Mobile processors at IDF 2008

Darius Chang | Aug 21, 2008

With laptops crossing the 50 percent penetration rate in many developed nations, it would be remiss if Intel didn't address this market during IDF 2008 in San Francisco. Thankfully, the Santa Clara company announced a couple of new chips for the mobile warrior.

First, good news for those demanding portability above all else. Though the Atom processor made an important milestone in the UMPC sector, the upcoming Moorestown chip will be a flying leap forward. It integrates both computing and graphics cores on a single silicon while also featuring an integrated memory controller. By putting these components closer together on a single die, there is less "distance" for data to travel and hence performance, as well as power requirements and heat, will theorectically be improved.

Slated for a 2009/2010 appearance, the audience at IDF 2008 were given a view of a wafer holding the Moorestown-based Lincroft processor by Anand Chandrasekher, general manager for Intel's Ultra Mobility Group. This is an important first step to achieving full production, though there was no mention if this meant that the timeline for this new processor has been shortened.

More details were also given for new low-powered Core 2 Duo chips and the first quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor. They will first appear in the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 and HP EliteBook 2530p, though there are rumors that the MacBook Air may also join the queue.

Model	Clockspeed (GHz)	Cores	L2 cache (MB)	Thermal envelope (watts)	Price
QX9300	2.53	4	12	35	US$1,038
SL9400	1.86	2	6	17	US$316
SL9300	1.6	2	6	17	US$284
SU9400	1.4	2	3	10	US$289
SU9300	1.2	2	3	10	US$262

At the same time, the Celeron range has been refreshed with two models: The US$107 Celeron 585 running at 2.66GHz and the US$86 Celeron 575 with a clockspeed of 2.0GHz.

Filed under: Notebooks
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