Intel Atom N470 offers higher clock speed

Intel has just officially announced the newest addition to its Intel Atom Pinetrail family: the Atom N470. If you’re wondering what the N470 offers over its other Atom counterparts, well, it actually can provide a higher clock speed of 1.83GHz, with 512k of L2 cache. I know it’s really not much, but for netbooks that are powered just enough for our daily needs with very little processor power to spare, that little bit of extra clock speed is very much appreciated.

All in, it’s the exact same chip as the N450 Pinetrail Atom, with an Integrated graphics chip, and the only significant difference (if you can call it that) is the faster clock. This will surely benefit in some applications, although it could possibly result in a higher power draw as well. Now that’s a major draw for some people already used to an 8-hour battery life with some Asus Eee PC models, but if you ask me, I don’t mind losing a bit of battery life, to be honest.

What about you guys? Do you think the higher clock speed is worth sacrificing a bit of the battery life?

[via]

Written by Ade Magnaye on March 2nd, 2010. 2 Comments »
Filed under Hardware.

Ryan Bancroft Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:37 am

Hey there!

This is my first time here. Since I just picked up an Eee PC Seashell 1005HA, I’ve become more interested in exploring Asus products, particularly those with environmental certification (this model’s EPEAT Gold). That’s kinda how I found myself here.

Personally, if the computer does what I need it to do, and this one has been doing fine with its 1.66 GHz atom (which apparently has a clock speed of closer to 1.1 GHz), I’d much prefer extra battery life. Anything that uses less energy tends to get my vote. I guess it depends on how much I lost for extra functionality, though; if it was only about 15 minutes or so, I might select that. If it’s a matter of hours, I wouldn’t call it worthwhile.

~Ryan