Intel: “PineTrail processors aren’t any faster, because they don’t need to”

After recently testing the first PineTrail powered netbook i got on my desk, the Asus 1008P-KR , I’ve told you how disappointed i was with performance levels. Although i knew Intel was planning on improving die size and heat/power consumption, i was expecting to also see at least some power boost for the new line. After all, launching a new product (the ATOM N450) that performs nearly the same as an 18 months old one (the ATOM N450), that doesn’t sound right to me…

However, in a recent interview, David McCloskey, Intel’s Client Platform Marketing Manager claims that the new Atom “doesn’t need to be any faster” . Oh really? Did you try working on a N450 powered netbook Mr. McCloskey? Did you try opening a browser with a couple of tabs, a text editing software (like Microsoft Word), a chat program like Skype and some music playing software like Winamp, and run them all the same time? Well i did and i can tell you that the entire system was working like crap. So don’t give us this bull**** , Atom’s need to be faster in order to cope with these days standard needs.

Atom's got smaller, but performance is still poor

I do agree that for this segment it’s important to keep price down and battery life up, and the new line does improve in these areas, however, i don’t agree with this: “for the netbook segment, just giving it more performance is relative to other user benefits of the platform, such as cost and power” and “Performance is obviously traded off against cost and power… we think where are now is the best solution for the needs of the segment.” It would have been a lot better if customers had options, and not only one processor like now.

So, as the folks at APC noticed, Mr. McCloskey fairly admitted that Intel deliberately made a processor that’s merely “good enough”. Well, guess what, it’s actually not good enough.

In terms of performance though, we might see improvements from the N470 (1.83 GHz) processor that is expected to be available from mid 2010 and offer a 10% boost over the N450. And hopefully there will be other Atoms launched in the near future, with perhaps a dual-core version. McCloskey concluded that “Atom development will continue” , without giving any indication on what might come next.

For now though, i once again have to show my disappointment with the new Atom 450 PineTrail processor. But perhaps i’ve just set my expectations too high… What do you think?

Source: EEEPC.net

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Tags: Intel Atom, Pine Trail

Last updated: March 23, 2011 | Published: January 10th, 2010 | See the comments or add yours!