German website Eee PC News has scored the first benchmark figures of what should be an Intel Atom processor clocked at 1.6GHz and a VIA Isaiah/CN processor, also clocked at 1.6GHz. The result is interesting to say the least, especially as they've also thrown in a 1.6GHz Intel Celeron-M and a 1.6GHz VIA C7 processor.

The benchmark figures comes from CrystalMark 2004R3 and it's only the CPU ALU and FPU numbers that have been presented. First and foremost, it looks like VIA's claims about the Isaiah/CN being twice as fast as the C7 weren't over-exaggerated, as it is more than twice as fast in these tests.

The FPU of the Isaiah/CN seems to be its real strongpoint, beating even the Celeron-M processor by quite a distance. So what about the Atom, you ask? Well, it comes close in the ALU test with it scoring 4,601 points, but the Isaiah/CN is at least faster in this test with a score of 4,762. It's not a huge gap, but it still looks like VIA has one up on Intel here.

If these results stay true across the board, the Isaiah/CN should prove to be a very interesting processor as soon as VIA manages to launch it. Judging by this early test, it looks like Intel's position in the ultra low cost and UMPC market isn't as safe as they seem to think.

At the end of the day it comes down to device vendor support, and sadly, this hasn't been VIA's strong point in the past, but we can only hope that the Isaiah/CN processor will be priced and positioned right for VIA's partners to be all over it. With HP already having its VIA powered Mini-Note in the market, we'd expect to see a processor upgrade as soon as VIA launches the Isaiah/CN, as it's pin-to-pin compatible with the C7, which is currently found in the Mini-Note.

You can find the benchmark numbers here