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Intel Debuts Clover Trail For Tablets, Launches New Atom Inside

Posted by timothy on from the double-dose-of-pimpin'-action dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Today, Intel is launching its next-generation Clover Trail platform. The new Intel Z2760 is a dual-core, quad-threaded device clocked at up to 1.8GHz, with support for up to 2GB of RAM and graphics provided courtesy of a single PowerVR SGX545 core. Chipzilla expects to see wide adoption from multiple partners, with a host of tablets expected to launch simultaneously with Windows 8. The new SoC is closely related to Medfield, Intel's 32nm smartphone platform that ExtremeTech reviewed earlier this year, but there are a few differences between the two."

11 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. WTF by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

    Intel Debuts Clover Trail For Tablets, Launches New Atom Inside

    Clover Trail? Wazzat? A game? A processor? Actual clover? It has an atom inside? Wow, OK. Good for them? Takes a lot to launch a single atom, does it?

    Some days tech headlines just make no damn sense to me at all. Getting old, I think. Early onset discombobulation.

  2. Hmmm... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anybody know what 'Security Engine' is, and what exactly it is using about 1/3 as much silicon as one of the processor cores to do exactly?

    None of the thermal die shots appear to show it actually doing much of anything demanding; but I have to assume that Intel didn't put it there just because they really wanted the processor to be a bit bigger and more power hungry.

    1. Re:Hmmm... by KalvinB · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://articles.latimes.com/2004/apr/13/business/fi-rup13.11

      --
      Work Safe Porn
  3. Astroturf alert by pipedwho · · Score: 3, Informative

    Astroturf alert. This is a block copy marketing pitch from a company dedicated to finding sources to buy ICs. Complete with blatant mention of themselves when they have no direct link to an Intel product they are 'announcing'.

  4. Semi-Accurate predicts horrible failure by steveha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://semiaccurate.com/2012/09/27/intels-clover-trail-is-a-bloated-nightmare/

    The author of this makes no attempt to pretend to be impartial, but if his facts are correct I think his conclusions must be correct also.

    My favorite comment:

    You can buy a full Nexus 7 for $30 more than what Microsoft gets for the software on a Clover Trail tablet, and that is before the added hardware costs. The Nexus works better, has better battery life, and is not a security nightmare either.

    steveha

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    1. Re:Semi-Accurate predicts horrible failure by Ecuador · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Charlie is anti-Intel but he seems to have good sources therefore his info is usually correct. Of course, he is biased when drawing conclusions and you should be aware of that when reading, since he can get a little "carried away" sometimes.
      Also, I remember that Intel has managed to crush their competition in the past while selling a significantly slower, more power-hungry and more expensive product (P4 anyone?). So even if Clover Trail is "a dog" as Charlie puts it, I guess if Intel REALLY wanted to they could probably find a way to shove it down our throats ;)

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    2. Re:Semi-Accurate predicts horrible failure by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know whether that article is correct or not; but(if we assume for the sake of argument that it is) the thing that really doesn't make sense to me is what Intel's motivation would be:

      He gives the impression that both Intel and Microsoft are working against the part(Intel doesn't want the lousy margins, Microsoft is undermining Win8 x86 tablets with office licensing terms); but that the part is also a 100% hardware-locked MS-only device that they won't even let any other potential customer have a crack at, much less have any genuine enthusiasm for trying to sell it to them.

      However, if that is so, why does the part exist at all? If it is so big that it is practically an i3, why would Intel design an entirely different chip rather than just lasering something off their weaker i3s and giving them an inscrutable model number and OEM only distribution? And if Microsoft is shafting Intel on the part, why is Intel making it a Windows exclusive(and on the processor level, not merely with a locked bootloader, which would allow MS OEMs to do their thing and Intel to still sell this to Android vendors, embedded linux appliance vendors, and whoever else)?

      That's what I don't understand about the story as presented: plenty of products ship deliberately crippled because somebody prefers them that way(see all DRM systems, for instance); but that crippling isn't free, so it has to be in somebody's apparent interest for it to happen. Here, none of the players seem interested: Intel, allegedly, has a chip that can't compete with their existing products, and isn't a winner on margins. MS has a chip apparently designed just for them, except they would rather ship punchier devices with those existing products. So, who wins here?

    3. Re:Semi-Accurate predicts horrible failure by ozmanjusri · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or he just needed the lowest-priced Android tablet

      Are you kidding?

      You could buy four AllWinner tablets for the price of one Nexus 7. The SoCs are selling for less than $10 in volume.

      Free shipping,boxchip,ALLWinner A13, 7.0" Android 4.0;512MB/4GB, 5 points touch capacitiive touch.Tablet PC Price: US $42.00 - 53.50 / piece

      http://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-shipping-boxchip-ALLWinner-A13-7-0-Android-4-0-512MB-4GB-5-points-touch-capacitiive/648623535.html

      http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllWinner_A1X

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  5. Why just 2GB RAM ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does it really make it that more power hungry/expensive to enable a few more lines for RAM addressing ? Having more RAM can help to compensate for a slower CPU -- less swapping, etc. Not all usage profiles are running a few non RAM hungry programs; even something like a web browser can end up eating lots of RAM.

    The only thing that I can think of is that they are positioning at cheap-low end and expect you to pay for a more expensive CPU if you need more RAM, kind of like what MS is doing with the cheapest Windows 7 -- it can only be sold on a machine with a max 1GB RAM.

  6. An x86 phone running full Windows 8... by cplusplus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...I wants it. A phone like that could be my "laptop", and I'd continue to use my workstation at home for gaming and other big-time number crunching computery stuff. This new processor (and Medfield) are get ever closer to that. I bet (erm, hope) I will be able to buy one by this time next year.

    --
    "False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
  7. I think people get confused by the "semi" part by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    His blog would better be known as "Rarely Accurate". Every once and awhile he gets good information but usually, he just makes shit up.

    For example he claimed that Kepler, nVidia's architecture now known as the GTX 600 series, would be under-performing and feature large parts dedicated to PhysX and that AMD's CGN would be a "clear winner". As it turns out that is not the case, the GTX 680 is extremely fast, quite energy efficient, and beats out the 7970 from AMD. And no big PhysX areas, just lots of stream processing cores (which is what GPUs are these days).

    Then when it launched and had big shortages due to extremely high demand he claimed it was because it didn't work right on TSMC's 28nm process and supply issues would forever plague it. Now, they are in stock everywhere and can be had in quantity whenever you wish.

    I really wish people would stop linking to this troll and giving him ad money. The guy is not a great source of information and worse still in the absence of actual information he'll just make shit up.

    The thing certainly doesn't use a ton of power, it's TDP spec is less than 2 watts and I have never seen Intel underspec a TDP. That means it will never, under any situation, dissipate more than 2 watts and by extension never draw more than that.

    The question is, of course, how well it performs at that power level, particularly compared to competition at the same level.