One thing you might want to think about is that the dual-core Atom N500 processor won't be anymore powerful than the current D500 processor and that doesn't provide any performance increases over the Atom 330 dual-core processor. Intel has only increased power efficiency with each release, they have not increased performance. The new line of Atom processors (which will be in the HP Mini 210 and Toshiba netbook) are simply single-core versions of the N450 but they have DDR3 RAM compatibility. Other than that, they are the same as the N450 which is just a more power efficient version of the N280 (with 64-bit addedd) and none of which offer performance advantages over the N270. Even the 1.8GHz Atom processors offer very little performance increases over the N270 and above.
Lastly, I wouldn't be worried about the ION 2 platform. It has already been benchmarked and it performs the same as the ION. The only difference is, again, it is more power efficient (not by much though). Nvidia, much like AMD/ATI, played the number games with their GPUs. They made it seem as their current line of GPUs greatly outperformed the older 9000 series. Well, the 9400M (which is the core of the ION) is actually able to beat out the GT220 (which I believe is the core of the ION 2) and even some 330 configurations. The only real difference between the ION and ION 2 is that the ION 2 works with up to 512MB of RAM. Since heavy gaming (ie Crysis) is still impossible on devices that will use the ION 2 (even the dual-core Atom processors are only good for older games such as Quake III), that increase to 512MB of RAM doesn't mean much of anything.
Oh, one other thing to think about is that all of these "new" platforms are going to be extremely expensive. An ION 2, Atom N500 netbook will likely start at $500 or higher. That makes them a wash especially since more powerful ultra portable notebooks can be purchased for the same price or less and they too are pushing 6-8 hours of battery life.
So I wouldn't hold your breath for the next generation of Atom processors or the ION 2. They don't add any performance increased compared to older hardware, they just consume a little less power. That power difference isn't all that great either. We are talking about going from 6 hours (with Atom N270/N280 and ION/ION LE) to maybe 7.5 hours (Atom N450 and ION 2). Yeah, not really worth the $200 price premium over the older hardware.
|
Linear Mode
