Report: Intel Pinetrail Pushed to 2010

By Marcus Yam
published

The second coming of Atom will be next year.

The Intel Atom is a small, lightweight and extremely power efficient processor. Only through outside help from the chipset does the Atom gain extra abilities.

We know what the Nvidia Ion can do for the Atom, but of course Intel wants to keep it all in the family. That's where Intel's Pinetrail comes in, which integrates graphics in with the CPU.

According to what Digitimes Research senior analyst Joanne Chien has gathered from vendors, Intel has decided to delay the launch of the new CPU to early 2010, "so as to avoid impacting the netbook market in second-half 2009."

With netbook worldwide shipments already projected to be double what they were from 2008, there could be reason for Intel not to want to rock the boat.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • megamanx00
    Trying to cut nVidia out there. Well, NVIDIA can always just go on with VIA CPUs for it's updated ION platform. They can put the hurt on Pinetrail IF they can show OEMs that they can do more for the same price. A cheap netbook that can watch HD content and play the SIMS, and possibly WoW, is what will catch alot of peoples attention.
    Reply
  • ubernoobie
    If it could run crysis, i'll buy it
    Reply
  • Honis
    This is why good competition is needed in any market! Nvidia may be selling ION platforms but the core of each of those is an Intel Atom. If VIA or AMD came out with a real competitor to the Atom, Intel would release the Pinetrail in a heartbeat.
    Reply
  • daskinil
    Is the summary intentionally a reference to Fallout 3..."The second coming of Atom"
    Reply
  • Aoster87
    I am a fan of Intel but jesus do their graphics suck. They ought to just let the Ion give the Atom the help it needs.
    Reply
  • daggs
    ubernoobieIf it could run crysis, i'll buy itdude, its a freaking netbook! like those Einsteins who want to install gentoo on their netbook.
    it wasn't designed for it.
    Reply
  • theholylancer
    imagine a box made specifically to play wow and watch HD videos and lesser work loads, the spec is set down by the software, and not by the hardware

    and then advertise it as such with actual usage hours (like say 5 hours of wow), man that user base would just explode
    Reply
  • ckthecerealkiller
    to avoid impacting the netbook market in second-half 2009....netbook worldwide shipments already projected to be double what they were from 2008, there could be reason for Intel not to want to rock the boat.

    In other words, "We found out that we can keep pocketing money with the current solution."

    These atoms are crap. There are plenty of AMD processors released years ago with similar efficiency and power.
    Reply
  • Hanin33
    people are still asking too much from these small form factors... or rather, they're unwilling to pay prices that reflect the investment in the technology. i don't blame them tho, when these companies are so quick to inflate their prices on tech they produce for pennies on the dollar. with what's available on the market now, it is impossible to produce a product that does what everyone wants and still has a battery life extend passed 3 hours.
    Reply
  • coopchennick
    The Intel Atom is a small, lightweight and extremely power efficient processor.sorry to nitpick but didn't toms do a review a while back that concluded a core 2 was more efficient
    Reply