We already reported on the fact that updated Intel Atom chips are expected to arrive somewhere in the second half of 2009. With the Atom being Intel's only platform that's actually profitable, it makes sense for the chip maker to focus a lot of effort into improving the platform. Information provided by the usually-reliable DigiTimes points to some serious improvements making their way to Intel's Atom chip. The new chip is codenamed Pineview.
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Member since:
2005-07-13
someone got their info wrong (tisk tisk DigiTimes). the GMA 950 will NOT be used (at least in the final product, but will be used in praliminary sample boards). it will instead use GMA 500 as seen here http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/embedded/SCHUS15W/index.htm
Edited 2009-01-20 22:42 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-13
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-01-03
Good!
Improved grahpics performance should really come handy in not-really-overpowered netbooks. And hardware video acceleration will make it a good candidate for a low-cost media box. But,
Bad!
PowerVR has not ever released public information on the internal workings of their accelerators, and as such there are no open-source drivers for Linux. This will make it a nasty chore to run up-to-date Linux distros on it, which is very bad.
I hope PowerVR comes to reason (or is pushed by Intel into it) and releases the necessary programming information. Intel should know this is a Good Thing, since ther GMA9xx chips, underpowered as they may be, (almost) always work like a dream in Linux, out of the box, and are usually the first to receive the latest innovations.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-13
Member since:
2006-06-17
The Atom chip seems to be pretty impressive, but unfortunately Atom netbooks for me are still too expensive. For the use of most netbooks (email, internet, basic media) can still be well accomplished by older small laptops, which be bought used cheaper than a new atom notebook for meeting roughly the same needs. It seems the Atom will always be for higher end notebooks.
I love the Atom, but I am currently waiting to see how Freescale's efforts pan out. If they can crank out a roughly $200 ARM/Linux based netbook, I will go with that for the main reason I would use a netbook (portable writing).
Member since:2007-02-17
http://products.liliputing.com/products/?id=249
Member since:2005-07-13
other food for thought, http://www.marvell.com/featured/pxa168.jsp
Member since:2006-01-06
I believe the pxa is an old armv9 implementation which doesn't hold a candle whatsoever to the cortex a8 series.
I'm putting my money on the freescale one. They MUST however put an acer aspire one/samsung nc10 style keyboard which doesn't destroy the right shift key's useability.
Member since:2006-01-06
Ugh I take that back. I have zero idea how this will perform compared with cortex a8. What I do note is that the graphics core advertises no 3d acceleration whatsoever.
Of interest might be what the WMXX2 brings to the table, if this unit provides full dp support and how well this unit integrates with the whole cpu. One weakness of the Cortex A8 is that the neon unit runs asynchronously and if care isn't taken the main cpu may stall 20 clock cycles on accessing the neon unit's output.
That being said I wonder what the south bridge will look like on these new atoms and how much power that will take
Edited 2009-01-21 03:34 UTC
Member since:2006-01-03
Arent Atom netbooks already available second-hand at lower prices?
Even if the performance is the same as an older laptop, battery life in my Asus 901 is way, way better than I've ever had in a laptop. I doubt you can get better than that at a competitive price, even second hand.
Member since:
2006-01-22
Member since:2005-07-06
From what I understand, the bluetooth work is on hold for more important things; I wouldn't be surprised to see it not in there for quite some time given the low priority. Very few people outside the niche scenario's I find use it.
Member since:
2005-07-01
