VIA plans their x86 comeback with AMD in their sights for 2019

Every PC builder will have heard of AMD and Intel, the world’s two leading x86 CPU manufacturers but unknown to the wider world is the 3rd creator of x86 CPUs, one that plans to re-enter the high-end x86 market to create a three-way race for x86 dominance.  

AMD and VIA are both licensees for x86 CPU architectures, making them the only two companies in the world that can take on Intel. Yes, Qualcomm has been able to release products that can emulate x86, but this solution is far from ideal and nowhere near capable of taking on true x86 processors in high-end applications. 

VIA currently runs a joint venture with the Shanghai Municipal Government called Zhaoxin, with VIA and Zhaoxin co-developing the company’s latest CPU architectures. In late 2017 this partnership resulted in the release of the KX-5000, the company’s fully-fledged SoC with support for PCIe 3.0, DDR4 memory and an integrated graphics processor.

The KX-5000 launched in late 2017, offering clock speeds of 2.0GHz, which is not impressive when compared to today’s offerings from Intel or AMD, but remember that this is a significant design leap for VIA and that this development is just the start of the company’s evolution. 

In 2018 VIA plans to release their KX-6000 series of CPUs, offering 4 or 8 core processors with clock speeds of 3GHz with support for DDR4 memory and PCIe 3.0. This product is expected to act as a low-cost alternative to Intel’s Gemini Lake SoCs that is built on TSMC’s 16nm process (The KX-5000 series used a 28nm process).