Intel Pineview Atom based Motherboards
Complete Overview

low cost meets low power consumption and small form factor      

    The market for low power draw (below 20 Watts), passively cooled, small form factor motherboards was until recently dominated by rather expensive VIA boards and to a smaller extent AMD (with the Geode). Even last years' first generation Intel Atom cpu did not fit into this category, as first generation Intel Atom motherboards (with the commonly used power-hungry Intel 945GC chipset or even with the Nvidia ION) typically consumed 20-35 Watts and therefore usually needed a fan on the chipset (see our detailed TDP comparison).

The new Intel 'Pineview' Atom cpu combined with the new Intel NM10 Express (formerly Tiger Point) single-chip-chipset on the other hand, makes Atom based motherboards that only draw 10-20 Watts a reality, which means they can be passively cooled and used for purposes where they need to be running 24/7, while minimizing the impact on the electricity bill.

Apart from industrial uses, these new Intel 'Pineview' Atom motherboards are ideal in combination with Linux to make small, low power consumption, 24/7 home mail or web servers, BT-clients, file servers (see our example build), home surveillance appliances, routers, firewalls or even small PCs for web browsing and email.

So far Intel has released ten 'Pineview' Atom chips, all are 64-bit capable and incorporate an Intel GMA 3150 graphics processor (GPU):

Model	Cores	Threads	Cache	Speed	RAM type	EIST	CPU TDP	Total TDP
Atom N450	1	2	512 KB	1.66 GHz	DDR2	yes	5.5 Watts	7 Watts
Atom N455	1	2	512 KB	1.66 GHz	DDR2 / DDR3	yes	5.5 Watts	7 Watts
Atom N470	1	2	512 KB	1.83 GHz	DDR2	yes	6.5 Watts	8 Watts
Atom N475	1	2	512 KB	1.83 GHz	DDR2 / DDR3	yes	6.5 Watts	8 Watts
Atom N550	2	4	1 MB	1.5 GHz	DDR3	yes	8.5 Watts	10 Watts
Atom N570	2	4	1 MB	1.66 GHz	DDR3	yes	8.5 Watts	10 Watts
Atom D410	1	2	512 KB	1.66 GHz	DDR2	no	10 Watts	12 Watts
Atom D425	1	2	512 KB	1.80 GHz	DDR2 / DDR3	no	10 Watts	12 Watts
Atom D510	2	4	1 MB	1.66 GHz	DDR2	no	13 Watts	15 Watts
Atom D525	2	4	1 MB	1.80 GHz	DDR2 / DDR3	no	13 Watts	15 Watts

Total TDP is the TDP (thermal design power) of the Intel Atom cpu and the Intel NM10 Express southbridge (the single-chip-chipset of the Intel Pine Trail platform) combined.

EIST stands for 'Enhanched Intel Speedstep Technology', a technique that adapts the clock speed to the cpu load to reduce power consumption. Only the N-series (netbook) Atom cpus have EIST.

The N-series Atom cpus (N450, N455, N470, N475, N550 and N570) are targeted at netbooks (but there are some motherboards using them anyway), while the D-series Atom cpus (D410, D425, D510 and D525) are meant to be used on mini-ITX motherboards or in nettops or other mini PCs.

The newer N455, N475, D425 and D525 Intel Atoms support both DDR2 and DDR3 RAM, enabling PC manufacturers to choose which RAM technology to support on their mainboards, while the newest Atoms (N550 and N570) only support DDR3 reflecting the fact that DDR2 memory is being phased out.