It's little more than a rumour at this early stage, but Chinese hardware site HKEPC.com claims that Intel will be adding to its Silverthorne line of Atom processors as soon as next month.
If the report is to be believed, Intel will be introducing the 2GHz Atom Z550 and the 800MHz Atom Z515. Whilst the latter doesn't sound mighty interesting, it's said to feature Intel Burst Performance Technology, allowing the chip to dynamically scale from 800MHz to 1.2GHz. Useful, we reckon, for low power handhelds such as UMPCs.
Conjecturing somewhat, here's how Intel's Atom line up would look following the addition of the two new Z-series parts:
| Model | Frequency | Cores | Hyper-Threading | TDP | FSB | L2 cache |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Atom Z series (Silverthorne for MIDs and UMPCs) | ||||||
| Atom Z500 | 800Mhz | 1 | No | 0.65W | 400MHz | 512K |
| Atom Z510 | 1.1GHz | 1 | No | 2.0W | 400MHz | 512K |
| Atom Z515* | 800MHz - 1.2GHz | 1 | No | 0.65W - 1.4W | 400MHz | 512K |
| Atom Z520 | 1.33GHz | 1 | Yes | 2.0W | 533MHz | 512K |
| Atom Z530 | 1.60GHz | 1 | Yes | 2.0W | 533MHz | 512K |
| Atom Z540 | 1.86GHz | 1 | Yes | 2.4W | 533MHz | 512K |
| Atom Z550* | 2.0GHz | 1 | Yes | 2.4W | 533MHz | 512K |
| Intel Atom N series (Diamondville for netbooks) | ||||||
| Atom N270 | 1.60GHz | 1 | Yes | 2.5W | 533MHz | 512K |
| Atom N280 | 1.66GHz | 1 | Yes | 2.5W | 667MHz | 512K |
| Intel Atom # series (Diamondville for nettops) | ||||||
| Atom 230 | 1.60GHz | 1 | Yes | 4.0W | 533MHz | 512K |
| Atom 330 | 1.60GHz | 2 | Yes | 8.0W | 533MHz | 1MB |
*rumoured, specification unconfirmed |
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The 2GHz Atom Z550 is claimed to retain the 2.4W TDP of the Atom Z540, despite the bump in frequency. Of course, whether or not the parts will see the light of day remains to be seen, but we reckon we're due a new Atom processor or two.
