Tuesday, November 10th 2009
Intel Pushes for Next Gen Netbook/Nettop Platform by Early 2010
Intel's Atom processor platform will get its successor in the next-generation "Pine Trail" platform sooner than expected, what Intel refers to as a 'fast transition to the next-generation platform'. The company plans to detail the new platform for netbooks and nettops on the 21st of December, 2009, by means of a press release. Launches of products based on the new Atom N450 will start as early as by 4th January, 2010, in time for the CES 2010 event.
At the center of the Pine Trail platform is the "Pineview" processor. Unlike its predecessor, Pineview integrates a DDR2 memory controller, graphics processor, and a video decoding processor by Broadcom into a single package. The new processor will support the x86-64 instruction set, indicating that netbooks and nettops could use over 4 GB of memory very soon. The processor also comes with higher performance, and a brand new chipset. Sources reveal the following three initial models to X-bit labs:
Source:
X-bit labs
At the center of the Pine Trail platform is the "Pineview" processor. Unlike its predecessor, Pineview integrates a DDR2 memory controller, graphics processor, and a video decoding processor by Broadcom into a single package. The new processor will support the x86-64 instruction set, indicating that netbooks and nettops could use over 4 GB of memory very soon. The processor also comes with higher performance, and a brand new chipset. Sources reveal the following three initial models to X-bit labs:
- Intel Atom N450: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point;
- Intel Atom D510: dual-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 1MB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point;
- Intel Atom D410: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $43 price-point.
20 Comments on Intel Pushes for Next Gen Netbook/Nettop Platform by Early 2010
since its a dual core with HT, it should do rather wellf or HD media playback
Intel would much rather sell notebooks so they can make more money. These CPU's are intentionally crippled and integrating a rubbish GPU is actually a bad thing for next gen netbooks which can peform decently with an ION GPU already.
D = Desktop/Nettop
If you can get some ahold of some PCIe lanes to use, you could just put say a GeForce 210 (or mobile equiv.) on the motherboard, give it 64 bit DDR2 on-board and you'd have a nice little setup. An even better option would be to make said GPU an MCM (Multi-chip Module) and put the 4 DDR2 ICs on the same substrate as the GPU itself, so all you would probably need space for is the GPU substrate itself and no extra signaling wires for external ram (it would all be on-chip i'm assuming). The GPU idea i'm talking about would be similar to AMD's embedded E4690 discrete GPU: