Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Windows 8 tablets to go quad-core? Intel talks next chip


HP Envy x2 tablet with keyboard dock. Will it get a quad-core 'Bay Trail' chip? Chance are pretty good it will.


(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

Intel discussed the next-generation "Bay Trail" tablet processor today at its annual conference in Beijing. Expect to see a new crop of faster yet still power-efficient Windows 8 -- and likely Windows 8.1 -- tablets later this year.


An "entirely new Atom microarchitecture...will [enable] the most powerful Atom processor to-date, doubling the computing performance of Intel's current-generation tablet offering," Tan Weng Kuan, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Communications Group, Intel China, said today at IDF Beijing.


Bay Trail will allow designs "as thin as 8mm (0.3 inches) that have all-day battery life and weeks of standby," Tan said.


Maybe most importantly, Bay Trail will pack four redesigned Atom processor cores that get closer to mainstream Intel processors in performance. Some of that extra horsepower comes courtesy of an out of order design (like current Core processors) and Intel HD 4000 graphics.


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