Intel Launches Next-Gen Atom N450 Processor

MojoKid writes "Intel has unveiled its next-generation Atom N450 processor, and a review of the new Asus Eee PC 1005PE netbook that houses it shows decent gains in performance and lower power consumption. The Atom N450 has been re-architected similar to Intel's other notebook processors in that it now has an integrated memory controller and graphics core on the CPU itself. In addition, Intel's serial DMI (Direct Media Interface) now replaces the system bus to the Southbridge IO controller. From a performance standpoint, the Atom N450 single core chip offers a nice performance gain versus previous generation Atom CPUs and it appears Intel has dual-core variants of the chip on the horizon as well."

Comments

Intel and Linux

[Enderandrew]

Intel has been tearing apart their Linux graphics stack and rewritting it for the future. For a while, that meant poor performance during the rewrite, but it really is getting better. Intel is really helping push DRI2, GEM, TTM, UXA, etc.

At least Intel does their development in the open. Didn't Intel also contribute code to Moblin to optimize Moblin performance on their hardware? I'd like to see some more general kernel enhancements for these processors. Any speed increase over Windows on the most common netbook processor is a huge win.

Chrome OS is already fast. If Intel can help make it faster when comparing it side-by-side to 7, it only helps Linux adoption on the whole.

I also have a small tangental question. I always hear about huge performance gains that can come from properly writing code to take advantage of SSE2,3,4,etc instruction sets. I also hear that almost no one does write code to take advantage of these instruction sets. If Intel really wants to push their hardware, why not write such optimizations for the Linux kernel?