No more secrets
The rumour mill seems to be getting it more or less right these days. Last month HEXUS reported that Intel might be about to launch a new Atom processor called the Z550, that will have a frequency of 2GHz. Yesterday at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Beijing, it did just that.
Anand Chandrasekher, senior VP and BM of the Ultra Mobility Group, used his keynote to announce the Atom Z550, confirming that it clocks at 2GHz with Hyperthreading support while staying under three watts.
The other new Atom is the Z515, which uses Burst Performance Technology to run at 1.2GHz, presumably at a much lower power level.
Also featured in the keynote was what was claimed to be the first live demo of Intel's Moorestown platform, which requires ten times less idle power than Atom.The platform will run Intel's own Moblin Linux-based software.
We have to ask, however: if this was the first live demo then what was shown at IDF in Taipei last year? And why are we only being fed comparisons of idle power, does this mean the comparison is less flattering under load?
Among Chandrasekher's other announcements were some mobile internet devices (MIDs) for the Chinese market and, as AMD's low power notebook platform hits the market, a reminder that a number of OEMs are building systems based on Intel's ULV (Ultra-low voltage) platform.
