New Intel Atom Chipset for Netbooks Around Mid-Year
1004dn with optical drive
Digitimes is sharing the news about a new Intel netbook platform and says we’ll see products between Q2 and Q3 this year. Instead of the now standard N270 Atom, new devices will see the N280 which will cost around $60 to $65 as opposed to the $40 or so that OEMs pay for the N270 platform. There’s a very slight clock speed boost, going from 1.6GHz to 1.66GHz, but the front-side bus gets over a 20% speed boost. Instead of 533MHz, data will travel from the CPU to the memory controller hub at 667MHz.
The new N280 won’t be paired with the Intel 945GSE chipset though. Digitimes says that a new chipset, the GN40 will take its place. At the moment, I don’t see any official info on the GN40 from Intel, so we’ll have to see what the ramifications are. Interestingly, the new platform is expected in the Asus 1004DN, which we peeped at CES last week. That was the netbook with the integrated optical drive in our booth tour, shown above. Obviously, I didn’t read the placard (who does, when there’s hardware to be touched?) since it lists the new chipset platform. 
Lately folks have been asking me if they should buy a netbook or wait. For the most part, I tell them not to wait if there’s a product available that meets their needs. I still believe that’s the best advice for most people, but if you can wait, we should have more info on the updated platform in the new few months. Plus, during our conversation with VIA’s Richard Brown, we were told that we’d hear some product announcements in the next month or so for VIA Nano-powered netbooks. I’m still not suggesting that most people wait, but if you can wait and want something newer than what’s out today, you might not have to wait long.
Well, netbooks are pretty cheap so folks should buy one and see if it suits them. An MSI Wind or a Samsung NC10 will provide great mobile computing over the coming months and when new netbooks come out later in the year it’s not going to cost a fortune to trade up.
the ghz bump isnt that big of a deal since many netbooks already OC well over that
the FSB bump should be decent as well since most of the memory being used out there is already 667
clearly the big deal here is the new chipset, but since the current chipset already supports 2GB RAM, SATA, high resolutions, theres just not a whole lot they could realistically (in netbook necessities) add to it. my hope is that they will try & drastically reduce power consumption without cutting features (like the Silverthorne Atom does).
I suspect that the new chipset will be even less capable of decoding video, giving people even fewer reasons to buy a netbook.
Seriously, dedicated hardware to handle multimedia is the biggest factor in pushing forward these low-power, low performance netbooks. It’s not like people need raw processing power because their statistical analysis projects are too complicated. But what they do need processing power for is encoding and decoding multimedia entertainment, editing home video, etc.
That’s what makes the Open Pandora so interesting, and netbooks so not interesting, IMO. Now, a netbook with hardware supported audio and video encoding and decoding, that would be interesting.
Kevin, there’s a ton of info on the web regarding Intel’s Pineview and Medfield processors that’s been available for several months now. Intel gave official details at the 2008 IDF.
Pineview is due out Q209, should have a 45nm process, integrated graphics core with memory controller and replaces FSB with DMI. The new package is expected to boost performance considerably, and with the relaxed requirements of the upcoming Windows 7, I’m anticipating notebooks coming out later in the year to be significantly better than what we have yet seen, even from CES. Expect Pineview Atom chips in both single and dual-core versions.
Medfield will be the successor to Pineview and is due out in 2010 with a 32nm process, further improving thermal efficiency and extending battery times.
I was hoping the new HP 2140 would ship with the Pineview platform, but my gut feeling says HP still has an ace up it’s sleeve. My recommendation to folks is that if you haven’t bought a netbook yet, you should hold out for a Pineview netbook with Windows 7. The difference in performance will be like night and day.
Thanks for the info! I was aware of these two new platforms, but didn’t want to assume that one (or the other) would be dubbed with the GN40 designation.
Heh. The buying recommendation.
Mine is the opposite, for the same reason. Something better is almost always coming out, so DON’T buy if what you have is adequate.
Save your money and wait, so when you do need a new machine for some project, you’ll get the best available at the time. (For the idea of “best” being relative to your needs and resources, not necessarily maximum performance.) Then you get to keep this “project gadget” for future projects.
The obvious exception is the unusual gadget category. If a company looks like it’s going to stop making a particular configuration of something, and you really want to have that configuration, then maybe you should buy while it’s still available. For example, Apple Newton, Sharp Zaurus, or Psion Series 5. (I can’t think of any contemporaneous example. Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard, maybe?)
I wonder if there will be any upgrade on the memory supported? While 2gb is a pretty good number if you want to push the limits memory supported should be one of them!