atom celerons and pentiums

[ninaholic37]

Very interesting. I for one welcome Atom to low-end Celerons/Pentium brand (never had any interest in buying Celeron/Pentium before anyway, but I have 3 Atom netbooks and enjoy using all of them). Making stronger Atom chips sounds a lot more interesting for someone like me than making intentionally gimped 17/35w i-series chips (the i-series already has i3 and Haswell ULV now anyway, this extra exposure/market could help expand interest and advancements for Atom even more). 🙂

 

[VirtualLarry]

Very interesting. I for one welcome Atom to low-end Celerons/Pentium brand (never had any interest in buying Celeron/Pentium before anyway, but I have 3 Atom netbooks and enjoy using all of them). Making stronger Atom chips sounds a lot more interesting for someone like me than making intentionally gimped 17/35w i-series chips (the i-series already has i3 and Haswell ULV now anyway, this extra exposure/market could help expand interest and advancements for Atom even more). 🙂

I'm glad that you seem to like Atom, but when you compare the performance of such, with a lower-end IB Celeron/Pentium, it's no contest. The IB blows it away.

I think that's why a lot of us are complaining. OEMs, if they embrace this new Atom Celeron mindset, will be selling even more crappy slow Netbook-ish laptops, instead of the SB/IB Celeron/Pentiums that we are getting today, which are actually pretty decent performers.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that prices won't change much, if at all, if SB/IB Celeron is replaced with Atom Celeron. Only that consumers will get slower laptops for the same price.

Edit: You really owe it to yourself to try out a B960/970 laptop, they are pretty nice.

 

[Torn Mind]

Atom is dead to me after the netbook. With Haswell, battery life is no longer exclusive to Atom and hence no one gives an iota about a crappy and slow netbook that might equal an E-350. Might is the key word. It should be Haswell Celerons going into low-end laptops, not a Pentium 4 in an 8W or whatever envelope.

 

[podspi]

We don't know how fast the new Atoms will be yet. I think it is too much of a leap to say:

1) There will be no Core-based Celeron/Pentiums (aside: Why bother having both brand names in 2013?)

2) New low-end laptop models will be slower than the older models (without any other benefits).

The Pentium laptops I've used were pretty nice, though they all had pretty disappointing battery life. If the new 22nm Atoms can hit ~ C2D performance at around 1.5ghz + the battery life of the current Z2760, people are probably going to prefer that to current B960/70 laptops.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If the new 22nm Atoms can hit ~ C2D performance at around 1.5ghz

That really seems like a stretch to me. I mean, if they can pull it off, good for them. But my experience is that the C2D is MUCH faster than Atom, and even a 2x faster Atom probably wouldn't be able to pull it off. I guess we'll have to wait for benchmarks and reviews.

 

[podspi]

Jaguar is pretty close, isn't it? And Anand seemed to hint he thought Atom would come in faster (we'll see).

 

[strata8]

Jaguar is pretty close, isn't it? And Anand seemed to hint he thought Atom would come in faster (we'll see).

Anand also said a 2.4 Ghz Silvermont has similar performance to a 1.2 Ghz Core 2. So unless the new Atom clocks up to 3 Ghz, you won't see the performance of a 1.5 Ghz Core 2. By comparison Jaguar matches a 1.2 Ghz Core 2 at ~1.65 Ghz, or a 1.5 Ghz Core 2 at ~2.1 Ghz.

 

[beginner99]

Anand also said a 2.4 Ghz Silvermont has similar performance to a 1.2 Ghz Core 2. So unless the new Atom clocks up to 3 Ghz, you won't see the performance of a 1.5 Ghz Core 2. By comparison Jaguar matches a 1.2 Ghz Core 2 at ~1.65 Ghz, or a 1.5 Ghz Core 2 at ~2.1 Ghz.

Yeah but jaguar has about 2x TDP compared to Atom, eg. less battery life.

 

[NTMBK]

Anand also said a 2.4 Ghz Silvermont has similar performance to a 1.2 Ghz Core 2. So unless the new Atom clocks up to 3 Ghz, you won't see the performance of a 1.5 Ghz Core 2. By comparison Jaguar matches a 1.2 Ghz Core 2 at ~1.65 Ghz, or a 1.5 Ghz Core 2 at ~2.1 Ghz.

That is single threaded, though- Silvermont will also come with twice as many cores.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That is single threaded, though- Silvermont will also come with twice as many cores.

I thought that both Jaguar and Silvermont were quad-cores?

 

[strata8]

I thought that both Jaguar and Silvermont were quad-cores?

He means compared to Core 2, I think.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Anand also said a 2.4 Ghz Silvermont has similar performance to a 1.2 Ghz Core 2. So unless the new Atom clocks up to 3 Ghz, you won't see the performance of a 1.5 Ghz Core 2. By comparison Jaguar matches a 1.2 Ghz Core 2 at ~1.65 Ghz, or a 1.5 Ghz Core 2 at ~2.1 Ghz.

so the entry level is going to go from an ivy bridge pentium 980 (at 2.4(?) ghz) to the equivalent of a 1.2 ghz core 2 (and im highly skeptical of this estimate...)? what a phucken ripoff...i hope they fail royally...

 

[NTMBK]

I thought that both Jaguar and Silvermont were quad-cores?

Oh, I was talking about the comparison to a C2D. i.e. a 2.4GHz Silvermont ~= 1.2GHz Conroe core, but it has twice as many cores.

 

[beginner99]

so the entry level is going to go from an ivy bridge pentium 980 (at 2.4(?) ghz) to the equivalent of a 1.2 ghz core 2 (and im highly skeptical of this estimate...)? what a phucken ripoff...i hope they fail royally...

And double the battery life... don't forget that. Atom is about battery life...

And what most peoples do on a Celeron notebook is not even an issue for current atom. Current Atom mainly sucks in graphics department (incl. drivers). Atom netbooks were also slow because they shipped with 4200 rpm drives or ultra slow flash-storage (like usb-drive performance). I still have a netbook with z520 atom (1st generation single-core HT, slowest of all atoms). And for basic web surfing or watching videos, no issue (720p does work in linux for z-atoms).

 

[VirtualLarry]

And double the battery life... don't forget that. Atom is about battery life...

Who are you kidding? Experience has shown the the mfgs will simply cut the battery capacity in half instead.

Same battery life, but slower CPU, means it takes longer (and thus more battery) to do the same tasks. I learned that the hard way from a comparison between my laptop and my CVS ARM 7" Netbook.

 

[R0H1T]

And double the battery life... don't forget that. Atom is about battery life....

How are they gonna double the battery life as compared to an HT part ~
by running the chip idle while the previous gen atom is at full load 😵

There's no way in hell that a dual-core Atom with HT will only be half as efficient as a true Quad-core chip unless Intel cherry picks their benchmarks, no wait they always do that 🙄

 

[beginner99]

How are they gonna double the battery life as compared to an HT part ~
by running the chip idle while the previous gen atom is at full load 😵

There's no way in hell that a dual-core Atom with HT will only be half as efficient as a true Quad-core chip unless Intel cherry picks their benchmarks, no wait they always do that 🙄

Yeah nice quote out of context. Not to previous atoms but in comparison to IB celerons.

 

[beginner99]

Who are you kidding? Experience has shown the the mfgs will simply cut the battery capacity in half instead.

Thats not really the fault of intel is it?

Same battery life, but slower CPU, means it takes longer (and thus more battery) to do the same tasks. I learned that the hard way from a comparison between my laptop and my CVS ARM 7" Netbook.

Well you hopefully ain't going to transcode massive bluray rips on a atom based laptop. We are talking here about web page rendering and video playback.

 

[R0H1T]

Yeah nice quote out of context. Not to previous atoms but in comparison to IB celerons.

Sorry about that just realized what I did there D:

Anyways someone claiming that an atom celeron/pentium is equal to a C2D, at the top end, is total B$ & just to clarify not saying this wrt you 😀

 

[podspi]

Who are you kidding? Experience has shown the the mfgs will simply cut the battery capacity in half instead.

Same battery life, but slower CPU, means it takes longer (and thus more battery) to do the same tasks. I learned that the hard way from a comparison between my laptop and my CVS ARM 7" Netbook.

Some will. There are already Atom-based portables with battery life in the double-digits (when docked).

While I don't have that model, my personal experience with the ATIV 500t makes me believe the battery life claims.

 

[StrangerGuy]

A G620 now is still plenty overkill for the average consumer already. Having faster celeroniums will get Intel nowhere except digging themselves even deeper into the "good enough" trap.

Talking from a pure business POV.

 

[sm625]

There will always be defective chips that cannot be sold at full price. These chips are in the sweet spot as far as pricing is concerned. It doesnt matter what intel calls them, be they celeron, pentium, or i3. Whatever they are called, we will find them.

 

[dealcorn]

This is a price point story. Generally, Intel is competitive or better at the price points where it operates. However, Celeron and Pentium have been unable to access some lower price points because their die is too big holding all the disabled features. Wrap 4 22nm Atom cores in a SoC with reasonable graphics and the die area goes way down. That gives Intel means to compete at lower price points. I suspect Intel will remain competitive or better at the price points where they operate.
Intel feels pretty good about Atom 22nm and they likely see this as a way to increase Pentium and Celeron market share. I doubt Intel will abandon any turf they already cover, but some lines will will be redrawn.

 

[dealcorn]

This is a price point story. Generally, Intel is competitive or better at the price points where it operates. However, Celeron and Pentium have been unable to access some lower price points because their die is too big holding all the disabled features. Wrap 4 22nm Atom cores in a SoC with reasonable graphics and the die area goes way down. That gives Intel means to compete at lower price points. I suspect Intel will remain competitive or better at the price points where they operate.
Intel feels pretty good about Atom 22nm and they likely see this as a way to increase Pentium and Celeron market share. I doubt Intel will abandon any turf they already cover, but some lines will will be redrawn.