Intel: Atom Processors Are Fast Enough

Chance Stevens 10 January 2010 660 views View Comments

I remember back when I worked at CompUSA and our Intel rep came in one Saturday morning. He was talking about the Pentium 4 processors and saying that they would get real real fast. This was at a time when Pentium III processors couldn’t get past 1.2Ghz. We were all excited about the idea of selling 3.2Ghz computers for thousands of dollars and Intel wanted to make sure we were excited. That Saturday we found out that we’d get a bonus for selling any HP Pentium 4 desktops and as the Intel rep left I thought he’d be back in a few months to encourage us to sell 5Ghz processors.

The opportunity to do that never came. Instead Intel adopted AMD’s approach that clock speed doesn’t speak to performance. With netbooks you just can’t have 3Ghz processors or else you’re going to be stuck with a fast machine which can barely stay on. At 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processors are just fast enough to get the job done but with memories like the one I recounted above you’d think there would be a Intel Atom Plus…or Extreme or something to help Intel get more money out of people. Instead they are staying true to providing cheap processors to provide long battery life and tell people that if they want something more powerful they should buy a notebook.

According to APCMag:

Intel Client Platform Marketing Manager David McCloskey agrees that the steadfast 1.66GHz ceiling is a marketing-led decision because the punchy little Atom “doesn’t need to be any faster”.

“If you look at the desktop segment it’s much different in terms of a (processor) refresh. But for the netbook segment, just giving it more performance is relative to other user benefits of the platform, such as cost and power” McCloskey told APC.

“Performance is obviously traded off against cost and power… we think where are now is the best solution for the needs of the segment.”

There you have it folks.

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