Intel said to be cooking up DDR3-lovin' Atom N475 and Atom N455 CPUs
By Darren Murph 
posted February 2nd 2010 11:55AM
posted February 2nd 2010 11:55AM
We've maintained that Intel's range of Atom chips were simply too weak to really love and adore the way a slab of silicon should be, but that's probably because of our infatuation with things like "overclocking" and "Core i7 Extremes." Whatever the case, it's beginning to look a wee bit better for the lineup, as Fudzilla has it that the company will be adding DDR3 memory support to the 1.83GHz N475 and 1.6GHz N455. Both of those chips are expected to maintain their current TDP ratings, and both are expected to launch in Q3 of this year. Nah, DDR3 compatibility won't make your next netbook scream or anything, but when we're talking Atoms, we'll take all the baby steps we can get.
Intel should focus on the battery power for the Atom line, how come these ARM based chip have something like 10x better battery life. maybe the should start building atom CPU to full System On Chip (SOC) solution for cheap power efficient netbooks.
Intel did not re-design the Atom for the "Pinetrail" series. They simply took the DDR2 controller and graphics that were off-chip and put them on the same die. The Atom still has a latency-adding FSB running across the single chip!
For the in-order design of Atom (that can't fill its idle time with other work) latency is killing performance. The FSB is also taking up power while serving no needed role.
I think that when Intel gets this DDR3 memory controller on-chip, it will not be using the FSB. This will save power and increase performance by reducing latency. Do not expect much performance increase, due to the market notch that Intel is trying to keep safe and high-profit (full-price notebooks).