Since day one, Intel’s Atom chips have come in two flavors: desktop and mobile. While the desktop chips have come in dual core and single core versions, the Atom chips designed for netbooks and other portable devices have traditionally been single core only. But it looks like that could soon change.

PC Inpact reports that Intel may be working on a dual core Atom chip for netbooks. It will reportedly be called something like the Atom N500, which makes sense, since the latest dual core chip for desktops is called the Atom D510 — and most of the company’s netbook-specific chips have started with the letter N, such as the Atom N270, N280, N450, and N470.

Up until now, any PC maker that wanted to build a laptop with a dual core Atom processor had to use a desktop chip such as the Atom 330 dual core CPU found in the Asus Eee PC 1201N. But those chips tend to draw more power and generate more heat than chips designed forВ  netbooks.

Bear in mind, even with two cores, an Atom chip is an Atom chip. They’re designed as low cost, low power alternatives to beefier processors. As such, I’d expect the Atom N500 to be a little faster than a single core Atom processor and better at multitasking and other tasks which can benefit from multiple cores. But don’t expect miracles.

There’s no word on how much the Atom N500 would cost or when it would be released. And right now, this is just a rumor, although PC Inpact reports that the information comes from companies that work with Intel.

via Blogeee

As expected, Intel has officially introduced a slightly faster version of its Intel Atom Pine Trail chipset. While the Atom N450 clocks in at 1.66GHz, the new Atom N470 processor has a clock speed of .83GHz. It has 512k of L2 cache and supports DDR2 667 memory. Like the Atom N450, the new platform combines graphics and memory functions onto a single chip.

What’s interesting is that some netbooks on display at CeBIT this week are apparently using even newer chips such as Atom N455 and N475 processors. What’s the difference? As far as I can tell, these chips will be compatible with DDR3 memory. But I wouldn’t expect any speed boost.

Engadget’s Joanna Stern is in the process of reviewing a Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t with an Atom N470 processor. And she reports that it doesn’t feel noticeably faster than a netbook with an Atom N450 processor in day to day performance, and it didn’t score significantly higher in benchmarks. But if you’re of the opinion that every .16GHz counts, it sounds like most major netbook makers will beВ  launching products based on the new chipset very soon.

Word on the street is that Intel will officially introduce the Atom N470 Pine Trail chip on Monday. And when I say Street, I mean that’s what CNET and PC World are reporting, stealing a little bit of Intel’s thunder. Of course, there wasn’t much thunder left in the bag after Lenovo, Gigabyte, and other PC makers started showing off products with the N470 chip, only to later remove those product pages.

The Intel Atom N470 will clock in at 1.83GHz, making it a bit faster than the 1.66GHz Atom N450 chip found in a wide range of recently launched netbooks. Like the N450, the Atom N470 platform will combine the CPU and graphics controller on a single chip. It’s a single core processor, but it supports hyperthreading.

While the Atom N470 will offer a slight performance boost over the Atom N450 chip, I imagine it will also draw a little more power, which could take a toll on battery life. But the Pine Trail netbooks I’ve played with so far tend to get stellar battery life of anywhere from 6 to 11 hours of run time. So a little bit of extra power drain probably won’t be the end of the world.

PC World suggests that Atom N470-based netbooks could begin shipping as early as next week.

Credit: Laptop Magazine

While Intel is without question the dominant chip-maker in the netbook space thanks to its low power Atom chips, the company has a little more competition in the budget thin and light laptop space. Basically these are laptops with 11 to 14 inch displays. They tend to weigh less than 4 pounds, and companies including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and toshiba all offer models which fall into this category, many with starting prices around $500 or less.

While Intel’s CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) line of processors are pretty popular in this space, AMD also offers a line of budget, low power Neo chips.

It’s typically hard to do an apples to apples comparison of a laptop by pitting a laptop with an AMD CPU against one with an Intel chipset… because other hardware tends to vary from system to system. So, for example, it’s hardly fair to compare a Lenovo X100e with an AMD Neo processor to an Asus UL20A with an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU because the machines have completely different hardware.

But Toshiba offers two versions of the 13 inchВ  Satellite T135 — one with an AMD chipset and the other with Intel hardware. A far as I can tell, most of the other specs are pretty similar. And that’s why Laptop Magazine’s comparison of the Toshiba Satellite T135 and the T135D was so interesting. The T135 has a 1.3GHz Pentium SU4100 dual core CPU and GMA 4500MHD graphics while the T135D has an AMD Neo X2 L625 dual core processor and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics.

You can find a detailed explanation of the differences between these two systems at Laptop Magazine. But here’s the short version: The Intel version gets about 2 hours of extra battery life, while the AMD version scores higher in graphics tests and in some CPU tests. For day to day use, both laptops are powerful enough for web surfing, watching HD video, or casual gaming. But if you plan to do video editing or other CPU-intensive tasks, the AMD version might be a better bet. If you want all-day computing, the Intel model appears to have the edge.

Of course, this test really only applies to these particular computer models. Intel has other versions of its CULV processors, and AMD has other versions of its low power Neo chips. And they may interact differently with different hardware. But as a general rule, Laptop’s results seem to bear out things I’ve read elsewhere which indicate that AMD’s strength is performance while Intel’s is energy consumption.

It looks like Intel’s new Pine Trail processors will be getting an update in the third quarter of 2010. But don’t expect a major change in speed, power consumption, or overall performance. The only real difference is that the new chips will support DDR3 RAM while the current Intel Atom N450 and N470 chips can only handle DDR2 RAM.

Fudzilla reports that the new processors will bear the N455 and N475 names. Since they’re due out in the second half of the year, it’s reasonable to assume we may see a number of new netbook models released in the third quarter. But I was kind of expecting that anyway.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about support for DDR3 chips. Fudzilla had a similar report in December. But at the time there was no mention of a launch date.

While the Intel Atom line of chips may reign supreme in the netbook space, I’ve become a pretty big fan of Intel’s CULV chipset over the last few months. These low power chips show up in thin and light computers including a number I’ve recently reviewed such as the Asus UL20A, Dell Inspiron 11z, and Acer Aspire 1410. While they cost more and use more power than Atom chips, they also provide significantly better performance and tend to come with higher performance graphics as well.

So far, most of Intel’s CULV-based chips have been based on older chipsets such as the Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, and Celeron lines. But CNET reports that Intel will start pumping out ULV chips based on the new Core i mobile processors early in February.

These chips, including the Core i5-520UM and Core i7-640UM use less energy than their more powerful siblings. While the 18 watt total power draw looks significantly higher than 10 watt TDP on older CULV chips like the Core 2 Duo SU7300, the key difference is that the Core i-based chips incorporate graphics functions, so the TDP combines CPU and GPU functions. In other words, the new chips shouldn’t actually take much more of a toll on battery life than existing CULV options. I suspect they’ll still be a bit pricier at launch though.