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Intel Announces Atom x3, x5 and x7, First SOCs With Integrated 3G and LTE Modems
MojoKid writes Intel is unleashing a new family of Atom processors today, taking a cue from its highly successful Core series with model branding. Similar to the Good, Better, Best strategy with the Core i3, i5 and i7, Intel is renaming its Atom family with x3, x5, and x7 designations. The biggest news comes from the low-end Atom x3, which will be available in three distinct variants; all of which will come with integrated modems — a first for the Atom family. All three variants are 64-bit capable cores. The Atom x3-C3130 tops out at 1GHz, incorporates a Mali 400 MP2 GPU, and includes an integrated 3G (HSPA+) modem. The Atom x3-C3230RK bumps the max clock speed to 1.2GHz, throws in a Mali 450 MP4 GPU, and the same 3G modem. Finally, the Atom x3-C3440 clocks in at 1.4GHz, features a Mali T720 MP2 graphics core, incorporates a Category 6 LTE modem, and can optionally support NFC. Using handpicked benchmarks, Intel claims that the Atom x3-C3230RK can offer up to 1.8x the media editing performance of competing SoCs from Qualcomm and MediaTek. Then there's Intel's Cherry Trail-based Atom x5 and x7. These are the first 64-bit Atom SoCs to be built using a 14nm manufacturing and they incorporate eighth generation Intel graphics. While the Atom x5 and x7 don't feature integrated modems like the Atom x3, they do support Intel's next generation XMM 726x and 7360 LTE modems. Intel claims that the Atom x7 offers two times the graphics performance of the existing high-end Atom Z3795 in the GFXBench 2.7 T-Rex HD benchmark and 50 percent greater performance on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited benchmark.
Weak?
These chips don't even compete in the same markets.
The intel offerings easily offer 5-10x computational power over the budget-minded SoCs from the likes of AllWinner. The /previous/ gen baytrail based Atom SoCs can run a full-fat windows 8.1 installation in a tablet formfactor. A real tablet. USB charging, thin, touch screen fanless device with no BS tablet battery life. I've got two. (Dell Venu 8 pro and Asus transformerbook T100)
I'm not saying that Allwinner and company don't sell a lot of chips, but those devices mostly go in to ultra-budget android devices, "stick" computers, and media set top boxes. They're also really really really poorly supported and are generally useless for anything other than the build of Android that comes shipped with them.
The Intel offerings, however, are standard architecture and can run whatever OS you want. Android, Windows, Linux, or even iOS or MacOS if Apple cared. (Don't fool yourself. There's a skunkworks x64 build of iOS somewhere int the depths of Cupertino, waiting in the event that Intel throws its literally 2 generations superior chip fabrication technology full on in to the mobile chip market. These new Atoms are EXACTLY the sort of thing that would tempt Apple)
It just takes a dev or two building and testing the code on x86 just to make sure its cross platform.
Such an effort can pay for itself simply through the bugs it will find. What is a very subtle and sometimes currently unnoticed bug on one platform may become a highly visible bug on another platform. Bugs sometimes manifest differently on different platforms. I've been on several teams over time where we moved good "working" code to a new platform and watched it crash spectacularly over and over again. Each time the original devs who thought their code was in great shape were shaking their heads wonder how it ever ran on the original platform. Lucky values in uninitialized variables and such.
So yes, someone is probably building and testing iOS on x86 but it has little to nothing to do with any plans regarding using x86 on any devices. Sort of similar to the Microsoft's efforts to internally build and test Windows on a non-x86 platform after it gave up on shipping MIPS, PowerPC and Alpha binaries. Its more about testing and future proofing a core asset than any short term plans.
And if I were running Intel I would be supplying the engineers to do so if Apple was not doing it on their own initiative.