VIA C3

The VIA C3 is an x86 central processing unit for personal computers. It is made by a Taiwanese company, VIA. It is based on the CPU design technology of Cyrix, which VIA bought.

The fastest edition currently available works at the speed of 1 GHz with a 133 MHz front side bus on a Socket 370 motherboard.

While being much slower than x86 CPUs being sold by AMD and Intel, it has special niche qualities which make it attractive to some buyers:

• Relatively low electrical consumption levels, at only 11.25 watts maximum
• Its price is cheap
• It produces very little heat for a PC processor, and therefore can be run without a cooling fan if it is underclocked or if it has got a suitable heatsink
• It runs on older Socket 370 motherboards

According to VIA, the VIA C3 is to be superseded in 2003 by the VIA C4 - a clone of the design of the Intel Pentium 4 processor.

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