra connectable and ultra impressive. Add on the Docking station, digital TV Tuner & GPS modules and there is suddenly very little that this machine cannot do.

The VX700 single solution chipset gives off a Total Dissipated Power (TDP) of 3.5Watts and really makes the size much more user friendly by taking up much less space. With a low wattage TDP signature, low power consumption and even better; a device that can fit easily and lightly (weight -740g) into one’s bag or jacket pocket, the UMPC is set to be very popular indeed.