VR-Zone

Both AMD and Intel have delayed their respective new Netbook platforms - Intel's Pinetrail and AMD's Congo.

Fudzilla reports that Intel Atom N450 - based on the Pineview CPU part of the Pinetrail platform is all set to release on 3rd January 2010. The N450 is clocked at 1.66 GHz, just 60 MHz higher than the model it replaces - the popular N270 - though it is reported to feature a higher FSB. This is also the same specification as the N280. It ends up priced $20 higher, but one advantage offered by the Pinetrail platform is that both core logic chipset (including an ancient G31 based integrated graphics core) and the CPU are part of the N450 die. A faster version, the N470 is also expected, clocking in at 1.83 GHz.

The N400 CPUs and the Pinetrail platform was initially expected to release in October. Rumours suggest it is manufactured on the same 45nm process as the N200 CPUs. Clearly, Intel have made a very small allocation of their R&D budget to Atom based netbook platforms.

On the AMD side of things things are looking more promising - Congo is arriving late-October or early-November, according to INPAI. Congo is based around the M780 chipset and single/dual core CPUs. Congo looks promising as it has two advantages over Intel - a dual core CPU and superior integrated graphics (reportedly based on Mobility Radeon HD 3200 series). We can expect the AMD platform to consume more power, and thus lower battery life, however. Even so, as we have seen with the current single core Athlon Neo, the trade-off is worth it for the much improved performance. We can expect the dual core Congo CPU - either branded Turion Neo X2 or Athlon Neo X2 to further increase the performance lead over Intel Atom, which is unlikely to see any major gains with the N450. If priced competitively, we can expect to see more netbooks with AMD Neo CPUs.

AMD's new Tigris platform for mainstream notebooks is also expected to release around the same time as Congo.

Reference: Fudzilla, INPAI