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  • matheusber - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    well, I was hoping there would be gain in performance, but as all is the same, a netbook may last 1 month in battery, if all runs slow it won't matter. I have an Acer running second gen Atom and Vista, and it has no hurry whatsoever to do anything.

    Thanks AMD for E-Series.

    matheus
  • MrSpadge - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    E350 or E450 with an SSD, that's the way to go. Add a Thinkpad keyboard and a good screen while we're at it ;)
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    I agree.
    Brazos is a big winner for mobile.
    Of course, since Intel is sponsoring much of teh ultrabook development, they'll have a huge spot anyway.
    Still, I look forward to a comparison between cedar trail and brazos.
    Since "Krishna" and "Wichita" seem to have been canceled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Fusion), to be replaced by a version with an "enhanced bulldozer" core, I wonder how will the competition be in 2012.
    I have an E350 (on an HP DM1Z) and could not be happier. Well, no, I could: power is never enough, but it is lightyears from the older Atoms.

    It would be nice an in depth comparison between Cedar Trail and Brazos, as well as some updated info on AMD's plans for 2012...
  • fteoath64 - Sunday, January 1, 2012 - link

    Agreed. I also cannot believe WHY Intel would release this junk at this time. They have nothing else better to do?. In the time where most OEMs are giving up on netbooks and going towards tablets, this chip is about 4 years late yet under performing in graphics. A real shame.
  • nukunukoo - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Same Atom, performance is just masked by the GPU. Meh. Let the "fast enough" crowd troll in...
  • therealnickdanger - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    I guess it all depends upon how diverse the "integrated full HD video decode" and "HD audio" actually is. Dual-core (4 threads) plus truly FULL video decode beyond just H.264 should be plenty fast for many people. If the the video decode also properly transmits 1080p at 23.976Hz instead of 24.000Hz (unlike Sandy Bridge) along with HD audio codecs, then this could be a VERY popular low-power HTPC platform. But we'll have to wait for more details.
  • maroon1 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    D2700 has clock speed of 2.13GHz (which is higher than any older D series)

    N2800 has clock speed of 1.83GHz (which is higher than any older Dual Core N series)

    So, saying that there is no CPU speed improvement is very misleading. It might have similar IPC, but clock speed went up and TDP went down

    ALso, people here are comparing those to E-350. This ridiculous. Netbook that use this processor cost over $360

    While the ones that going to use N2600 and N2800 are going cost below $240. Not sure why people comparing two products with two different price range and TDP.

    I mean it more fair to compare those newer atoms to C-50 or C-60 which is closer in price and TDP. Cheapest C-60 netbook on newegg cost $310 (which is still more expensive)
  • mmaestro - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    If the N2600 can be made fanless, why not? I have an Oak Trail based tablet I'm using right now, and the damn thing's useless. For basic, basic tasks I don't think it needs a lot more punch, but 4GB of DDR3 and dual cores would make a huge difference in what is an extraordinarily frustrating experience right now. With any luck, we'll see some tablets coming soon at CES.
  • dmk2000 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Well. That is a reason I got MSI Windpad 110w with AMD APU. Upgraded Toshiba slow SSD with Adata 60 Gb one and now this thing is a blast. With HDMA I connected this thing to 46" LCD and it is a great player 1080p.
    No Atom can touch it (did I say it last about 4 hours on battery).
    So this new refreshed ATOMs are waist of time.
  • LtGoonRush - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    It would be nice to see Intel fix their long-standing architectural error of separating out the memory controller and processor cores. (For those unaware, they're on the same piece of silicon but are still on separate devices with a very short FSB connecting them). This approach seems like it would save power and die area compared to Intel's current Clarkdale-esque method, but who knows. The big deal is improving memory latency and throughput, which can help a LOT on devices with integrated graphics. Overall it seems like Intel just isn't trying very hard, something they can only get away with because AMD has had trouble scaling production of their Brazos APUs.
  • GTVic - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Yes, that architecture shortcut was mentioned in AnandTech's previous reviews of the original Atom and the Pine Trail version.

    I'm surprised that this article didn't explicitly state whether there was a change in this area as the previous articles focused on that as a major limitation to the performance.
  • DanNeely - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    The lack of mention, combined with Intel repeatedly stating the new atom architechture won't launch until 2013 almost certainly means no change. Ripping out on-die FSB would be a major change; intel would've had to commit to doing this a few years ago to create an intermediate part between the current platform and Atom2013. Since Intel was heavily talking up Atom as its gateway to phones initially I suspect the sucess of the netbook/nettop platforms caught them by surprise and it was too late for an intermediate design to be inserted into the lineup.
  • jontech - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Too bad the iPad hasn't killed off this evil spawn

    Ultrabooks is where its at......
  • A5 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Netbooks cost half as much as even the cheapest iPad and a quarter as much as an Ultrabook. There's probably not much of a market for these in the USA and Europe anymore, but I'm guessing they do pretty well in East Asia, India, and South America.
  • Mygaffer - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    Well duh an Ultrabook is much better, you are talking about something at the opposite end of the price spectrum.
  • name99 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    Apple's story for low-end devices is simple --- if you want a cheap MacBook, you buy it on eBay, not from Apple. It's slower and not as pretty --- what do you expect for something cheaper --- but it does the job.
    I suspect that many Netbook owners would do well to follow the same model. If you're buying a Netbook solely because you want something cheap, you're probably better off buying a year-old laptop from eBay.
  • blue922 - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link

    Not evil, not spawn.

    Try to shoot 32-128 GB of video on a trip and load that into your iPad. Netbooks still do large storage on the go better than any tablet. That will be true for some time yet. So don't let your biases and lack of creative thinking dis something you have not all the way through about.
  • MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    So when is Intel going to reward us with an out of order low power architecture? So far, all Atom advancements have been rather sad. Since Atom arrived, both ARM and AMD have surpassed it. When is Intel going to bring out the big guns? So far, it looks like a pretty aimless product line with little hope of success. Like Intel graphics, it's another "wait until next time" marketing job.
  • A5 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Atom still smokes even the fastest ARM CPUs, and Zacate plays in what is essentially a completely different TDP range. This is just an incremental update enabled by a process shrink - they'll update the architecture when they feel like they need to.
  • frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    Can it be the same company that produces this as that produces Sandy Bridge? Unbelievable that they could not make more improvements than this in all these years. I have been looking at getting a tablet, but still would almost prefer a netbook if they came with something besides atom. My ideal would be something like the HP dm1 with the E450, but at a netbook price. Right now, it is running more than 400.00 which seems like a lot for a netbook size device. If something like that could be avaliable for 300.00, that would be awesome.
  • Stuka87 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    While I think this chip should have better battery life than an E350, I am really wondering if its going to be any faster. The graphics certainly are less than spectacular, even my phone has far faster graphics (543MP2) and it runs a lower resolution.

    Its almost comical how Intel's high end parts are blind blowing fast, yet their low end stuff is just so lacking in any sort of real updates. Combined with the delays that it has had, they are leaving this market wide open for AMD.
  • madmilk - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    I highly doubt your phone's graphics are "far faster". Remember, typically PowerVR GPUs are clocked at 200MHz, maybe 300 at most. This thing has a SGX545 running at 640MHz, should more than compensate for being single core.

    That said, PowerVR Windows drivers... Even worse than Intel's, while AMD and nVidia are both on another level.
  • Boissez - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    The tablet-friendly low-TDP atom part has a PowerVR running @400MHz, meanwhile the TI OMAP 4460 (eg. Galaxy Nexus, Moto RAZR) has the same chip running @384Mhz, just barely slower. But then both the Apple A5 and Samsung Exynos are far superior in terms of graphical prowess.
  • dealcorn - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - link

    With the N2600's ~1.9 watt kit average power requirement, it looks like maybe you could add 512 MB of RAM and an Intel 320 SSD for a home server that draws about 3 watts at the wall. On the other hand, I have never seen anyone look at power supply efficiency at these output levels.

    Currently I draw about 22 watts for a router/firewall/p2p daemon station and electricity costs $10/watt for 3 years 24/7 use. Switching to 3 watts saves me $190 in electric bills every 3 years. I have a soft spot for free stuff that works.

    There is some disagreement whether AMD's recent success in the netbook space is due to their gaming excellence or the fact that they do 1080p and Atom does not. The release of Cedar Trail should provide more insight on that question. I never really bought the line that netbooks are the next credible gaming platform.
  • tpi2009 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    Hi Anand, good to know the new Atoms are coming.

    There is one error in the article:

    "The only exception is the D2700 which is a 10W platform. Note that this is the total TDP for the Atom SoC + the NM10 Express chipset (providing USB, LAN, PCIe, etc...). "

    This can't be the case with the D2700 because, as you will notice in a table below that has CPU - only TDPs, the D2700 is rated at 10w for the CPU, so the CPU + NM10 chipset will use more power.

    Cheers, and a great 2012 to you and the rest of the team!
  • Malih - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    wow, PowerVR really? Does that mean gaming is not an option with the new Atom...?

    I wonder how PowerVR will handle Windows XP drivers.
  • Stuka87 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    It wont would be my guess. You can't buy new Netbooks with XP anymore (unless they are just left over NOS or something). With as many driver issues as Intel has had with this chip, I doubt they are going to put them time into making an old unsupported OS work.
  • Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    Why didnt intel integrate the chipset? I think they could have gotten total platform power down to 3 watts. This is almost 2012 after all.
  • dealcorn - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    If you look at the first really big blue box above, it is using complicated words to say that this System on a Chip ("SOC") is fully integrated including everything that should be there. Out of deference to a former Alaska governor some consider it impolite to use the "R" word. In your case, I suspect people would understand your intent if you said, for example, "Intel is really mirror."
  • Shadowmaster625 - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

    http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/I...

    Sure looks like two chips to me. Can we get some clarification here?
  • atomt - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    So now that Atom is going all out PowerVR - which is very nice from a perf per watt point of view - but where does this leave open source support? Linux on PowerVR is a miserable experience. The bleeding edge is more or less at the svga-level (when it happens to work), and even that hasn't really reached any distro release yet.

    I suspect any decent level of acceleration will be limited to closed firmwares/platforms, as it is today.
  • ET - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    The SGX 545 is capable of DX10.1, but is probably listed as DX9 due to driver issues.

    These Atoms will take a lot less power than the AMD solution, and one is even designed for fanless systems, so I think they could be interesting solutions. We'll have to wait and see. There's also the price aspect, and looks like Intel is aiming lower than where AMD currently sits.
  • DanNeely - Thursday, December 29, 2011 - link

    When intel launched it it was at 45nm, and is listed in their ark database as a 2.1W part; but the tables above are implying it as only 1.5W (5/8W total, 3.5/6.5W for the CPU). Either way it's a rather large chunk of the total, and dropping to 32nm should chop a decent chunk off the total allowing for either longer battery life or marginally higher processor clocks. (1.73 and 2.0 ghz mobile?)
  • Menno rapt - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

    The new high speed wifi "WiGig" routers from Orbital use this processor in their low end routers the Phantom and the Spitfire. FOr the high end they even use core I3's
    Their 802.11ad draft goes to 10G/sec wireless with these chips and can stream up to 2 movies simultaneously to different screens over the WiFi

    Not sure though which type of Cedar Trail they are integrating?

    you can see them here; http://www.orbital-networks.com/index.php?option=c...
  • rundll - Friday, December 30, 2011 - link

    Vast majority of the commentators seem to miss the goodies in new Atom:

    - low TDP allowing fanless constructions (that's something new!)

    - excellent power efficiency, hence superior battery time

    - price, price, price hence cheap, cheap, cheap products

    Pitting the new Atom against AMD's E-series processors is like pitting E-series against Sandy Bridge i3-processors.

    The new Atom is in class of it's own, there is no product to compare with. It is untouchable in the low end netbooks for now.
  • jcarlosmiguel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link

    I shall warn users of the N2600 about x64 Windows support or I should say, the lack of it. The platform would be perfect for MS Home Server 2011... if Intel cares to support it. I don't need to increase memory, just to install the software which is impossible at this time. The alternative is to run a x86 version of Win 7 or, if the target software would allow, Linux. The excuse from Intel is that they are too busy with Win 8....
    Go figure...
    By the way, board is a Jetway NF9C-N2600 with a crippled BIOS for x64, since some of the drivers from Intel are thin.
  • ReverendDC - Saturday, March 3, 2012 - link

    ...and see what the OS difference does for the performance of both the Atoms AND AMDs. Of course, beta is beta, but I have doubled my battery and there are half the processes running at any time with the same program loadout and similar registry.

    Maybe Intel is waiting for the OS. I think that, at 3200, if you could get a cheap touchscreen into a convertible, I have a feeling that, while it won't actually scream, you won't notice nearly as much of a decline in performance...except for that sticky 1080p thing....
  • leo_dagohoy - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link

    i have my unit of intel atom 2600 netbbook having problem with the video card got blue screen with playing a light games..

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