16 replies to this topic

[mm22]

fermin25, on Mar 6 2010, 11:43 PM, said:

The question is this is a processor to mobile devices like an ipod or an celular? Because I worked in a cell phone workshop and I opened all the models of all the companies in the year that I worked there and I have to say that I never see any intel processor maybe this technology is new or they only have processors for mini-laptop or laptops.

If I am not mistaken Intel concentrates its efforts solely on the x86 family of processors, that is what powers most personal computers, laptops, servers around the world. Mobile phones, palmtops, and things like that are a different world. Since their inception they could not afford wasting any amount of energy and/or producing excessive heat. As such the Intel x86 type of processors were just not suitable for this category of products. So other architecture, like ARM, kept the scene up until today... Yes because I read somewhere that the new family of Intel Atom processors (still x86 based though) has cut such low energy consumption levels that it *might* become suitable for embedded applications such as those of mobile phones and portable devices. If that would ever happen the same operating system that powers the PC I am typing from could be *easily* installed onto a mobile phone without any modification, that is without the need to recompile all of its source files for the new architecture. Talking about operating systems, Linux has so far played a major role in embedded systems because of its source being publicly available thus enabling anyone to compile a version of the Linux kernels for their architecture (there are limits to that but in principle Linux can be run *anywhere*). Being able to use the same architecture (same CPU ultimately) on a mobile phone or on a laptop or on a server, might actually playing in favour of closed source operating systems like MS, given that an OS such as Windows will ever be made lean enough to run on a still limited piece of hardware.

Quote

But it´s incredible that now there are a lot of cloned processors because I went to a store and buy a processor and it was cheap so I bougth it inmediately of course but in the house when i see it with detention I saw that that was a copy or a clon and I tested it in my computer because I can return the product to the store. And incredible in my computer it´s detected like an Intel processor core 2 duo. Maybe the piracy is very advanced in these days.

I always wondered how come they clone everything (being it hardware or software) but I haven't heard of cloned Intel CPUs? Now I have And who know if one is running right under my fingers right now... after all the BIOS will not tell you.

[Ash-Bash]

This is a very good explanation of the Atom type processor. I wasn't 100% sure of what it was though I knew the basic's of it. I am not a fan of the Atom processors and would rather stick with my Core i7! Though this explanation will and should anyway help many.

[cunny]

Intel recognizes the value of a smaller Atom processor with lower power requirements. They have tremendous technology ideas to put into Intel.....

[Iniyila]

I think intel atom is a specific generation of CPU designed for a specific goal, they have used in the netbooks because they were thinking of making a small laptop but making a small laptop means it will have a small battery too, so if you can even use a notebook CPU for it (and you do not think about heat dissipation or the space you have or more important the design of motherboard for higher frequencies) you will face a real power consumption problem, so the main idea was building a cpu with power of pentium 4 cpus in the year of quad core ones for just obtaining a real low power consumption and they just did it well, for comparing them i will give you an example : the most used atom for netbooks was n270 and n280 and now n450 , now an intel 2.8GHz P4 uses about 84Watts TDP and a comparable atom which can be N450 uses 4.5Watts TDP , so they have done it astonishing. the performance is enough for a user which uses PC for multimedia (not HD), web surfing and other daily things, but when it comes to engineering i have a N210 samsung netbook with N450 cpu and it really can not open matlab software, so no usage for professioanl users.

We have a cpu here which is extremely low on power consumption, a normal core2dou for notebooks will use around 35Watts TDP so if they provide an atom which uses 35watts then it should be comparable to T9600 with 35watt TDP usage, so this is why they do not even try to produce intel atoms with much higher frequencies and caches. the boards that come with nvidia ion are capable of playing HD movies and even playing games in low resolutions, but i think we should not ruin their power usage by increasing their performance because they have been made to be used in portable things with little batteries, if you want a powerful netbook then get a notebook . recently i can see many peoples buying motherboards based on intel atom processors which costs them little and will give them enough power for daily usage, the intel atom comes with these mother boards is D510 which uses 13 watts TDP which is not very little any more but it is very less than a desktop core2dou, so most of the times you get a whole case with TDP usage of around 25 watts, so you will spend less on your case and you will save money for monthly electrical power fee, D510 based motherboards are even capable of playing full HD movies because of their 400MHZ gpu frequency (this is 200 in N450).

Why should someone buy an intel atom ? i have bought two intel atom based desktop PC, one for using as a Media Center for playing movies on our TV and another one a desktop PC. i bought the first and i have said why in the topic i created in hardware section, i bought the second one because i want to use my PC as a server for counter strike game, so i have reached this goal and D510 is surprisingly good for a 32 player counter strike game, and i do my daily works (an example is this post ) with it too while it is functioning as a server 24 hour a day. so i want to say some people buy it and some don't, you should think about it to see if it will do your work or no.

[ivamo]

This is for those readers who prefer to read in Macedonian language. I believe this is OK.

Интел Атом Процесорите се микро-процесори, кои се употребуваат кај поновта генерација на преносни компјутери наречени НЕТБУК (NETBOOK), односно кај мобилните уреди кои користат интернет. Се користат поради малите потреби од енергија. Базирани се на 45 нанометарската технологија на Интел, трошат од 0,6 до 2,5 вати и можат да достигнат 1,8 гигахерци.

Толку од мене и поздрав.

Thanks,

[k_nitin_r]

The Intel Atom processor does pretty much anything that your laptop processor can. If you take an Intel Core Duo processor from 2006 you can get almost the same performance from an Intel Atom processor. You can play games on it, but do not expect to play the latest and the greatest of games on it. Many netbooks combine the Intel Atom processor with a dedicated graphics processor so the graphics processing is offloaded and the processor can handle pure computational tasks. The graphics processor is best suited for performing matrix copying and matrix transformations so it can beat even the newest of general purpose processors so if you combine an Intel Atom processor with a dedicated graphics processor, you can play some of the games that you would not be able to play on a computer with a new Intel Core i3 processor alone. However, you do have to consider the advancements in the Sandy Bridge platform that Intel has used for manufacturing the second generation of Intel Core i3 processors so that does narrow the performance gap a bit.

If you are planning to do some serious gaming, plan for at least an Intel Core i3 processor and if that is beyond your budget, invest in an AMD E450 processor that does go beyond the performance that an Intel Atom processor has to offer but still does not quite compare to the modern day notebook or desktop processor. If I had to decide between getting a computer with an Intel Atom processor, an AMD E450 processor, or an Intel Core i3 processor, I would get the one with the Intel Core i3 processor because it could handle my general purpose requirements with some light to medium gaming. If I was truly serious about gaming, I would have considered the option of getting a second hand computer with an Intel Core i3 or Intel Core i5 processor from the first generation of Core i3/i5 processors and then getting a dedicated graphics processor to manage the graphics. You would be surprised at how low people are willing to sell their old computers when they have to move away, especially if they have desktop computers.