The Intel Atom Thread

[Blandge]

We know AMD was fast with the hybrid tablet thing right? Months ago we saw how Temash would be available with docking station. Superb idea. Really, really superb. They just don't have the hardware and OEM relations to back it up.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/laptop/60053-intel-reinvents-wheel-launches-2-in-1-mobile-category/

Intel does though. Windows' productivity advantages are only really enabled when the tablet becomes a true laptop or desktop.

ASUS had hybrid tablets in 2011. This isn't an AMD vs. Intel thing. Intel's only real advantage is that they have a desktop architecture that can run within tablet power envelopes with Haswell. AMD has a similar product in Jaguar, but coming up from the bottom instead of down from the top.

 

[cbn]

We know AMD was fast with the hybrid tablet thing right? Months ago we saw how Temash would be available with docking station. Superb idea. Really, really superb. They just don't have the hardware and OEM relations to back it up.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/laptop/60053-intel-reinvents-wheel-launches-2-in-1-mobile-category/

Intel does though. Windows' productivity advantages are only really enabled when the tablet becomes a true laptop or desktop.

That sounds pretty good, but will the lapdock be re-reusable?

Say I buy a Windows 8 or Android Silvermont atom 2 in 1.....will any of these OEMs let me re-use the lapdock portion with an Airmont Tablet?

I don't want to keep repurchasing Lapdocks when I don't need to. (If any of these OEMs will not allow this, I'd say Intel needs to look into getting partners that will.)

 

[blackened23]

Intel rules in CPU performance sure, but the advantage they have isn't worth the cost they demand. Think about it from an OEM perspective - you have the choice of many SoC's and Windows or Android for a tablet. What is the compelling reason to go Wintel?

You have to look at it in terms of "what do I get?", because that is what they are doing when making purchasing decisions. There is no room for fanboyism or anything else - just cold hard facts and money.

20% faster CPU performance is basically nothing. An hour extra battery life is basically nothing. 50% faster graphics? Basically nothing. It's a race to the bottom and you have to be cheap. That is the #1 factor in winning the tablet war, the phone war and I suspect the entire silicon war as chips become a commodity.

I would hardly take Acer seriously because they design garbage at low prices and that strategy has not worked for them. If CPU performance did not matter, if only user experience mattered, AMD would be doing exceptionally well in the mobile market. Obviously they are not doing well.

CPU performance does matter. More battery life does matter. Quality matters in the US and EU markets, as quality products have been selling exceptionally well despite any price premiums. That's why Apple sells more portable computers than anyone in existence, and this is also why Acer is having their sales dip by 25% per quarter. Consumers are sick of cheap garbage. Acer computers, on average, are cheap garbage.

If only price mattered, the iphone would not sell so well. The Galaxy S4 would not sell so well. The iPad would not sell. All premium phones would be a bust. But the market has changed - people are willing to pay for quality. Nobody wants a garbage machine with bad cpu performance, hence why AMD is not selling anything these days. Nobody wants cheap junk that doesn't perform. If the market demanded that, AMD would actually sell something, but they can't.

You know as well as I do that the highest selling products on the market are not low cost. They are high quality - people are willing to pay for quality. The market has had a shift in mindset over the past 5 years, and unfortunately Acer has not caught on to that.

 

[Khato]

I just got sent this from another forum -

Wintel destined to eventually fail, says Acer founder

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130910PD203.html

Eh, it's mostly the 'win' portion of wintel that's destined to fail.

The compelling reason to go with Intel is that they can offer silicon solutions for a lower price than the fabless competition. There are already indications that the new CEO is moving the company in that direction with the promised $99 or less pricing for Android Baytrail tablets this holiday season.

Under Otellini maintaining the status quo with respect to margins was the goal. Problem being that that it's not a sustainable strategy. The costs of process R&D and the manufacturing fabs continue to increase with each node requiring a corresponding increase in cashflow. Low margin products still make money. And being an IDM means that Intel can sell product for less than the competition while maintaining acceptable margins.

 

[USER8000]

People are forgetting that the screen, and the components which handle GPS and wireless connectivity,consume the most power in a modern phone or commodity tablet.

 

[VengenceIsMine]

That sounds pretty good, but will the lapdock be re-reusable?

Say I buy a Windows 8 or Android Silvermont atom 2 in 1.....will any of these OEMs let me re-use the lapdock portion with an Airmont Tablet?

I don't want to keep repurchasing Lapdocks when I don't need to. (If any of these OEMs will not allow this, I'd say Intel needs to look into getting partners that will.)

Intel doesn't really but you should look at TI's dockport silicon, SemiAccurate has a decent write up on it. Full of Charlie's usual anti Intel bile but still some good info.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Windows tablets are just too pricey, plain and simple. Even with a quad core Temash, I wouldn't be willing to pay more than $300 at the very most for a Windows 8 tablet. $400 for the small touchscreen notebooks is pretty bad too when you can get an i3 or Pentium notebook for the same amount (just no touchscreen). A convertible, a la Lenovo Yoga is a much more amiable proposition and honestly I would have no qualms coughing up $800 for one of the models you can get at Best Buy. On the other hand however, I can't help but hate the touchscreen puke-athon that most industry players have jumped on thanks to tablets and Windows 8. I'd much rather see the money put towards higher screen resolutions and faster performing processors, but the public obviously isn't going to quit buying tablets anytime soon.

 

[VengenceIsMine]

I just got sent this from another forum -

Wintel destined to eventually fail, says Acer founder

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130910PD203.html

Intel rules in CPU performance sure, but the advantage they have isn't worth the cost they demand. Think about it from an OEM perspective - you have the choice of many SoC's and Windows or Android for a tablet. What is the compelling reason to go Wintel?

You have to look at it in terms of "what do I get?", because that is what they are doing when making purchasing decisions. There is no room for fanboyism or anything else - just cold hard facts and money.

20% faster CPU performance is basically nothing. An hour extra battery life is basically nothing. 50% faster graphics? Basically nothing. It's a race to the bottom and you have to be cheap. That is the #1 factor in winning the tablet war, the phone war and I suspect the entire silicon war as chips become a commodity.

By your logic Allwinner and Rockchip would be ruling the ARM world rather than Qualcomm & Apple. Sure they ship some cheap junk but they are small fish and will remain so.

 

[SiliconWars]

By your logic Allwinner and Rockchip would be ruling the ARM world rather than Qualcomm & Apple. Sure they ship some cheap junk but they are small fish and will remain so.

Intel dreams of the day they are on the same level as Allwinner or Rockchip in mobile.

 

[zebrax2]

This should at least put some heat for the ARM camp. Looks like 2014/2015 would be a really interesting year for mobile.

 

[Imouto]

Intel dreams of the day they are on the same level as Allwinner or Rockchip in mobile.

Or home connectivity purposes. You should see how the TV dongle and Android based mini-PCs market is growing. All of them rock one of these chips. Even Google itself is going after this market with its Chromecast.

 

[Sweepr]

Bay Trail slide deck: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4718742/intel-bay-trail-slide-deck

 

[Enigmoid]

so a 15W apu cant play the latest games at 1080p shocker. this is such a BS comment. I mean have you seen the benchmarks? the 500Mhz kabini gpu nearly doulbles the performance of the atom...also the atoms cpu perf is barely better than kabini's. Power might favour the atom part but when you take a closer look it seems like atom doesnt have sata3 or pcie or simply put, tablet optimized soc vs ultraportable soc.
This crap argument might work better on the a6-1450 or the a4-1200

I don't quite think you get my point. Kabini uses massive amounts of power compared to baytrail for comparable CPU performance and superior GPU performance. Yes I have seen the benchmarks, 15w kabini is too slow to play almost all modern 3d games. Atom is much too slow but considering its market and power use its acceptable.

Sata a bit of a letdown but PCIe on a Soc as weak as kabini is a bit of a waste. Kabini's CPU isn't really powerful enough to power a lot of games. IMO kabini should have used dual channel RAM instead (increase in igp performance).

In a cheap notebook sata support will matter, but in ultraportables PCIe probably isn't going to be used.

By the time you drop down to the a6-1450 or a4-1200 CPU performance is really weak (lets not forget that 1 ghz jaguar is worse than 1.6 ghz bobcat), GPU no longer holds an advantage, and we are still using the same as or more power. Not seeing any advantage there.

I'm saying this is significant because this effectively writes AMD out of the tablet x86 market. For cheap notebooks, Baytrail basically offers bobcat gpu performance with kabini CPU performance and much lower power envelopes. Kabini was good for netbooks, baytrail is great. Kabini still has a bit of a market in low cost, low performance notebooks but baytrail takes netbook (because this SOC will easily run without active cooling vs 15 watt soc with active cooling) leaving kabini between pentium/i3 SV (high energy, higher performance, similar though more expensive prices) and haswell ULV (low energy, higher performance, expensive). Haswell ULT takes the high end, i3/pentium takes the low and clunky end and baytrail takes the ultra small form factor section. Where does that leave kabini?

 

[Sweepr]

Interesting PC.Watch analysis:

http://translate.google.com.br/tran...s.co.jp/docs/column/ubiq/20130912_615175.html

 

[USER8000]

I don't quite think you get my point. Kabini uses massive amounts of power compared to baytrail for comparable CPU performance and superior GPU performance. Yes I have seen the benchmarks, 15w kabini is too slow to play almost all modern 3d games. Atom is much too slow but considering its market and power use its acceptable.

Sata a bit of a letdown but PCIe on a Soc as weak as kabini is a bit of a waste. Kabini's CPU isn't really powerful enough to power a lot of games. IMO kabini should have used dual channel RAM instead (increase in igp performance).

In a cheap notebook sata support will matter, but in ultraportables PCIe probably isn't going to be used.

By the time you drop down to the a6-1450 or a4-1200 CPU performance is really weak (lets not forget that 1 ghz jaguar is worse than 1.6 ghz bobcat), GPU no longer holds an advantage, and we are still using the same as or more power. Not seeing any advantage there.

I'm saying this is significant because this effectively writes AMD out of the tablet x86 market. For cheap notebooks, Baytrail basically offers bobcat gpu performance with kabini CPU performance and much lower power envelopes. Kabini was good for netbooks, baytrail is great. Kabini still has a bit of a market in low cost, low performance notebooks but baytrail takes netbook (because this SOC will easily run without active cooling vs 15 watt soc with active cooling) leaving kabini between pentium/i3 SV (high energy, higher performance, similar though more expensive prices) and haswell ULV (low energy, higher performance, expensive). Haswell ULT takes the high end, i3/pentium takes the low and clunky end and baytrail takes the ultra small form factor section. Where does that leave kabini?

The problem is the Z3770 lacks SATA or PCI-E which are both deactivated to reach the lower TDP for tablets. If you go up the range TDP and power consumption looks to be higher(looking at leaked specs of the Bay Trail Celerons and Pentiums),due to more enabled functionality and probably less strict binning,and the use of cheaper PCB components for the reference boards not optimised to save every watt consumed. Remember,how much this effects other desktop and mobile parts(just look at motherboards for example!).

Hence I expect,that you might find Baytrail SFF and sub-notebook systems are not exactly the same animal as the the tablet version,especially with the 15W TDP Jaguar chips actually being a bit better in reality(when it comes to power consumption and cooling) than what the TDP suggests.

Moreover,cheap notebooks have plastic bodies which are poor for heat dissipation,so I would still expect active cooling for the sub-notebook systems based on it. With low end SFF desktops,you see quite a few low end Celeron and Bobcat based systems ATM,so I expect as time progresses you will see both Bay Trail desktop and Jaguar based versions,as they both should consume less power and be easier to cool than their predecessors.

 

[VengenceIsMine]

Intel dreams of the day they are on the same level as Allwinner or Rockchip in mobile.

If ever there was a post that measures your depths as a mere fanboy, this is it.

 

[SiliconWars]

If ever there was a post that measures your depths as a mere fanboy, this is it.

Try to stay classy hm? Failing that can you at least begin to understand these companies who's names you throw around without realising just how far off you are from reality? Your post shows the depths of your ignorance.

The day Intel approaches Allwinner's or Rockchip's success selling "cheap junk" is the day they can say they arrived in ultramobile. I'd strongly advise nobody holds their breath waiting on that btw.

 

[USER8000]

Try to stay classy hm? Failing that can you at least begin to understand these companies who's names you throw around without realising just how far off you are from reality? Your post shows the depths of your ignorance.

The day Intel approaches Allwinner's or Rockchip's success selling "cheap junk" is the day they can say they arrived in ultramobile. I'd strongly advise nobody holds their breath waiting on that btw.

Its because they are Chinese companies of course and incapable of doing anything good,just like with the attitudes towards the Japanese companies many years ago. Underestimating the Japanese was a painful experience for many European and US companies.

You can see the giant hissy fit against Huawei and ZTE in the US for example. Sigh.

Plus on the supposed anti-Intel fanboism,I see you celebrated by getting a Core i5 2500K!

 

[Phynaz]

Try to stay classy hm? Failing that can you at least begin to understand these companies who's names you throw around without realising just how far off you are from reality? Your post shows the depths of your ignorance.

The day Intel approaches Allwinner's or Rockchip's success selling "cheap junk" is the day they can say they arrived in ultramobile. I'd strongly advise nobody holds their breath waiting on that btw.

One would be very foolish to count Intel out of market they want into.

 

[SiliconWars]

http://techreport.com/news/25355/as...ble-has-quad-core-bay-trail-soc-starts-at-349

Asus Transformer Book T100

The system employs the Atom Z3470, which is a quad-core chip with a maximum CPU clock of 1.8GHz.

The Transformer Book's SoC has a dual-channel memory interface, to which Asus attaches 2GB of RAM. That memory footprint is well within the limitations of 32-bit operating systems, nicely sidestepping the fact that Bay Trail's connected standby mode isn't expected to work in 64-bit Windows until the first quarter of next year.

Unfortunately, the display resolution is just 1366x768.

it looks like a full-sized SD slot didn't make the cut. As far as I can tell, neither did an auxiliary battery.

I guess this is the first real competition against Temash/Kabini at the $350-$400 range. Well...battery life better be really damn good.

 

[bullzz]

@USER8000 - I lol'ed hard

 

[Arachnotronic]

http://techreport.com/news/25355/as...ble-has-quad-core-bay-trail-soc-starts-at-349

I guess this is the first real competition against Temash/Kabini at the $350-$400 range. Well...battery life better be really damn good.

Yeah, they had that tablet at the benchmarking session. I gave the Intel folks crap about it, but they told me that the vast majority of the BYT designs will be 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. We'll see if they're right. I heard that they have 30 designs so far with more expected as they go into next year.

BTW, I know why Snapdragon 800 has all of the wins. Intel's software stack for BYT on Android is NOT ready yet. So there's no way that Intel could have competed for devices on Android coming out this year. The Android based BYT I used was in good shape, but they still have to finish optimizing it and fixing some corner cases.

That being said, the folks I talked to said that customer response for the Android stuff was very good and that the "floodgates are now open".

Just my view of things, of course...if there's any criticism against Intel here, it's not on the hardware side of things. They're relatively new to Android and bringing Gen7 and the rest of the platform to Android is a much harder task for them initially than it is for the ARM guys like Nvidia and Qualcomm who have been on this platform for a while.

 

[USER8000]

http://techreport.com/news/25355/as...ble-has-quad-core-bay-trail-soc-starts-at-349

I guess this is the first real competition against Temash/Kabini at the $350-$400 range. Well...battery life better be really damn good.

It looks pretty nice,but it seems to use the slower Atom Z3470 which is clocked 600MHZ under the Z3770,with a maximum Turbo clockspeed of 1.8GHZ,so are the base clocks 1GHZ to 1.2GHZ I wonder??

I also do wonder what price level the Z3770 will be aimed at too??

Moreover,why are Windows tablets stuck at 1366X768?? I know mates who use the Transformer Infinity and it has a lovely 1920X1200 display.

 

[bullzz]

@siliconwars - its a 10 inch device. thats a pretty good resolution for that size. even the MBA 11inch has the same res

 

[VengenceIsMine]

Try to stay classy hm? Failing that can you at least begin to understand these companies who's names you throw around without realising just how far off you are from reality? Your post shows the depths of your ignorance.

The day Intel approaches Allwinner's or Rockchip's success selling "cheap junk" is the day they can say they arrived in ultramobile. I'd strongly advise nobody holds their breath waiting on that btw.

This is the final time I waste effort responding to anything you post because you are exactly what I called you, a fanboy and I mean that in the worst way because you pretend to be logical but you only register evidence that meets the agenda you want to push which that ARM, preferably cheap ARM will conquer all.

When I started a thread last week that prefaced the results we saw today, you initially called them fabricated & me a liar (anything but classy but you have none), then switched to well baytrail is only good only in single threaded CPU, S800 will kill it in multithreaded loads, then when people pointed out further evidence you were wrong, then GPU is what really matters in mobile. You switch arguments constantly and only register evidence that meets your fanboy viewpoint.

As for Rockchip and Allwiner, they are bottom feeders surviving on low margin on old tech in an industry that reserves it's real rewards for innovation (Apple, Qualcomm), by next year Intel will have on chip LTE, quite possibly an even greater process technology edge than it currently has, a class leading CPU (Apple A7 could be exception but too early to tell) and next design step will focus on graphics and greater SOC integration on Atom. What will Allwinner and Rockchip have? A12 on 40nm or 28nm if they are willing to pay? big.LITTLE which will kill their margins? That will work in the <$99 tablet market but it isn't what Intel, Qualcomm, Apple or Samsung are aiming at and yes I consider that bottom feeding.