Intel reveals information about future Atom chips
Intel’s next range of Atom chipsets seem to be ready to take Nvidia Ion head on. The new lineup will be smaller, faster, will reduce the average power consumption by as much as 20%, and are expected to be available as early as January of 2010. However the best feature of these chips is the integration of a GPU.
The three new processors will all come at 1.66GHz and will come with an integrated Intel NM10 Express graphics chipset. With the integration of the CPU, GPU and memory controller on one chip, the come the reduction in size by 60% for a netbook footprint and up to 70% for a desktop.
Of the three new processors, the N450, D410 and the D510, the N450 is intended for netbooks, while the D410 and D510 are intended for low end desktops, (nettops / HTPCs etc.). The N450 comes with a 512kb L2 cache and a total TDP of 7 watt, making for longer battery lives on netbooks.
The D410 has the same 512kb L2 cache size as the N450, at a total TDP of 12W. The D510 is a dual core Atom processor which features a 1MB L2 cache and a TDP of 15W.
By providing a more integrated solution than NVidia’s Ion Platform — which offers Nvidia’s mobile graphics chipsets with the the Intel Atom processor — it is clear Nvidia has some tough competition ahead.