A posteriori what is your take on Intel killing the atom CPU ine

Was killing the Atom line a mistake?

  • Yes, definitively

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • Yes

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • Can't decide

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hell no

    Votes: 4 50.0%

  • Total voters
    8

liolio

Aquoiboniste
Legend
It is all in the title, personally I think it was a big mistake, I may dare to say massive.
Even sold in the grey it was creating volume for Intel fabs, incentive for power efficient GPU and also other accelerators development.
To think it was killed before the last of the Larrabee's heir wows me actually. I've also regrets when I look a product like the Nintendo switch and wonder about what would be a lowered end though portable take on Pc gaming (among other concerns).
 
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Their lower-power core development didn't halt. SoCs with the Goldmont Plus lineup have just recently been unveiled.

What they ceased to develop were the Atom X branding, with SoCs at 4W and below. Probably because they were selling with margins too low for their taste just to counter ARM offerings and the only interesting product they ever got out of it was the Surface 3.
 
Yes, only the low end Atom brand wad killed off. The CPU architecture still exists and Intel are still developing them.

The architecture went into the Atom (ultra low end), Celeron (low end), and Pentium (upper low end) brands. There was no profit potential there for them to compete with low end ARM CPUs with the Atom. That market is dominated by a race to the bottom with extremely slim margins for the CPU makers. So that was cut and focus put on Celeron and Pentium class devices. There are a lot of those devices.

Regards,
SB
 
Their lower-power core development didn't halt. SoCs with the Goldmont Plus lineup have just recently been unveiled.

What they ceased to develop were the Atom X branding, with SoCs at 4W and below. Probably because they were selling with margins too low for their taste just to counter ARM offerings and the only interesting product they ever got out of it was the Surface 3.
Really, I have not read of significant architectural changes in years and it seems I missread some of their announcements.
 
Goldmont+, in Apollo Lake, is 30% faster than the previous generation on Geekbench. That's significant.

And Goldmont is 30% faster than Silvermont.

It's 2/3rds speed of a Cortex A73 at twice the power.

They are still quite a bit behind, but not that behind. Goldmont Plus performs about the level of Snapdragon 835.

What they ceased to develop were the Atom X branding, with SoCs at 4W and below.

Yes, Atom name is still used in embedded, their cable modem lines, and server. I guess the mobile one was the most noticeable by everyone though.
 

Again, they are behind, but not as far behind as you say: "2/3rd A73"

If you look at Goldmont-based "Apollo Lake" Pentium N4200 and Atom T5700 numbers, the top numbers belong to Android. They might be able to get into the 2100-2200 range.

Also looking at TDPs, the Silvermont-based Braswell platforms had TDP and SDP equivalent to Apollo Lake ones. Despite that, Silvermont was also available in CPUs like Atom X7 that reached 2W SDPs and went into Smartphones. It's not entirely unlikely if they decided to re-enter it, we could see TDP and SDP rating that can fit into phones. It's not worth it looking at the performance, because they will be behind.
 
Also looking at TDPs, the Silvermont-based Braswell platforms had TDP and SDP equivalent to Apollo Lake ones. Despite that, Silvermont was also available in CPUs like Atom X7 that reached 2W SDPs and went into Smartphones.
Are you sure Silvermont ever made it into a smartphone?
 
if anyone is wondering what changes Goldmont Plus actually made:

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Source 1
Source 2

Goldmont Plus detailed, large improvements, setting the stage for a 32-core model - WikiChip
 
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