Intel announcing next-gen Atom processors on 21 December?

We’ve already reported on Intel’s plans for its new ‘ Pine Trail’ netbook platform and its expected anouncement at CES, but it looks like its constituent ‘Pine View’ netbook processors may be made public before then.

Xbit Labs claims to have seen an Intel document with details of three new Atom processors for the Pine Trail platform. All have the same clock 1.6GHz speed as existing Atom chips, but have improved performance, onboard graphics and memory controllers, and souped-up video decoding.

The greater integration of components on the new processors should mean that the Pine Trail platform will use less power than the current Atom chipsets and, more importantly for manufacturers of low-cost netbooks, cost less.

According to Xbit Labs, the Intel’s new Pine View processors will be announced on 21 December and consist of:

• Intel Atom N450: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point;
• Intel Atom D510: dual-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 1MB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point;
• Intel Atom D410: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $43 price-point.

The Atom D510 is intended for desktop rather than mobile use, which means that Pine Trail doesn’t yet carry a dual-core option for netbooks. Intel does currently offer a dual-core Atom processor, the Atom 330, but at least one manufacturer has found unsuitable for netbook use.

Haleron Technologies instead opted for a dual Atom N270 set-up in its Swordfish netbook after PC Pro’s benchmarks showed that the Atom 330 offered little performance gain, despite having twice the power consumption of its single-core siblings.

If you are onthinking about buying a netbook in the run up to Xmas, it might be worthwhile holding off until Intel does announce its netbook processor plans. Pine Trail netbooks are likely to feature heavily at CES and while new models won’t be available immediately, existing Atom N270/N280 netbooks could well be discounted to clear the shelves for manufacturers’ new ranges.

[ Xbit Labs]