C7 adds VIA’s new Step Ahead technology suite. To put it down, Step Ahead is a series of branch prediction instructions and software on the CPU to predict frequently accessed data to allow quicker access to certain programs on the system, this come in handy for the digital home and office environments where prediction is a lot easier than with gaming. The C7 also gets an increased pipeline, up from 10 stages on the C3 to a 16 stage pipeline – that is two stages more than the Pentium M series had from Intel.

Lastly VIA’s V4 bus may sound new, and in fact it is for VIA – it is the first time they have used this bus, however V4 is simply another name for the Intel FSB used on the Pentium 4’s and Pentium-M CPU. Currently the C7 uses a 100MHz quad-pumped bus (or 400MHz QDR) which is the same as what the original Pentium 4’s came out with – it does give the VIA CPU a lot more bandwidth to play with over its C3 counterpart.



Link: TweakTown