Intel plans to launch its next-generation Core processors later this year, and they’re not just for notebooks and desktops. The company unveiled a new reference design for a super-thin, fanless tablet during a keynote at the Computex Trade show.
The reference design features a 14nm “Broadwell” processors which Intel says represents a new category it calls Intel Core M. It’ll be the most energy-efficient member of the Intel Core processor family when it hits the streets, and it allows for thin and light devices with passive cooling.
Intel’s tablet design features a 12.5 inch display, measures 0.28 inches thick, and weighs less than 1.5 pounds.
It’s also a 2-in-1 device, which means that you can attach the tablet to a keyboard dock to use it as a laptop. That’ll make it a bit thicker and heavier though. Intel says there’s also a “media dock” which boosts performance and adds cooling.
Intel says the Core M chip is just the first of the company’s new Broadwell-based designs made specifically for the growing 2-in-1 PC market.
Here’s a picture of the media dock (and some Broadwell boasts) from Engadget and the keyboard dock, from UMPC Portal.
So for the dock they basically just took a page out of AMD’s book (though there’s a good chance their dock reference design will make it to market.
Now, as this is a Core M device, which is a new designation, it remains unclear to me what they mean by 10%~40& better performance. Compared to what? The atoms used in the same form factors? Or Core chips at the same clock speed? It’s ambiguous at best I must say.
It’s interesting that they have a dock which boosts cooling/performance. So basically they are saying that this new best-of-class chip in terms of energy efficiency can be used in super thin devices with passive cooling – but it will be thermally bound and throttled to do so.
still potentially very impressive that they can get a core based part into such a package. Will be very curious to see how it compares with other platforms in such cases.