Intel's New Atoms: 2 GHz Z550, 1.2 GHz Z515

As expected, Intel’s finally pulled the covers off of two new Atom chips.

Joining the Intel Atom’s first birthday party are two new family members: the Z550 at 2 GHz and the Z515 at 1.2 GHz.

The Z550 is the fastest Atom yet, thanks to its clock speed. Feature-wise, it’s the same as the rest of Atom family with Hyperthreading being the main trick along with the thrifty under-3-watt power envelope.

The Z515, while slower at a top speed of 1.2 GHz, is a little more clever with the new Intel Burst Performance Technology which will run the chip at slower speeds (with lessened power demands) until the demand is there for full throttle.

Intel didn’t immediately reveal pricing for either chip, but expect the Z550 to be in the more expensive netbooks and nettops, while the Z515 will likely only be found in smaller mobile internet devices.

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.
  • onerec
    I hope AMD/ATI produce processors for netbooks and nettops to have better competition.It helps customer to lessen Intel's overpriced products. I'm pretty sure that Intel will charge more $$ for these new processors.
    Reply
  • StupidRabbit
    Well in that case its prime time for intel to milk the cash cow.. AMD would have to come up with a direct competitor. Until then, we'll just be seeing nothing else in the netbook spec list. Maybe a little VIA.

    But on the other hand, i would likte to see some underclocked versions in smaller devices than netbooks.
    Reply
  • thejerk
    new chips, great... but what about improving the supporting platform??
    Reply
  • tayb
    These Intel Atoms can only go as far as the chipset will allow them and currently that isn't very far.
    Reply
  • the regular Atom processor (1,6Ghz)was barely able to run Vista (and Win 7); what makes intel think a 1,2Ghz will be any better?
    Good enough for linux.
    Windows XP was on the edge with previous Atom 1,2Ghz processor, barely allowing you to watch youtube video's in Firefox,while IE just requested too many system resources for the tiny processor to handle all.

    As far as the Z550,it'll probably be too expensive, but will hopefully reduce the price of the 1,8Ghz Atom Z.
    Reply
  • sunraycer
    No mention on if either of these are dual core like the 330...
    Reply
  • sunraycer
    No word on if either of these are dual core like the 330...I'd guess not then...
    Reply
  • sunraycer
    oops. I hate it when I repeat myself myself.
    Reply
  • single core with HT enabled. In Windows XP it will appear as a dual core.
    Reply
  • sunraycer
    Yeah, my 330 show up as 4 in XP. Think the dual core 330 would be better than the 2.0GHz Z550? Suppose it depends on the tasks (ability to use the second core (third or forth threads?)).
    Reply