Dual Core "Desktop" Atom Released

[blackworx]

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/08/20 ... core_atom/

Intel has quietly introduced its first dual-core Atom processor, the 330, and a new motherboard to go with it.

The 45nm 330's a low-power part and - as the lack of an 'N' prefix shows - it's a desktop chip. Intel didn't say what clock speed the chip is set to - higher than the 230's 1.6GHz, we'd say, but it's not certain. The part does sit on a 533MHz frontside bus.

[frank2003]

Current 'Diamondville' Atoms, the 230 and N270, use HyperThreading to appear to the host OS as a pair of processors. Presumably, the 330 will use the same technique to appear as four cores.

Is this for real, for a small chip??? Even mainstream dual cores don't have HT. Besides, unless you have some very specific applications that can take advantage the little gains from HT, in general you'd be better off turning it off even if it's available.

It'll also boast Gigabit Ethernet, support for a pair of parallel ATA drives, two 3GB/s SATA ports, six-channel HD audio, s-video out, and the ability to eight USB 2.0 ports, four of which are on the back panel.

I wished they had the S-Video out last year when they introduced the D201GLY2 in the U.S. But now that everyone has gone digital, what's the point of an analog output? HDMI would have been much more useful.

[QuietOC]

Even mainstream dual cores don't have HT. Besides, unless you have some very specific applications that can take advantage the little gains from HT, in general you'd be better off turning it off even if it's available.

Hyperthreading only works for certain CPU designs. It seems to help the single core Atom out quite a bit. I expect it won't hurt the dual-core's performance, but who knows?

[dougz]

Like its Atom 230 sibling, the Atom 330 is based on Intel's 45nm fab process and will incorporate HyperThreading technology -- in the case of the Atom 330, the processor will appear to have four cores within the operating system.

According to Register Hardware, the dual core Atom 330 processors will be soldered onto Intel's upcoming 945GX-based D945GCLF2 motherboard which supports up to 2GB of DDR2 memory.

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Intels+ ... e12720.htm

[smilingcrow]

I watched the Intel IDF live webcast last night on Nehalem and they were strongly pushing Hyper-Threading as a power saving feature and suggested that it would be used a lot more across the whole industry.

I was very impressed by the amount of design features in Nehalem at the architectural and manufacturing process level that are aimed purely at lowering power consumption; this is across the board from Servers through to laptops. I’d go as far as to say that I found it staggering which is not something I usually feel about these things; I’ve never watched one of these webcasts before so maybe I was bamboozled a bit.
I’m very interested to see the power data for Nehalem now and it should give Intel a massive performance per Watt boost for dual CPU Xeon systems. I have to give them an A for effort and the Nehalem architecture has so many changes from Core 2 that it almost seems like two architectural updates in one; that’s what a massive R&D budget can do for you.

The Webcast will be available within a couple of days; it’s by Rajesh Kumar
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/eve ... y_schedule

[Elvellon]

Is this for real, for a small chip??? Even mainstream dual cores don't have HT. Besides, unless you have some very specific applications that can take advantage the little gains from HT, in general you'd be better off turning it off even if it's available.

HT only disappeared in Core 2 processors (didn't have time to implement it in a new architecture?), it will return in Core i7 (codename Nehalem) and presumably stay.

Atom differs from modern CPUs in that it executes instructions in order, not out of order like CPUs starting with Pentium Pro. Therefore, it has a hard time keeping all its execution units busy. Core 2 can analyze and rearrange instructions.
So Atom's HT adds a lot of performance for a small transistor/power/heat price, whereas out-of-order execution is very "expensive".

[dougz]

Like the Atom 230, the Atom 330 uses 45nm technology, features a 533MHz frontside bus, and is designed to work with Intel's 945GC chipset (the 82945GC northbridge and 82801GB southbridge). Unlike the Atom 230, however, the Atom 330 features dual cores, plus second-level cache that has been doubled from 512MB to 1GB...

Intel did not specify the Atom 330's dimensions, clock speed, or power consumption. But, the above picture of the D945GCLF2 suggests that the Atom 330 fits into the same 22mm x 22mm footprint as the Atom 230. Meantime, the new processor has been rumored to have a TDP of 8 Watts, twice that of its earlier sibling.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8293 ... tml?kc=rss