Intel plans “fast transition” to next-gen Pine Trail platform
November 9, 2009 at 9:01 am
Intel will be moving quickly to its next-generation Atom platform for netbooks & nettops, dubbed Pine Trail according to sources at X-bit labs. They managed to get hold of a document that says: “Intel is planning for a fast transition to Pine Trail. To generate excitement for the platform ahead of launch, Intel is planning a press release in late December publicly disclosing the details of the platform.”
Further details on the Pine Trail platform (and Pineview processors) are expected on 21st December. Manufacturers are expected to have products using the new chips, including the 1.66GHz N450 Atom, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2009) from 4th January.
The new Pineview processors are built around a two-chip platform. The Pineview processor features a CPU, GPU and memory controller on a single die. Combining this with Intel’s Tiger Pint I/O is what makes up the Pine Trail platform. The benefits of moving from 3 chips to 2 chips are power efficiency, lower costs that enable more fanless netbook designs. The specs and price-points of the various chips are as we have seen before; check them out after the break.
Intel Atom ‘Pine Trail’ chips:
- Intel Atom N450: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point
- Intel Atom D510: dual-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 1MB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point
- Intel Atom D410: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $43 price-point
November 10th, 2009 7:36 AM
If I can ask, what is the reason for the price difference between the Pineview Atom D410 vs. the D510 or N450? I know the D510 has 512KB more mem. but $23 extra for the N450 is still a little absurd.. Any suggestions?
November 10th, 2009 1:38 PM
It is a strange one, maybe Intel is pushing OEMs towards the single-core D410, rather than the dual-core D510? These CPUs are targeted for nettops.
Regarding the N450, since there isn’t a lower-specced netbook processor, they probably feel that they can charge what they like (that’s if these prices are correct of course!)
November 11th, 2009 3:41 AM
The ‘D’ = for either ‘D’esktops or nettops , the ‘N’ = for ‘N’etbooks. As far as the $63 price tag goes for N450, this may be changed later also depending upon market forces, but their combo (& worldwide influence) with all mighty Win 7 (or ..er..XP) may render the $20 difference insignificant. As a consumer it’ll be interesting to see if the final retail tag goes below $400 for Win-Pinetrailers – a defining threshold price for upcoming netbooks.