X101CH: the Atom Cedar Trail in an Asus netbook

While the Atom Cedar Trail are not expected before next February, Asus have already in its cartons such processor netbook model:Eee PC X101CH. Embarking a processor Atom 1.6 GHz dual-core, engraved in 32 nm, quick N2600 and supporting Hyper-Threading, this netbook would be equipped with a 10.1 inch screen capable of displaying a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels.

It would also be 1 GB of RAM, HDD 320 GB, WiFi 802 .11n ready controller, a webcam and Bluetooth 3.0 controller. The graphic part would be entrusted to the PowerVR SGX545 chipset integrated to the Atom, the latter being able to decode Full HD MPEG2, VC1, AVC and H.264 video streams. The 4-cell battery would ensure its autonomy of 5 hours.

Delivered with Windows 7 Starter, EEA PC X101CH would be finally displayed at a rate of about 250 euros. It is in any case an equivalent tariff (213,74 £) he appeared in an English reseller. However, the availability date is inconnue…

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The new Atom Cedar Trail delayed by DirectX?

The PowerVR circuit chosen by Intel for its new Atom platform would pose it serious problems to pilots because the DirectX 10.1 support.

It is not the Cedar Trail platform, expected to boost the interest of the Atom processors which will be engraved in 32 nm and embarqueront a PowerVR graphics circuit. What, for Intel, try to come back in the race to the APU Brazos of rival AMD. On the graphic part, Intel has decided to separate his old - and very few performance - GMA 3150 for the benefit of a PowerVR SGX545 circuit. The latter found in certain ARM tablets, is compatible DirectX 10.1. But problem, if according to the information obtained by Digitimes, this compatibility is not optimal and currently pose real problems at Intel who have choice to delay the release of its new platform.

Indeed, the graphics drivers fail to be validated by Microsoft with respect to the Windows 7 operating system, which is more than a hassle. It is not impossible to see Intel move out of Cedar Trail in November. Not to mention the concessions that the caster is going to do, since there is talk of a limitation of the pilots the 32-bit for the launch, and restricted to DirectX 9 compatibility. Necessarily, it's chaos and if this is really the case, Cedar Trail could lose part of its interest, especially among the manufacturers of netbooks which will no doubt appreciate such restrictions. 64-Bit compatible DirectX 10.1 drivers could arrive to many weeks later. Follow.

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