VIA Isaiah faster than Intel Atom?

As you might have already figured out, we're pretty pumped for Intel's forthcoming Atom chipset 'round these parts. If preliminary benchmarks are to be believed, however, the Atom could have a little competition on its hands later this year. It looks like VIA--the manufacturer of low-power chips that are currently used in devices like the Eee PC and HP Mini Note--is looking to strike back with its forthcoming Isaiah CPU. You see, Intel's Atom is pretty widely recognized as an attempt to unseat VIA as the current king of power-sipping mobile CPUs, but the Taiwanese company isn't going down without a fight: preliminary benchmarks (based on published estimates, not real world tests) show the Isaiah outperforming the Atom by a wide margin.

For more on the benchmarks:
- see this Engadget article