Netbooks getting thinner and faster, HD desktops going mainstream: Intel

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 12:28

Your IT - Home IT

The forthcoming 'Pine Trail' Atom chips will deliver smaller, thinner, lighter netbooks with longer battery life, Intel has promised. And desktop PC chipset changes will take HD video into the mainstream.

Speaking at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Intel executive vice president Sean Maloney gave the first public demonstration of the next generation 'Pine Trail' Atom platform.

According to Maloney, Pine Trail will enable netbooks with improved performance, lower thermals, a reduction in average power for longer battery life, and better graphics.

'Pine Trail' reduces the number of chips from three to two, and this smaller overall footprint enables smaller, thinner designs and lower platform cost. 

And that's just what we expect from hardware manufacturers: smaller, lighter, more powerful, more time between charges, and lower prices.

The chipset is also intended for use in nettops.

Maloney also presented the 'Lynnfield' desktop processor, due in the second half of the year.

'Lynnfield' will bring HD to mainstream desktop PCs, along with 40 percent better performance than the 'Penryn' processors released last year.

During his presentation, Maloney noted that more than one billion Intel processor based motherboards have been shipped by Taiwan manufacturers.