The N280 + GN40 is nothing more than an “off roadmap” offering from Intel. It is probably been put in place to offset some of the damage being done by nVidia’s ION platform.
It is understood that, Intel plans to launch in late February a new Atom N280 processor, still using 45-nanometer Diamondville core, but the core clock up to 1.66GHz, the front-end convergence Pai was also upgraded to 667MHz, the same built-in 512KB L2 Cache, Support Hyper-Threading technology, capable of supporting two treatment Threading.
In addition, Intel has also introduced a new chipset GN40 match this Atom N280 processor, GN40-based Intel GM4x IGP chipset design, built-in GMA 4000 graphics core, Intel positioned to match this “Enhanced Media Netbook”, in the performance Intel 945GSE than would have greatly improved to meet the 7 ~ 10-inch display and 800 x 400 ~ 1024 x 600 resolution of the needs of 3D gaming and, more importantly, to support the HD high-definition decoding, supporting H.264, VC-1 and MPEG 2 encoding, but the maximum support 720p or 1080p, has yet to be announced.
The Atom N280 is simply nothing more than a speed bump over the N270, although with a faster bus speed. The next generation Atom processor will be the Pineview which should launch later this year, our guess is at Computex in early June. The N280 can either be paired up with the old 945GSE chipset in what Intel calls an off-roadmap solution to gives its partners a differentiating factor and a small performance bump. However, the N280 can also be paired up with the GN40 chipset for a second off-roadmap solution which Intel calls Enhanced Media Netbooks and accordingly, this solution gives the Atom platform HD video playback capability. Interestingly we had one of our readers contacting us a while back saying that the GN40 chipset is simply a re-badged GL40 chipset which is a cost down version of the mobile GM45 chipset without support for an external graphics solution.
According to Intel the latest Netbook Specifications, Intel Atom N270, Intel Atom N280 processor match 945GSE, will be in the fourth quarter of 2009 was the next generation Atom processor Pineview match Tiger point to replace the South Bridge, but the combination of Intel Atom N280 processor will be extended to GN40 the first half of 2010.
The battery life trade-off will be worth it despite the fact that the GN40 chipset offers support for VC-1 and H.264 video decoding at 720p and 1080p as well as improved graphics performance. For those wanting these features as well as a low power solution will have to wait for the Pine Trail-M platform to launch, as the Pineview CPU paired up with the Tigerpoint chipset is meant to have a TDP of 1W less than the current Atom platform at a total TDP of 7W.
