Via roadmap found on road to Damascus

Hard details are beginning to emerge about the shape of Via's CPU roadmap, although some of here at The Register are scratching our heads about some of the elements of its CPU future. Meanwhile, German site Tec Channel has a photograph of a Socket A motherboard Via is touting. According to a roadmap we have seen, Samuel/Samuel 2 uses a WinChip C5 core, comes in a Socket 370 format, has 128K of level one cache, zero to 64K of level two cache, and supports system buses of between 66-133MHz. Speeds for Samuel/Samuel 2 will be 500MHz, 533MHz, 550MHz, 600MHz, 650MHz, 700MHz, 750MHz and 800MHz. The up-and-coming Ezra is a different kettle of fish altogether, somewhat reminiscent of Australian creature the platypus. According to the roadmap, Ezra will come in clock speeds of 750MHz, 800MHz, 850MHz, and 900MHz+. It will use the CX core, support Socket 370 and Socket 417, 128K of level one cache, 128K of level two cache, a 266MHz front side bus and SSE. Wait a minute. SSE are them thar Intel multimedia MMX thingies which we call Screaming Cindy. A call to Intel confirmed that SSE is an Intel patented technology requiring a licence. Meanwhile, the Via Cyrix III, formerly called Joshua, is slated for release in June, but some questions remain over how viable it will be given that Intel with its Celeron and AMD with its Duron are involved in a seriously head-banging pricewar. Unlike Samuel and Ezra, the Cyrix III uses the PR rating rather than a MHZ rating. ®