Intel says it is now shipping two new 1.8GHz Atoms, the single-core D425 and dual-core D525, aimed at networked storage appliances. Meanwhile, leaks have provided information about “Medfield” — a 2011 successor to the Atom-based “Moorestown” SoC — and forthcoming “Sandy Bridge” desktop CPUs.

The CPUs shipping today are the latest in Intel's Pine Trail series of Atoms (also known as "Pine View" when their companion I/O controllers are taken into account). The single-core D425 and dual-core D525 were actually announced in June at the Computex show in Taiwan, but the chipmaker has provided a (slight) surprise by releasing the parts with a 1.8GHz clock speed instead of the 1.66GHz clock that was originally mooted.

According to Intel, the D425 and D525 include on-board GMA3150 graphics (as do the other Pine Trail CPUs) and support either DDR3 memory at 800MHz, or 800/667MHz DDR2 memory. As shown in the table below, TDPs are identical to the CPU's DDR2-only predecessors.

	Clock speed	Cores	Second-level cache	Memory	TDP
N450	1.66GHz	1	512KB	667MHz DDR2	5.5 Watts
N455	1.66GHz	1	512KB	800MHz DDR3	5.5 Watts
N470	1.83GHz	1	512KB	667MHz DDR2	6.5 Watts
N475	1.88GHz	1	512KB	800MHz DDR3	6.5 Watts
D410	1.66GHz	1	512KB	667/800MHz DDR2	10 Watts
D425	1.8GHz	1	512KB	800MHz DDR3 or 667/800MHz DDR2	10 Watts
D510	1.66GHz	2	1MB	667/800MHz DDR2	13 Watts
D525	1.8GHz	2	1MB	800MHz DDR3 or 667/800MHz DD2	10 Watts

Intel's "Pine Trail" Atoms

There seems to be no reason the new D425 and D525 wouldn't appear in low-cost desktop computers as well as some embedded devices. However, Intel says the new processors are "optimized for networked storage devices," and suggests pairing the CPUs with the 802801HR I/O controller, an embedded-focused part that supports RAID and has a maximum TDP of 4.3 Watts.

Intel announced a NAS reference platform in March based on the 82801HR and Pine Trail processors, the first manifestation of which was the LG N482 pictured below. Since that time, Acer, Cisco, LaCie, Netgear, Super Micro, Synology, and Thecus have all announced similar products, the chipmaker says.

LG's N482
Source: Tom's Hardware
"Medfield" details leak

Details of a smaller, more power-thrifty Atom codenamed "Medfield" have emerged, thanks to what appears to have been a presentation by Intel engineer Vadim Sukhomlinov. Pictured at right, Sukhomnilov is said by his LinkedIn Profile to be working to achieve a successful launch of the chipmaker's "Moorestown" platform in Russia.

The presentation was reportedly discovered last week on Intel's website by IDG's Agam Shah, among others. It has since been removed, but at the time of writing may be found in Google's cache, here.

According to the document, "Medfield" will be a 2011 successor to "Moorestown," also known as the Z6xx. The Z6xx was announced in June, along with a version known as Oak Trail, whose "Whitney Point" additions — SATA, HD Audio, HDMI, and a variety of legacy I/O — will make it capable of running Windows 7, among other operating systems such as Linux.

Intel has said "Moorestown" will cut idle power consumption to 1/50th of the first Atom, the Z5xx ("Menlow"), permitting devices based on it to deliver up to ten days of standby. (For further details, see our earlier coverage, here.)

We haven't seen Intel give a firm date for Z6xx or Oak Trail shipments, but it's likely the chips will ship during the early part of 2011 (we'd expect to see announcements of devices based on them at January's Consumer Electronics Show). Meanwhile, according to the Sukhomlinov presentation, Medfield is already queued up for release later in the year.

It's said that by switching from Moorestown's 45nm process to 32nm, as well as by integrating added functionality, Medfield will take up half the board space — making it more suitable for smartphones and other compact devices. Featuring a further (unspecified) reduction in power, Medfield will reportedly also have twice the graphics performance of Moorestown, which was already claimed to double that of Menlow.

New "Sandy Bridge" processors

Details of Intel's forthcoming "Sandy Bridge" desktop processors have also leaked onto the Internet, where they've been widely quoted (and misquoted) by tech websites.

Intel first tipped the Sandy Bridge CPUs in July, promising that it would provide further information at its Intel Developer Forum (IDF) next month in San Francisco. Due in early 2011, the revised Core processors will offer greater performance, better power conservation, and enhanced graphics capabilities, according to the chipmaker.

Last week, a list of Sandy Bridge CPUs appeared on several websites, most of which attributed it to a site called MacBidoullie. As far as we can determine, the information actually originated from the German website ComputerBase, which later updated its list thanks to information from a Taiwanese site known as EXPReview.

Whatever its actual provenance, the list (below) appears to be credible, and shows Intel adding a digit to the names of its 2011 Core processors — along with marginally higher clock speeds. As with the 2010 crop of Cores, TDPs range from 35 to 95 Watts. Graphics performance should be significantly better, however, since the integrated GPUs (graphics processing units) now benefit from the same TurboBoost mode as the CPUs.

Model	Cores/threads	Clock speed/Turbo Boost	L3 Cache	Graphics speed/Turbo	TDP
Core i7-2600K	4 / 8	3.4 / 3.8GHz	8MB	850 / 1.350MHz	95 W
Core i7-2600	4 / 8	3.4 / 3.8GHz	8MB	850 / 1.350MHz	95 W
Core i7-2600S	4 / 8	2.8 / 3.8GHz	8MB	850 / 1.100MHz	65 W
Core i5-2500K	4 / 4	3.3 / 3.7GHz	6MB	850 / 1.100MHz	95 W
Core i5-2500	4 / 4	3.3 / 3.7GHz	6MB	850 / 1.100MHz	95 W
Core i5-2500S	4 / 4	2.7 / 3.7GHz	6MB	850 / 1.100MHz	65 W
Core i5-2500T	4 / 4	2.3 / 3.3GHz	6MB	650 / 1.250MHz	45 W
Core i5-2400	4 / 4	3.1 / 3.4GHz	6MB	850 / 1.100MHz	95 W
Core i5-2400S	4 / 4	2.5 / 3.3GHz	6MB	850 / 1.100MHz	65 W
Core i5-2390T	2 / 4	2.7 / 3.5GHz	3MB	650 / 1.100MHz	35 W
Core i3-2120	2 / 4	3.3 / – GHz	3MB	850 / 1.100MHz	65 W
Core i3-2100	2 / 4	3.1 / – GHz	3MB	850 / 1.100MHz	65 W
Core i3-2100T	2 / 4	2.5 / – GHz	3MB	650 / 1.100MHz	35 W

Intel's upcoming "Sandy Bridge" desktop CPUs
Source: ComputerBase

Further information

Agam Shah's IDG News Service item on the Medfield leak may be found here.

The ComputerBase and EXPReview items listing Intel's forthcoming Sandy Bridge processors for desktops may be found here and here, respectively. ComputerBase also lists six mobile Sandy Bridge offerings, with TDPs ranging from 35 to 55 Watts.

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