Future Intel Atom chip is a yawner--by design
That Eee PC Netbook too slow? Well, it probably won't get much faster in 2009, according to reports, proving that Intel is not keen on revving up Atom to compete with itself.
Both Digitimes and Engadget are reporting that the Atom N280--an update of the 1.6GHz N270--will appear by the third quarter of this year and run at 1.66GHz.
This is a whopping 0.06GHz jump in speed--very underwhelming and very different than the performance fast track that consumers are used to with higher-end Intel Core architecture chips. It highlights a theme that will be repeated often in 2009: As Atom gains in popularity, Intel will have to manage the Atom platform so it doesn't imperil more lucrative processor lines.
Another theme that's emerging in 2009 is the Netbook--typically priced below $500--as the computer for the sinking economy, tailor-made for shrinking household budgets. In fact, a recent report from Forrester Research exhorts Netbook vendors to discourage this, saying they should "avoid the temptation" to tap into this sentiment.
"This cannibalization is bad for industry pricing," according to a report by Forrester analyst J. P. Gownder, citing statistics that say 23 percent of consumers say they are interested in buying a Netbook in lieu of "a more expensive laptop." (See chart.)
About 23 percent of U.S. adults say they are interested in Netbooks as a replacement for a more expensive laptop
(Credit: Forrester Research)To be clear, Intel has always been quick to say that Atom is not designed as a high-performance processor and ardently tries to dampen excessive expectations. CEO Paul Otellini and other executives have stated clearly in many forums (regularly in earnings conference calls, for example) that Netbooks are a "complementary" device to a notebook and meant for casual Internet usage only.
And Intel is going to take this a step further later this year by plugging the hole between cheap Netbooks and pricey ultraportables with a new processor for less-expensive ultraportables. More than anything, this chip is meant to send a message: Netbook performance will be capped. Want something more than a Netbook? You will need to buy an ultraportable with a chip from Intel's more mainstream Core architecture lineup.
So, what are Intel's plans for Atom in 2009? Aside from tiny frequency improvements to the processor, Intel will increase the front-side bus--a data path between the processor and other silicon--from 533MHz to 667MHz, which will boost performance more than the teeny uptick in processor clock speed.
(Let's not forget the Atom Z540, which is targeted at handheld-size mobile Internet devices. This has been around since April and runs at 1.86GHz, a faster clock speed than the upcoming N280.)
The biggest improvement, however, will come in graphics. The Atom upcoming GN40 chipset will offer improved graphics performance and will be HD playback compatible, though there will be no Blu-ray logo.
Will this ability to handle HD discourage Netbook vendors from going with Nvidia's Ion processor? That may also be a theme that repeats itself in 2009. Nvidia's Ion platform, aimed at Netbooks, can do Blu-ray. Whether this will provide enough incentive to Netbook makers to include Ion--which appears to offer better graphics performance overall than the GN40--won't be clear until at least summer.
It also isn't necessarily a slam-dunk that Netbooks will rule in 2009. Remember the UMPC? I didn't think so.
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
IM, watch YouTube, surf the web, check email through web mail services, this is mostly being done through the web browser. Do I need an extremely powerful notebook to do this? No, even if I bought one, I am not gonna install Office on it because I am not that type of person who needs their notebook tricked out to the 9's to feel all that important - those days were more 2001.
This way, you can strip even the burden that XP puts on the system, and get something that is very light, very fast, and works perfectly with what the netbook is designed for.
If you can make a small, powerful processor that uses so much less power but you insist on making the large ones just because you can charge more for them, why should I give you business? If the current model of selling processors won't work with a processor that powerful and that small, change your business model. A small processor with that much efficiency and that much power would help to create a much better way of looking at technology. Processors of that size could help recreate the idea of a screen even as it pertains to ultra-portables. Processors in that range could create something that makes modern hi-tech look like the stone-age and run with solar power due to the minimal amount of power necessary in order to do it. Let's not quash this technology in the hopes to make another couple hundred bucks per 10 units. Let's not kill a technology because it makes you uneasy. Let's take that tech and run with it. Give me what I know that processor can be capable of and stop trying to bleed my wallet dry.
@brian.lee
You may want to give Ubuntu a shot, it has a much smaller system footprint and does everything you're wanting from that notebook. It won't wake up from hybernate in .00002 seconds, but it will allow you to run your apps quickly, have more room on your hdd, even while having a modern OS with lots of goodies and it gets you away from either Vista or XP.
Why did AMD can Bobcat? Probably because they could just downgrade Athlon and get a model without developing an entirely different chip.
Now, considering these alternatives to fill one and the same price/performance niche:
1. Pile on more design $$$ just to get Atom faster
2. Use an already existing design (just like AMD) without spending all that $$$, plus saving more $$$ on economies of scale with production
Now tell me- Why would a company want to reinvent some wheel they already got? Just to please some fans and magazine editors? I don't think so.
The lightness & long battery life of a netbook completely opens up usage possibilities, since it can be easily carried around the house, or put into a bag. It would also be ideal for students. There are possibilities that the netbook can make huge inroads, expanding pc ownership among young adults and school children.
ie. on paper this new Atom ought to be at least comparable to a T2300 CoreDuo processor that we saw on laptops a few year ago and only slighter slower than the T3200 that I am seeing on some low end traditional laptops. While the Atom was a decent improvement over the older Celeron Ms that early netbooks were using the bus speed was still so slow that the processors weren't even able to take advantage of DDR2-667, which is the typical speed of RAM on most notebooks save for a handful of newer notebooks using DDR3. Between faster RAM and faster memory we should see a decent improvement in speed on some applications. I agree that a lot of people will still be underwhelmed by even these new Atoms, but the headline of this story is misleading and even one of the earlier sentences is misleading in implying that a small increase in clock speed means that the clock speed is indicative of he increase in performance.
Show me some benchmarks and then we will talk. Otherwise this story seems to be a shameless attempt to get more ad impressions.
Excellent point though.
http://golfism.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/the-netbook/
- by Big_Gonads February 7, 2009 5:41 AM PST
- Normally we are presented with what we will use and not presented with what we want by computer manafactures. Netbooks are a succsees because they solve a number of failed products that have been presented to us in the past. PDA's never delivered because they were never permanently conencted to the internet. So they were converged with mobiles phones. Internet connected mobile phones are a failure not because of any technilogical reason but because they are two small for input. Only the blackberry has come close with its full key board but still to small my company has given me a Bold and I just cant be botherd typing emails on it.
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(16 Comments)Along come a small cheap potentially permanetly internet conneccted PC that doesnt need a bag to carry it around and people have decided that YES this is what we want forgeet my £450 Blackberry bold I can have a £300 NETBOOK and a simple mobile phone.
This was not what the manafacures wanted or expected. They have not until recently been able to make small miniture laptops that actually worked they way I wanted. They were nevevr likee my PC. I like many of you have probably had a number of devices that never ever really did what the manafactures said it would do without being complicated or annoying.
This is convergence of mobile communications, computing and the intenet in a form that has ease of use and is cheap. We will soon see if the all singing all dancing mobile phone continues to be the primary form of exchange of mobile information other than voice. How many laptop manafactures said they were not going to get involved in NETBOOKS? How many are worried that they are no lonnger in control of what products we will buy. Even Microsoft has imposed restrictions and offers the NETBOOK XP at next to nothing (They know). This is potentially now the biggest computing market in the world. NET BOOKs are out selling laptops and both are out selling desktops. No one saw the NETBOOK coming. Even the mobile phone companies will need to now compete with the computer industry it had to happen. These little computers are far more significant right now at this point in time in our current economic climate than any other form of computing in the last twenty years since the introduction of the PC.
We live in exciting times !
Kevin.