Intel Atom Reviews

The Register has done a useful review of the current state of the Intel Atom CPU systems and motherboards. It is still an order of magnitude more power than a millicomputer, but its an order of magnitude smaller than most other Intel architecture systems, so its interesting to see the current state of the art.

Intel Silverthorne Details

It appears to be an interesting step in the right direction, while running in a 500mW to 2W power range, it is a full 64bit (x86/x64) architecture CPU. Its a borderline Millicomputer, but the first mainstream 64bit CPU to get into this space.

 

The Ars Technica review has all the details.

Looking into the future, Intel is moving in on ARM from above, with a 64bit architecture that it will be able to power-reduce further while keeping all the desktop oriented software investments intact. ARM is coming up from below, with its own legacy of 32bit software that is built for low power and constrained functionality systems. They don't overlap yet, but they will overlap in the next year or so.

Its a millicomputer if your leg doesn't get hot when you have it in your pocket. By that measure, I think Silverthorne isn't quite there yet. I'm waiting for the next step down...