Intel N450 Processor
The Intel Atom N450 processor was released in late December 2009 and was designed to be Intel's generation netbook processor. Netbooks are viewed as a strategic part of the consumer landscape with large growth potential.
In 2008 alone over 18 million netbooks were purchased, with that number expected to reach 100 million shipped units within the next three years. Netbooks using the N450 were expected to be premiered at January's Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas by at least eight OEM suppliers including MSI, Asus, Acer, Dell and Toshiba.
With the introduction of the N450 Intel hopes to further reduce battery consumption and physical size while holding performance at the level of existing designs. The N450 is 60 percent smaller than the current Atom chip offerings and uses approximately 20 percent less power, coming in at about 5.5 watts. Intel is hoping that the smaller physical size will also lead to more types of devices being designed to use the chip.
The Atom N450 chip features a single core processor running at a clock speed of 1.66Ghz soldered to the main board like most other netbook chips. But unlike most other chip offerings the N450 has integrated video and memory controllers built into the chip. This is an effort by Intel to alleviate one of the major shortcomings of the current Atom offerings: poor video performance, although Intel precautions that changes made in the chip are primarily intended for users viewing internet content rather than video streams from external devices.
Battery life for Atom N450 Netbooks is expected to be much better than current designs and be one of the main selling points of the new processor. Netbook companies are claiming the Atom N450 equipped netbooks lasts up to 8 hours with the standard 6-cell Li-ion (4400 mAh) battery or 10 hours with a high-density 6-cell (5600 mAh) battery.
The N450 isn't expected to significantly affect the current price point of the netbook market. Prices for new netbooks using the N450 are currently to be around the US$350 mark. The netbooks are slated to either Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic, although XP Home and Intel's Moblin Linux operating system are supported as well.
