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Intel Introduces Atom Chips For New Devices
angry tapir writes "Not only has Intel recruited another company to produce Atom CPUs, as covered earlier on Slashdot, the chipmaker also unveiled four Atom chips that will go into devices such as entertainment systems for cars, videoconferencing devices, robots and interactive kiosks. The Z500-series Atom processors are integrated chips the size of a penny that draw little power and do not require fans to operate. The chips draw 2.5 watts of power or less and run at speeds of between 1.10GHz and 1.6GHz. The chips offer integrated 2D and 3D graphics and will be manufactured using Intel's existing 45-nanometer process."
I remember going to an Intel job fair back in late 2005. During the fair, Intel told people that we are no longer in a day and age where everyone wants the fastest processor possible; for most computing tasks, the processors we have are fast enough and people are more interested in something that is inexpensive and lightweight.
Indeed, the Intel atom is a good deal faster than the original Cray.
I feel Windows XP is Microsoft's last release where they made improvements to the operating system that significantly affected the end-user's experience; it was a version of Windows with real memory protection. People's opposition to Microsoft basically shoving Vista down people's throat (however, one can easily buy XP by doing an appropriate shopping.google.com search) is well-justified. Vista doesn't really offer anything that XP doesn't have. [1]
I don't think the ARM processor is going to be real competition. Right now, a netbook can be had for as little as $200 (I have seen Dell have their low-end Linux Mini 9 on sale for $200 twice in the last month); the main expense with a netbook is the case, the screen, and the keyboard; the processor is not a significant expense. Nor is Windows XP, which Microsoft is making available for $40-$50 to netbook OEMs (and is forced to continually make available because of competition from Linux)
- Sam
[1] ClearType support for XP is a free download from Microsoft, along with the Vista fonts. Anyway, I don't like ClearType myself; I think Verdana is the perfect screen font and my eyes are trained to look at Verdana without anti-aliasing on the screeen.
Still 10 billion shipments behind ARM.
And 3 orders of magnitude short of ARM's power consumption.
Who in their right mind would develop robotics on x86?
There are a million different processors that would be much better suited for it.
The CPU only using 2.5W is already quite nice, but Intel doesn't want Atom chips to be used in "nice" computers seemingly, and we're stuck using crappy old chipsets with 20W+ power consumption with them.
VIA Nano is nicer seemingly, just too bad you can't actually buy it anywhere.
I think the rise of the cheap ARM linux netbook is something that scares both Intel and Microsoft. As consumers we will be the winners of the resulting battles. Personally, I can't wait for a linx netbook with a ARM length battery life. Just don't see what the Wintel world could offer me that could possibly compete. Maybe MS could try WinCE on ARM, but that won't have the world of software ARM linux has. If all the software is portable you can go for what ever processor architecture best for the job.
It's nice that Intel wants to help in this field also.
It seems mostly like Intel intends it to murder Geode. AMD announced the end of design for Geode products (we talked about it here) meaning that the top Geode performer is the LX 800. It's fanless at 500 MHz in environments up to 180 F. Geode LX 800 systems come in around 5 W TDP for processor+chipset, which includes integrated video, USB2, and ATA with UDMA. I have two (DT Research DT168 and WebDT 360) and am thinking about more (from PC Engines) but systems with these chips (theoretically) have the potential to deliver more processing power for the same price - based on what current Atom- and Geode-based systems cost.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"It will be interesting to see how useful of a NAS I can make that into."
The downside of the Atom motherboard for NAS is only two SATA ports. Mine is working fine as a combined SDTV MythTV box and 24/7 web/file server, but I think that eventually I'm going to have to replace it with a low-power AMD motherboard and CPU so I can add more hard drives and RAID them.