Ok, back to my wild Atom speculation.
Of interest is the 32nm Intel Atom N2800, 2 in-order cores at 1.86GHz with HTT and 1MB L2 is
6.5W. This is with a 640MHz GPU; the 2600 model at 1.6GHz and 400MHz GPU is 3.5W. So we have to move this to 22nm with Tri-Gate. I didn't quickly find but
Pineview, a dual core on 45nm with a GPU, was 87mm^2.
So what we know is that 2 current Atom cores on 22nm are going to be small and depending on the memory architecture (both local as well as system memory) could be under 5W for 2 cores. Lets spec out the top end.
Core i7 Ivy Bridge ULV are 22nm/Tri-Gate with 2 cores at 2GHz with 2x256MB L2 and 4MB L3, HTT and AVX and an HD Graphics 4000 has a TDP 17W.
Core i7 Ivy Bridge Quad Cores have a number of variants. Low power models are 35W (2.1GHz), most are 45W (up to 2.7GHz), and the high end are 55W (up to 2.9GHz). All are 4x256MB L2 and 6MB L3 except the 2.7/2.9 models with 8MB. Again these are 22nm Trigate with AVX, HTT, and 4000 HD Graphics. These run at a die size of 160mm^2.
To summarize: Core i7's designed with lower TDP are clocking in at 9W a core (including their "share" of of the GPU) and that is on 22nm with AVX and HTT. Atoms on 32nm w/o AVX and in-order are clocking about 3W a core with GPU -- or down to under 2W for the 1.6GHz model on 32nm.
It would be fair to say that an Atom that adds AVX and OOOe (but not as robust as the i-series), drops the GPU, and moves to 22nm Trigate will fall somewhere in between--let's say 4-5W depending on how much cache and how much/wide the memory controller is.
These cores will obviously be small, but it is not unreasonable to predict an 8 core next gen OOOe Atom with HyperThreading Technology, AVX on 22nm with Tri-gate that sucks 30-40W (much like their ULV i7s) and with a die area under 100mm^2.
That would be a fairly solid CPU, with some nice up side with AVX, and importantly leave a lot of resources for a 130-150W GPU (Pitcairn, 212mm^2)--all the while having the CPU resources to justify such and a design that could use 4-8GB of memory.
Wow, we are in sad times if ATOM processors are in our pipe dreams
EDIT: All this to say that a relatively robust and low power design, be it from Intel or from AMD or IBM is possible. There is no reason that due to TDP & Cost that a next gen console MUST be a wimpy low-end 4 core design. That is a design choice, not a design necessity.
