The x86 processor market is largely dominated by Intel and AMD. But at a time when x86 dominance is being challenged by processors based on ARM, RISC-V, or MIPS designs, there are also a few other companies working on x86 processors.

Over the past few years, Zhaoxin has been developing x86 processors for use in Chinese PCs. And now Austin-based Centaur Technology has introduced a new octa-core x86 system-on-a-chip aimed at servers.

The new chip is a 16nm processor that runs at 2.5 GHz and which features an artificial intelligence co-processor that Centaur says offers up to 20 TOPS (tera-operations per second) of performance.

Other features include 16MB of L3 cache, support for 4 channels of PC3200 memory, and 44 PCIe lanes.

While this is a chip designed for servers rather than desktop or laptop computers, it’s always nice to see a bit of competition. Oh, and for what it’s worth, Centaur is a subsidiary of VIA Technologies, which has been producing chips for three decades — although it’s been about 8 years since the company launched its last processors based on x86 architecture.

You can read more about the new Centaur chip in a press release and presentation slide deck.

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2 replies on “VIA subsidiary Centaur launches an x86 octa-core processor with AI co-processor (for servers)”

  1. I hope these processors support Linux out of the box, without needing propriotary drivers. Older VIA processoes were not Linux friendly at all.

  2. I’m pretty sure these “AI co processors” would be more accurately described as a hardware neural net. Which could help paint a better picture of what they should be doing if your computer has one than the deliberately nebulous “oh just let the box think for you dear” current marketing.

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