We already know that the Intel Core microarchitecture offers an impressive performance-per-watt metric. The processor design, however, is an intrinsically expensive one to fabricate and certain markets don't require the pure compute power on tap.
Take the CE (Consumer Electronics) market as an example. A low-cost, low-power model with specific media-related features would be a better,ncheaper, and cooler fit.
Intel realises this and has announced a new system-on-a-chip (SoC) media processor whose feature-set is specifically designed for setup boxes and media players.
The Intel CE 2100 Media Processor uses an embedded XScale CPU, running at 1GHz, and carrying support for MPEG2 and H.264 hardware acceleration. It also has basic graphics integrated on to the single chip, too. ASUS has already signed up and implemented it in a present setup box.
It will be interesting to see how Intel ramps up production of its media processor and just how many partners step up to the plate. We also wonder just how effective this 1GHz CPU can be at speeding up H.264. Low utilisation for 720p would be nice.
