The patron saint of financial analysts is Pete Sherriff
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Intel releases smaller Atom chips
INTEL HAS RELEASED its next-generation Atom netbook processor, saying it will bring longer battery life, improved system performance and peace in our time to low-cost netbooks.
The Atom N450 chip is 60 per cent smaller than the current range and draws 20 per cent less juice. According to the press release, the chip pulls only about 5.5 watts of power.
Since the chip is small it could lead to thinner netbooks and tablets. Chipzilla said to expect netbooks with its N450 chips to be shown by major vendors at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas in a few weeks.
Intel has not released pricing for the chip, but said new PCs will be available at existing netbook prices.
The Atom N450 has a clock speed of 1.66GHz, which is the same as the N280 netbook chip. But since it is smaller and uses less energy you can do a lot more with it. It also integrates the graphics and memory controller into the CPU package so it can process multimedia faster and free up bandwidth for the processor to communicate with other components.
The integrated graphics processor in the N450 is capable of 720p high-definition graphics. Not great but about what you can expect from the world wide web.
Netbooks powered by Atom N450 will run Windows 7, Windows XP or Linux operating systems.
Chipzilla also launched two Atom processors for low-cost, small form factor desktops. The Atom single-core D410 and dual-core D510 operate at clock speeds of 1.66GHz and include 512KB and 1MB of cache respectively. The D410 draws around 10 watts of power, while the D510 draws 13 watts. µ
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The only thing Intel has done in the last few years that actually impresses me.
Speed has not improved that much compared to years past but I really like what they have done with the Atom, it has opened up a whole new world of small form factor and low power consumption.
Atom, So Tableto. then InBox took ATOM Hit. As Creator of Millions, Nay perhaps Billions of Atomites, I Thomas Stewart do Declare ALL Atoms, MINE.(Especially HEAVY Ones). Oh,Well. Heres Press release.
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20091221comp_sm.htm
I could C&P Intel email, yet its just too long.
drashek
I think we wil look back on the whole atom product in ten years and indentify it as a key turning point for personal computing and possibly electronics as a whole. 'just enough' performance is the order of the day on a planet ever more obsessed with energy consumption.
Human prior technology obsessions stem from the idea: 'more is ALWAYS better'. More features, more functions. Atom is a superb representation of the impending and NECESSARY change in consumerism.
Just enough for the job, is always enough. A fact everyone should remember.
The article does not say if the 'smaller' atom is a result of a smaller process or architecture re-design.
I assume the other two new, lower-cost atoms are not part of the 'smaller' lineup because the single-core draws 10 Watts. But mabye the higher draw is because is has more cache than the 5.5-Watt device - the article doesn't say.
Overall this article gives us some nice apples-to-nothing bits of info. :)
I've found that the PACKAGE is 60% smaller because there are two chips now instead of 3. And a bit lower power consumption from one of the new atoms, I'm guessing due to binning because they both have the same cache.
If Intel didn't have a stranglehold/monopoly on the PC chip market where it constantly pushed bigger and more expensive chips we would've seen processors like the Atom awhile ago. Most people don't need 50 billion cores running at 100 gigahertz, they just want to surf the web and send email. I'm glad the recession forced market pressures on Intel and the people are finally getting what they've wanted all along, cheap computers that do what they need and not expensive computers that do more.
Where's USB3?
I've been watching 1080p off the Internet since I got a 30Mbps cable link.
No h264 decode and USB3 in inexcusable.
I feel sorry for the Intel engineers who put this one together.
Good effort from Intel an all, but I'd like to see a comparison of an ARM Cortex-A9 and these latest Atoms. Where are the ARM Netbooks that have been promised for so long?