All indications were for a formal announcement at CES in January, but Intel has surprised everyone this week by formally announcing its next-generation Atom chipset.
That is where the surprises end, however, since the copious leaks that sprung up around the Internet in recent months got everything spot on. Still, we can now officially confirm the N450 chipset (previously codenamed ‘Pine Trail‘) will be launched on 4th January and has secured more than 80 design wins from OEMs including Asus, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Samsung and MSI.
What has got them so hot under the collar? From a design perspective the N450 integrates the graphics and memory controllers which makes it up to 70 per cent smaller than its predecessor, meaning ever thinner and lighter PCs. As for performance, a choice of single core (D410) and dual core (D510) 1.66GHz chips are available. The former offers a 20 per cent speed increase compared to current 1.66GHz Atoms with the latter providing a more sizeable 50 per cent jump.
Yes, we could get excited about the 50 per cent leap too, but the D510 is for nettops only and the 20 percent bump in the D410 will largely be swallowed up by netbooks’ transistion from Windows XP to Windows 7 Starter.
More significant will be the N450’s reduced TDP (Thermal Design Power), which in the netbook-focused D410 comes to just 7 watts. That could improve battery life by between 30 and 50 per cent and push them closer to smartbook levels. The N450 also promises to be cheaper than its predecessor, meaning netbooks should start falling from the near-laptop price tags sported by the top models.
Will Pine Trail be enough to reinvigorate the stuttering netbook market? I’m labelling this one ‘too close to call’…
Gordon
