Intel Atom Dual Core is out!

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: nyker96
Not sure why they make a dual core out of Atom, the whole idea of the thing is to save power and not up the performances.

Which is less power consumption - a single-core Atom at 1.8GHz or a dual-core atom at 900 MHz?

It makes sense for those apps which are multi-threaded as they will not require the GHz to get the job done.

Combine a dual-core atom with a nehalem-type core sleep capability and a nehalem-type turbo capability and things could get juicy.

Your 900MHz dual-core atom could shut-off one core and run the other one at 1.8GHz to power thru single-threaded apps when a given app exceeds 50% processor utilization, and then if more than 1 single-threaded app starts using >40% CPU utilization then power up the second processor, drop the GHz on both processors and run the single-threads on them (or if a multi-thread app has threads which are compute intensive).

well that sounds really nice but awfully complicated scheme to save power on a mobile chip. however, if they actually got this complicated power scheme working with real results to back it up, I tip my hat to the engineers. But coming from a math background I tend to go with Okum's Razor.

 

[21stHermit]

Mystery Solved!!!

Originally posted by: bestassembler
Actually they already had, a chipset in name of Poulsbo that was developped with Atom.

The only problem is there aren't too many of them out there. Hope Intel will focus on the availability of such a great chipset.

Originally posted by: myocardia
Believe it or not, all of the currently available netbooks with the Atom are running that same 90nm 945GSE chipset.

If you compare the Poulsbo and 945GSE Express Chipset datasheets, you'll notice Poulsbo has no SATA port, hence no HDD possible. Not sure what device Intel intended for Poulsbo, but it certainly wasn't the Eee PC that people are buying. Also, while the 945GSE Express Chipset uses more power than Atom, it isn't even double, more like 50% greater.

Poulsbo Datasheet

945GSE Express Chipset

 

[eternalone]

Im excited about this technology.

 

[taltamir]

the atom x2 is two seperate die on a single chip. So I doubt they have some complicated power scheme. It is for the laptop/desktop market.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: nyker96
well that sounds really nice but awfully complicated scheme to save power on a mobile chip. however, if they actually got this complicated power scheme working with real results to back it up, I tip my hat to the engineers. But coming from a math background I tend to go with Okum's Razor.

Originally posted by: taltamir
the atom x2 is two seperate die on a single chip. So I doubt they have some complicated power scheme. It is for the laptop/desktop market.

What I am proposing is nothing unique or creative on my part, this technology was already created and implemented by Intel in their Nehalem products.

All I am suggesting is that eventually a similar power savings approach to balancing cpu utilization versus active processor cores and speeds will trickle-down to the Atom product line as well, eventually, and that with this forward looking viewpoint the idea of a low-power multi-core Atom might not seem like an oxymoron for all but the very first generation of dual-core Atom processors.

(consider the northbridge power-consumption situation as another example of forward looking viewpoint that at time-zero appears foolhardy, the first implementation being with the 945 chipset that sucks at power consumption, but this is just the first step to seed the market with Atom-based devices, naturally a lower power chipset is well underway to being worked out)

 

[zephyrprime]

I wish someone would make a pure tablet with these. It'd be great for web browsing.