Intel’s Atom chips are designed first and foremost to offer low power consumption. Generally that’s meant that they haven’t been high performance chips when it comes to tasks that require more processing or graphics power. But Intel’s Tunnel Creek platform for embedded systems actually has some pretty impressive graphics chops. The folks at Habey have put together a tiny new…

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AMD has been shedding its reputation as a company that makes powerful, but power-hungry chips. The 9 Watt AMD C-50 dual core processor can go head-to-head with Intel’s latest Atom chips for netbooks in terms of performance and power consumption, while the AMD E-350 chip uses just 18W, or less than half the power of a typical notebook chip. But…

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Chip maker VIA has unveiled a new version of its Nano X2 processor called the VIA Nano X2 E-Series. It’s a dual core 64-bit chip designed for embedded systems. In other words, you probably won’t find the E-Series in a netbook or tablet anytime soon, but it could be used in televisions, set-top-boxes, point-of-sales systems (ie: fancy cash registers),  or…

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Toradex has introduced a tiny computer with an embedded Intel Atom E6xx chip called the xiilum. It’s based on the company’s latest Topaz.  The aluminum die-cast housing is just 6 x 8.9 x 1.6 cm. x86 single board computer (SBC) featuring the Atom chip and Intel EG20T chipset. Toradex says the xilium is the world’s smallest Atom E6xx PC. The…

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AMD’s new low power Ontario and Zacate chips have been getting a lot of attention recently. These are the first chips for consumer laptop and desktop computers from AMD to combine the CPU and GPU onto a single chip. The company’s codenamed for the platform is Fusion, and AMD calls the new type of chip an APU, or accelerated processor…

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VIA is marketing its new ART-3000 mini-PC as an embedded solution for industrial and commercial purposes. But you know what? This little guy has enough oomph to function halfway decently as a low power, small form factor desktop. Or as SlashGear points out, you could use it as the basis for a carputer, thanks to the rugged, fanless case design…

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