Intel Announces New, Slower, Chip

kshkval writes "According to Business Week, Intel is marketing the Centrino, a 1.6 Ghz chip that is slower than previous laptop processors from Intel, but does more. Hey, isn't that what Apple and AMD have gotten so much guff about? The worm turns..."

Comments

Re:New marketing, just wait

[Sebastopol]

I mean, you can't blame them. their job is to make money for their shareholders, not impress /.ers with their honesty.

Yup. Just like Apple, AMD, IBM, Oracle, Sun, Motorola, Microsoft, RedHat, and just about every other corporation except maybe Ben & Jerry's.

This isn't about the speed.

[Eneff]

Looking at the press release, Intel outlined three priorities:

o extended battery life
o thinner and lighter form factors
o outstanding mobile performance

This is a chip to compete on the Transmeta level, if you will. The message is "If you want better battery life and acceptable performance, buy this."

The megahertz myth is irrelevant here.

Intel needs a new mantra

[path_man]

Before, the chant was "High MHz good! Higher MHz better! GHz is the best!" Now, since the general public is no longer susceptible to the pimply-faced kid at CompUSA who convinces ma & paw that a 2.4GHz is indeed 17% faster than a 2.0GHz, Intel needs to shift gears and change their tune.

The really sad part about the entire remarketing campaign is that they will get away with it. The general public has a very short memory for these kinds of stunts -- just look at how well Microsoft is doing after countless screwings over of the populace. Windows ME anyone?

The thing to remember is that with enough marketing funds, you can indeed have success even selling snow to eskimos.

Re:Rocket Science

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I for one enjoy a snappy machine."

I would agree with that comment if we were talking about a desktop machine. But we're not, we're talking about laptops, and they're more specialized than desktops.

Laptops are:

1.) Very mobile
2.) Very Powerful
3.) Very efficient with batteries

The catch is that you can only pick two of the three.

See my point?

Is that chip gay?

[n1ywb]

I can't tell if the Centrino logo looks like a pink triangle or a broken heart.

There is a huge market for slower chips. Slower == less power. Less power is great for mobile computing where the foremost concern is battery life. The XScale is a good example of where slower is better. Why don't they just shrink 400mhz Pentiums and cram them into pocket pc's? Because the XScale uses a tiny fraction of the power that any Pentium uses.

Don't forget also that cooling is becoming a limiting factor in CPU design. Not everybody wants their computer to sound like a jet turbine or have water running through it. As "embedded" CPUs like the ARM and XScale get faster, you may start to see them in more traditionally "desktop" applications. Electricity is expensive and low power computers can save money.

And I still don't understand why everyone equates CLOCK RATE with SPEED. Do people think high frequency EM waves travel faster than slower ones, or something? There are have been MANY examples over the last 10 years of CPUs that get more done at a lower clock rate.