The Intel Atom Thread

[TreVader]

Uh, no you can't. Not unless you're stealing it.

quote: Google needs to start policing who gets to install their operating system. I'm starting to think intel might be a liability to them putting this kind of crap which no doubt some poor sap will pay $200 for in 2015 and wonder why android sucks so much and iOS is always fast and smooth./quote]

What are you talking about? It is a 60 dollar device. And, I'm sure it will run Android just fine.

Anyways, I'll stop feeding the off-topic rant.

Thanks for ending your rant.



And no, it won't run android "just fine". Lets be real here, it will run it like crap and in a year probably not at all. 32bit memory bus is pretty much inexcusable.



"budget" does not have to mean crap. Intel is still way in the red on bay trail they can afford to pay an extra $3 or whatever per die to not sell crap products that make android a bad experience for the world at large.

 

[witeken]

I'm aware. My point is that these specs and chips like these are the reason crappy android devices are everywhere and it's not even capable of providing a good android experience.



Google needs to start policing who gets to install their operating system. I'm starting to think intel might be a liability to them putting this kind of crap which no doubt some poor sap will pay $200 for in 2015 and wonder why android sucks so much and iOS is always fast and smooth.

This is nonsense. All (low-end) Bay Trail tablets I've seen have vastly superior hardware than those crappy A7 dual/quad cores with an equally or even more low-end GPU. Don't make it look as if Intel's doing a bad thing by putting Bay Trail in 60$ devices, because that's simply false.

BTW, OEMs have a free choice in choosing the hardware. Intel also has SoCs that support more than 1GB of RAM or 1080p displays. They could even get a Snapdragon or a UHD display.

But they won't do that because that's kinda the whole point of low to high-end. You pay more for better hardware.

 

[witeken]

Thanks for ending your rant.



And no, it won't run android "just fine". Lets be real here, it will run it like crap and in a year probably not at all. 32bit memory bus is pretty much inexcusable.



"budget" does not have to mean crap. Intel is still way in the red on bay trail they can afford to pay an extra $3 or whatever per die to not sell crap products that make android a bad experience for the world at large.

Please show me a 60-100$ ARM Android tablet with better specs.

If I look at some, you get a 1024x600 TN display, 1.2GHz MediaTek dualcore or quadcore, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 4/8GB memory capacity, Android 4.2. Or worse.

Not sure what you're complaining about a tablet with a 1280x800 display with Silvermont quadcore SoC, about as fast as a high-end S801.

BTW, it seems that you begun a rant about this Bay Trail SoC not being able to run Android 4.3 at Nexus 2012 levels, while it's actually a Windows tablet.

 

[TreVader]

Please show me a 60-100$ ARM Android tablet with better specs.

If I look at some, you get a 1024x600 TN display, 1.2GHz MediaTek dualcore or quadcore, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 4/8GB memory capacity, Android 4.2. Or worse.

Not sure what you're complaining about a tablet with a 1280x800 display with Silvermont quadcore SoC, about as fast as a high-end S801.

BTW, it seems that you begun a rant about this Bay Trail SoC not being able to run Android 4.3 at Nexus 2012 levels, while it's actually a Windows tablet.

Is it? Well I guess I withdraw my complaints. Windows is crap and I'm totally cool with I intel using it's crappy SoCs on MS. I just don't want android polluted with stuff like that.


Great chip intel, love it. Quality for sure

 

[witeken]

Is it? Well I guess I withdraw my complaints. Windows is crap and I'm totally cool with I intel using it's crappy SoCs on MS. I just don't want android polluted with stuff like that.


Great chip intel, love it. Quality for sure

Android devices will use Merrifield/Moorefield: Intel Talks Atom Z3460/Z3480 (Merrifield), Z3560/Z3580 (Moorefield) and LTE at MWC 2014.

 

[TreVader]

Android devices will use Merrifield/Moorefield: Intel Talks Atom Z3460/Z3480 (Merrifield), Z3560/Z3580 (Moorefield) and LTE at MWC 2014.

Those are far superior specs.


How does windows phone run on such low specs?

 

[witeken]

Windows Phone doesn't even have x86 compatibility. If you mean W8, it's because they are low-end, cheap tablets.

 

[Homeles]

Those are far superior specs.


How does windows phone run on such low specs?

It doesn't take much to power a phone.

 

[Roland00Address]

"The Z3735G has 32-bit memory bus, which limits supported RAM size to 1 GB, and cuts in half memory bandwidth from 10.6 GB/s to 5.3 GB/s. Its maximum display resolution is 1200x800."

So much cringe in 2014 at these specs. This is garbage, wouldn't even run android 4.3 at 2012 Nexus 7 levels of performance.

Yes the memory bandwidth on the lowest sku is garbage. But you are a little off in your comparison.

The nexus 7 2012 edition had a memory bandwidth of 5.3 GB/s the same amount of bandwidth as the cpu you are decrying.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6073/the-google-nexus-7-review/4

Also that soc has a much faster cpu, must faster gpu, same ram, same resolution, most likely faster flash memory for it is 2 years later and everyone has made improvements, etc. The only thing that may slow it down is that it is running windows instead of android, that or bad drivers/firmware. All this for a new device that is sub $100. This is much better then cortex a8 single cores, dual core cortex a9s, or dual/quad core cortex a7 which will probably have the same memory bandwidth in this price range due to them trying to keep costs low. This tablet even has an ips screen that is 720p and not sub 720 like 576p or something.

----------

Yes this is a shitty cpu that was purposefully crippled but it has a very cheap asking price worse case scenario for the oem is the cost of $17 dollars per cpu, but how these pricing structures work is if you deliver volume to intel you get a discount on the price for the cpu. I have no way to back it up but I would not be surprised if we are talking a 50% discount to the biggest oem customers if they can deliver volumes in the hundreds of thousands or millions of units.

Intel has the higher atom skus we are talking 30, 32, 35, 37, 40 dollars if you need more performance. Once again this is worse case pricing scenario for the oem. If memory bandwidth is such an important feature to you move up to the z3745 for $30 dollars which is $13 more, it more than triples the memory bandwidth to 17.1 GB/s. Now your $60 dollar device is about $75. Intel would be happy for now the design is getting about 75% more revenue from the sale.

 

[erunion]

Those are far superior specs.

How does windows phone run on such low specs?

Windows phone runs on ARM, it uses qualcomm exclusively and only supports a small number of SoCs. Its lagged behind Android as far as specs. The first quad core WP8 phone used the s800 at the end of 2013, the rumor is that it was hardware vendors (Nokia) that pushed Microsoft to add it.

 

[Homeles]

Those are far superior specs.


How does windows phone run on such low specs?

To add on what I stated a couple of posts ago, it doesn't take much to power mobile devices. Once upon a time, smartphones didn't even have 1 GB of RAM -- sometimes 512 MB, or even 256 MB. They only had a single core, anemic ARM processor, running at 500 MHz. They even had less than a fifth of the memory bandwidth that you're gasping at.

Guess what? They ran just fine.

Web browsing wasn't a poor experience -- it was actually fairly good. Battery life wasn't fantastic, but was still "all day," which was all that was needed.

These poorly-endowed devices ran much better than PCs did with equivalent hardware. And they were a helluva lot cheaper than those PCs were, back when they were available.

How was all this possible? It's because Android, Windows Phone, and iOS are built around only having that kind of hardware. Even Windows 8/8.1 is rather memory-friendly.

Even a 2.13GHz Saltwell Atom is actually quite fast. It's a lot of horsepower to have in a phone or tablet. These are media consumption devices, not media production devices. When you've got solid state storage, it doesn't take much processing power to have an enjoyable experience.

Today, we've got Silvermont, which is much, much better than you give it credit for. You continually make the short-sighted mistake of forgetting that Apple builds its own software and hardware. The reason why Apple does so well in browser benchmarks is very simple -- they wrote their browser, and they only had to optimize it for a very tiny selection of hardware. This is not a luxury Intel has.

iOS devices are miniaturized-consoles. iOS and its applications are programmed to the metal. Intel is not afforded that luxury, yet you erroneously claim that Apple's CPU hardware is better, when it is fact the software that has the advantage. The A7 is definitely fast, and it's not far behind Bay Trail, but it trails significantly in performance per watt. Its CPU cores are also substantially larger, despite being built on a denser process than Intel's, and to make matters worse, it uses a relatively expensive "L3 cache" to achieve that performance, whereas Bay Trail does not.

It's just getting rather frustrating having you comment in this thread. Every post you make is followed by a swarm of corrections. If you want to learn, that's fine -- ask questions. We'd be happy to answer. But please, do some research... your perception of things is just too far off from reality.

I'm sorry for talking down to you, but this is really getting to be too much.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks for ending your rant.



And no, it won't run android "just fine". Lets be real here, it will run it like crap and in a year probably not at all. 32bit memory bus is pretty much inexcusable.



"budget" does not have to mean crap. Intel is still way in the red on bay trail they can afford to pay an extra $3 or whatever per die to not sell crap products that make android a bad experience for the world at large.

Yep. $60-100 Win8.1 / Android Intel tablets are the Netbook craze all over again. Limited specs, poor performance, all to fulfill a market niche, but realistically, will cause long-term damage to the brand(s) associated with the device(s).

I thought Intel wanted to be known as a "Premium" brand. Ask AMD how it feels to be known as a "cheap" brand.

Edit: For that price, and real x86/x64 Windows 8.1, I'll buy one anyways. But like my C-60 Netbook, which is really a 11.6" thin-n-light laptop, and not an eye-gougingly-slow official Intel/MS Netbook (TM), it's not great.

 

[Homeles]

Yep. $60-100 Win8.1 / Android Intel tablets are the Netbook craze all over again. Limited specs, poor performance, all to fulfill a market niche, but realistically, will cause long-term damage to the brand(s) associated with the device(s).

I thought Intel wanted to be known as a "Premium" brand. Ask AMD how it feels to be known as a "cheap" brand.

Well, the situation's a fair bit different. The OS runs better (memory-hungry Vista vs. tamer Windows 8.1 or Android), and storage is so much better (crappy HDDs vs. considerably improved solid state storage. So I'm very doubtful that the user experience will be poor. Really, Intel or not, a device with those specs would run fine.

You do have a point with the "premium" bit, but I see it differently -- Intel doesn't necessarily want to be viewed as some sort of luxury brand. They're not Apple. They just want to be the best at everything, and lower end SoCs is one of those things that they want to be the best at. For a desktop analogy, if they really cared about being perceived as a "premium" brand, they wouldn't sell Celerons, Pentiums, i3s...

 

[TrulyUncouth]

To add on what I stated a couple of posts ago, it doesn't take much to power mobile devices. Once upon a time, smartphones didn't even have 1 GB of RAM -- sometimes 512 MB, or even 256 MB. They only had a single core, anemic ARM processor, running at 500 MHz. They even had less than a fifth of the memory bandwidth that you're gasping at.

Guess what? They ran just fine.

Web browsing wasn't a poor experience -- it was actually fairly good. Battery life wasn't fantastic, but was still "all day," which was all that was needed.

These poorly-endowed devices ran much better than PCs did with equivalent hardware. And they were a helluva lot cheaper than those PCs were, back when they were available.

How was all this possible? It's because Android, Windows Phone, and iOS are built around only having that kind of hardware. Even Windows 8/8.1 is rather memory-friendly.

I am pretty sure you are smoking something, your memory is broken, or you are exaggerating to make a point. I have been using smartphones since the original iphone, had the original galaxy S also and can say you are absolutely wrong.

They did not run fine, they were laggy pieces of crap- the iphone less so- but the GS1 especially ran terrible. Its browser choked on even some basic websites and that was without it even supporting flashplayer half the time. Battery life was all day if you bought a huge extended battery and didn't use it much.

As for performing better than comparable PCs and costing less, I can't claim to remember how much I paid for every PC and every smartphone I've owned but I can say appx. $700 for those early smartphones did not feel like a value and I frequently suffered from buyer's remorse back then.

The rest of your post I think you would be best served by simply posting a link to some testing that shows Intel out-performing A7 and clobbering them in perf/W. I don't remember it being that clear-cut but if it is, by all means post something to shut him up once and for all.

Side note; I thought Apple just introduced a close-to-metal API, which implies that your statement of their old apps being programmed that way is not fully accurate.

 

[TreVader]

Hey I just was poorly informed about the android vs windows setups. I'm aware bay trail is an adequate replacement for Qualcomm in most cases and if you look at those (dual core 32bit memory) specs they are very, very anemic if you were to assume android.

 

[Shivansps]

Actually i do agree that the 1Gb and 5.3 GB/s may be too little for Windows, especially when you think that the 2GB and 10.6 GB/s version probably cost the same, actually F and G have the same ark price, and even on 1GB the F gona perform better.

But you need to understand that if the point is to offer cheap tablets, thats the way to do it, there tons of $60-$100 tablets that are way worse. Just do a quick ebay seach...
And Intel did not used duals anymore, they could have launched a dual as a entry sku, and didnt. All Bay Trail-T are Quads

 

[VirtualLarry]

Actually i do agree that the 1Gb and 5.3 GB/s may be too little for Windows,
...
And Intel did not used duals anymore, they could have launched a dual as a entry sku, and didnt. All Bay Trail-T are Quads

Interesting. So this is a QC BT? Given the 32-bit memory bus, I'm kind of wondering why not dual-core? Surely memory bandwidth is going to even more severely constrain what kind of apps you run on it, even besides TDP issues with boost and QC. Not to mention, sharing that with the GPU. I daresay, it will be interesting what kind of performance you will get web-browsing on such a platform.

Will it ship with a 64-bit 8.1?

 

[SPBHM]

it's a very slow quad core, memory bandwidth with 32bit DDR3 is probably only a problem for the IGP, CPU performance should be pretty close to the 64 or even "128bit" version I think.

 

[Shivansps]

No way, it comes with the free Windows, and i dont think that one will get a 64 bit versión anytime soon(not until Win 9 at least), and at 1GB im not sure if its a good idea either.

it's a very slow quad core, memory bandwidth with 32bit DDR3 is probably only a problem for the IGP, CPU performance should be pretty close to the 64 or even "128bit" version I think.

If the 4 core turbos are limited to 1580mhz as cpu-words says its gona perform way behind on MT.

 

[Homeles]

I am pretty sure you are smoking something, your memory is broken, or you are exaggerating to make a point. I have been using smartphones since the original iphone, had the original galaxy S also and can say you are absolutely wrong.

They did not run fine, they were laggy pieces of crap- the iphone less so- but the GS1 especially ran terrible. Its browser choked on even some basic websites and that was without it even supporting flashplayer half the time. Battery life was all day if you bought a huge extended battery and didn't use it much.

I had a Droid 2, which is a ~GS2 generation device, so my perception is a bit different. I agree on battery life to an extent... it's definitely not all-day in the sense that you could hammer your device all day and expect it to still be alive by the time you got home. But if you were to say, browse it back and forth on a mass transit commute, and browse during your lunch -- a pretty common scenario -- you'd do fine. I think device age is another important factor... my D2 would handle the job well at first, but it definitely had battery life issues as it was going on its fourth year (just replaced it recently).

As for performing better than comparable PCs and costing less, I can't claim to remember how much I paid for every PC and every smartphone I've owned but I can say appx. $700 for those early smartphones did not feel like a value and I frequently suffered from buyer's remorse back then.

The point was that there was a time where mobile devices had far worse specs that what TreVader was questioning, and they got along just fine.

A PC with the same specs cost far more than $700, back when the specs I mentioned were in vogue.

The rest of your post I think you would be best served by simply posting a link to some testing that shows Intel out-performing A7 and clobbering them in perf/W. I don't remember it being that clear-cut but if it is, by all means post something to shut him up once and for all.

Those charts have already been linked to him several times. I don't you've been paying attention to Tre's participation in this thread.

Side note; I thought Apple just introduced a close-to-metal API, which implies that your statement of their old apps being programmed that way is not fully accurate.

I'm not seeing how that applies. I was talking about their first party apps, which obviously would be highly optimized. The point of the "Metal" API is to have other iOS developers achieve that kind of optimization.

 

[Sweepr]

But you need to understand that if the point is to offer cheap tablets, thats the way to do it, there tons of $60-$100 tablets that are way worse. Just do a quick ebay seach...
And Intel did not used duals anymore, they could have launched a dual as a entry sku, and didnt. All Bay Trail-T are Quads

No need to search for other $60-100 tablets. Apple is still selling the first-gen iPad mini for over $270 even though it has a low resolution 1024x768 display and a very anemic A5 SoC under the hood (dual-core A9, 512MB RAM and an outdated PowerVR GPU). Seriously, compared to this, a cut down quad-core Bay Trail-T + 1GB RAM + 1280x800 display Windows 8.1 tablet packs a lot of value for $100 (or less).

 

[TrulyUncouth]

I had a Droid 2, which is a ~GS2 generation device, so my perception is a bit different. I agree on battery life to an extent... it's definitely not all-day in the sense that you could hammer your device all day and expect it to still be alive by the time you got home. But if you were to say, browse it back and forth on a mass transit commute, and browse during your lunch -- a pretty common scenario -- you'd do fine. I think device age is another important factor... my D2 would handle the job well at first, but it definitely had battery life issues as it was going on its fourth year (just replaced it recently).
The point was that there was a time where mobile devices had far worse specs that what TreVader was questioning, and they got along just fine.

Fair enough, but I was responding to what you wrote and that was saying 500mhz single core ARM's had okay performance when my experience was that 1ghz ARM A8's were crap.

I believe the GS2 had dual-core 1.2ghz A9, which is a huge step-up.

A PC with the same specs cost far more than $700, back when the specs I mentioned were in vogue.
Those charts have already been linked to him several times. I don't you've been paying attention to Tre's participation in this thread.
I'm not seeing how that applies. I was talking about their first party apps, which obviously would be highly optimized. The point of the "Metal" API is to have other iOS developers achieve that kind of optimization.

I haven't seen all his posts but I have never really seen definitive links showing baytrail beating A7 or stomping it in perf/W- I would truly appreciate a link to something showing it as I enjoy that sort of stuff.

As for programming to metal, I took your post to mean iOS apps.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Android devices will use Merrifield/Moorefield: Intel Talks Atom Z3460/Z3480 (Merrifield), Z3560/Z3580 (Moorefield) and LTE at MWC 2014.

Few SPECIFIC devices use Merrifield/Moorefield.

We already know of Android devices that use Bay Trail, like that Onda Tablet. The F/G variants are coming with Android variants too.

"The Z3735G has 32-bit memory bus, which limits supported RAM size to 1 GB, and cuts in half memory bandwidth from 10.6 GB/s to 5.3 GB/s. Its maximum display resolution is 1200x800."

It really won't be that bad, since you are talking about CPU.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/814-3/ddr3-impact-of-channels-timings.html

You are talking about 5% difference in most cases for single vs dual channel. That's the impact using DDR3-1333 RAM on a 2600K, which is about 4-5x the CPU performance of Bay Trail used on these devices. Meaning you won't feel a difference even with 32-bit memory. After all, the original Medfield chip used for Smartphones had 6.4GB/s memory. And with Bay Trail you are talking about an OoO core which is less need of memory bandwidth and with more advanced memory controller.

 

[erunion]

Yep. $60-100 Win8.1 / Android Intel tablets are the Netbook craze all over again. Limited specs, poor performance, all to fulfill a market niche, but realistically, will cause long-term damage to the brand(s) associated with the devise (s).

I thought Intel wanted to be known as a "Premium" brand. Ask AMD how it feels to be known as a "cheap" brand.
.

Intel already tried getting a foothold in the high end with cloverttail+. It wasn't working.

Contrarevenue and the low end is a long, hard route but its what is available to Intel.

 

[Sweepr]

Emdoor Miso could be one of the first 7 inch Windows 8.1 tablets

The Emdoor Miso features a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, an Intel Z3735G quad-core Bay Trail processor, and up to 6 hours of battery life thanks to an 11.1 Whr battery.

It has just 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, which should help keep the cost low. While Emdoor hasn’t announced a price for the tablet, expect it to sell for significantly less than any Windows tablets released in 2013 or the first half of 2014. [...]

Another affordable Emdoor tablet, this one comes with Atom Z3735G and a smaller 7''. This model may be even cheaper than the ~$100 8'' Emdoor EM-i8080.

http://liliputing.com/2014/06/emdoor-miso-one-first-7-inch-windows-8-1-tablets.html

Toshiba Encore 7 Budget Windows 8.1 Tablet Launched

The new Toshiba Encore 7, as the name suggests, features a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. The tablet as mentioned above runs Windows 8.1 and is powered by an quad-core Intel Atom Z3735 processor clocked at 1.3GHz coupled with 1GB of RAM. There is 16GB of inbuilt storage, which is further expandable via microSD card. Other specifications include a front-facing camera (unspecified megapixels) and 3.5mm headphone jack.

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/tablets/new...re-7-budget-windows-81-tablet-launched-536313

ECS announces sub-$200 Bay Trail-based LIVA desktop PC

Among the many Intel Bay Trail SOC (system on a chip) implementations we saw at Computex 2014, the sub-$200 ECS LIVA was definitely one of the few mini PCs we actually could see being used in the living room. The LIVA runs on a dual-core processor, 2GB DDR3L memory and a 32GB eMMC storage. It is a fully functional desktop PC with a proper set of features that include Gigabit LAN and 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-fi + Bluetooth 4.0 wireless card. You also get one USB 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port, audio jack, HDMI and VGA output. At Computex 2014, ECS showcased the LIVA capable of running the latest Windows 8.1 operating system. However, you could just as easily load Linux on it.

[...] The 118 x 70 x 56 mm LIVA is so diminutive, you might initially think that you'll just hide it away, probably behind your TV or desk. However, ECS held a "Design Your Own LIVA" competition and if the entries shown at Computex 2014 were anything to go by, mini PCs are a great platform for creative and lifestyle casemods. Here are some of our favorites.

http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/feature-ecs-bay-trail-m-and-cutest-casemods-ever

Intel Atom Moorefield Processor Benched, Beats Snapdragon 801

For those who've been anxious to see some numbers on both the 22nm Merrifield and Moorefield SoCs, Intel has graciously done just that at COMPUTEX 2014. Pitting reference smartphones based on the Atom Z3480 ('Merrifield') and the Atom Z3580 ('Moorefield') against the Snapdragon 801-powered GALAXY S5, the new devices were benched using 3DMark's Ice Storm Unlimited test, and the ensuing results were rather interesting.

Both the 64-bit Atom Z3480 and Z3580 SoCs are fitted with PowerVR G6400/G6430 GPUs that are clocked at 533MHz.

The quad-core Z3580 scored 21,163, which beats the quad-core Snapdragon 801 (18,450), while the dual-core Z3480 trailed behind with a score of 16,350, proving that Merrifield can hold its own against the competitor's quad-core offerings. Interestingly, the physics score from the Z3580 is significant high at 21,456, compared to the Snapdragon 801 (15,866). Of course, these scores are based on reference designs, and it'll be interesting to see how Qualcomm will fight back when these Atom SoCs find their way into real-world smartphone models.

It's amazing that they can fit 4 x86 Silvermont cores @ 2.3GHz, a beefy PowerVR iGPU and LTE in a phone SoC. Perfect match for the new Nexus 8 IMHO.

Here's Snapdragon 805. There might be something wrong with Adreno 420's graphics score (that's probably bringing the overall score down) but I'd say Moorefield should hold its own (graphics perf. wise) against S805 in an actual phone. Moorefield's CPU performance @ Physics Test is rather impressive, higher score than the 4x 2.7GHz Krait cores in the S805.

www.hardwarezone.com.my/tech-news-c...efield-processor-benched-beats-snapdragon-801