Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, Thresher

 
biffzinker
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1998
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: AK, USA

New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Cores

Sat Apr 16, 2016 1:06 pm

Anandtech wrote:
This week, at IDF Shenzhen, Intel has formally introduced its Apollo Lake platform for the next generation of Atom-based notebook SoCs. The platform will feature a new x86 microarchitecture as well as a new-generation graphics core for increased performance. Intel’s Apollo Lake is aimed at affordable all-in-ones, miniature PCs, hybrid devices, notebooks and tablet PCs in the second half of this year.

The Apollo Lake system-on-chips for PCs are based on the new Atom-based x86 microarchitecture, named Goldmont, as well as a new graphics core that features Intel’s ninth-generation architecture (Gen9) which is currently used in Skylake processors. Intel claims that due to microarchitectural enhancements the new SoCs will be faster in general-purpose tasks, but at this stage Intel has not quantified the improvements. The new graphics core is listed as being more powerful (most likely due to both better architecture and a higher count of execution units), but will also integrate more codecs, enabling hardware-accelerated playback of 4K video from hardware decoding of HEVC and VP9 codecs. The SoCs will support dual-channel DDR4, DDR3L and LPDDR3/4 memory, which will help PC makers to choose DRAM based on performance and costs. As for storage, the Apollo Lake will support traditional SATA drives, PCIe x4 drives and eMMC 5.0 options to appeal to all types of form-factors. When it comes to I/O, Intel proposes to use USB Type-C along with wireless technologies with Apollo Lake-powered systems.

PCs based on Intel’s Apollo Lake platforms will emerge in the second half of the year and will carry Celeron and Pentium-branded processors. At present, entry-level notebooks (which Intel calls Cloudbooks) offer 2 GB of memory, 32 GB of storage, 8+ hours of battery life and ~18mm thick designs. With Apollo Lake, OEMs should be able to increase the amount of RAM and/or storage capacity, make systems generally thinner, but maintain their $169 - $269 price-points. Intel also believes that its Apollo Lake presents great opportunities to build 2-in-1 hybrid PCs (convertibles) and capitalize on higher margins of such systems.


More reading at the source link.

Source: Anandtech
It would take you 2,363 continuous hours or 98 days,11 hours, and 35 minutes of gameplay to complete your Steam library.
In this time you could travel to Venus one time.
 
biffzinker
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1998
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: AK, USA

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 2:27 pm

What's wrong with you guys? Your not enthusiastic about more Netbooks aka Cloudbooks? I'm surprised Intel insists on still pushing Netbooks since they have always seemed to be lacking performance or poor value.
It would take you 2,363 continuous hours or 98 days,11 hours, and 35 minutes of gameplay to complete your Steam library.
In this time you could travel to Venus one time.
 
Deadsalt
Gerbil
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2010 2:24 pm
Location: I'm on a boat!

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 2:42 pm

Honestly I am interested about Cloudbooks. I don't need a massive amount of compute power when I am on the go, but it would be nice to have a keyboard. My only issue is that I am not sure Windows can run well with such constrained resources.
 
zzz
Gerbil
Posts: 69
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:19 pm

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 3:13 pm

biffzinker wrote:
What's wrong with you guys? Your not enthusiastic about more Netbooks aka Cloudbooks? I'm surprised Intel insists on still pushing Netbooks since they have always seemed to be lacking performance or poor value.
I got your sarcasm, I'm in the same boat

I'm really not interested in this. This is tech aimed at schools or thirdworld countries or people losing their mind about power consumption. I'm not a school, or live in a third world country and while running this vs something useful to me could save single-digit dollars per year in power consumption; I'm going to go with something better than this.
 
The Egg
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2938
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:46 pm

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 3:32 pm

Netbooks are great for cash-strapped students who just want to take notes with a real keyboard and do light computing tasks while having good battery life. They're also much more capable than the netbooks of yesteryear. I don't see why anyone would be against them, so long as they're not marketed as something they are not.
 
whm1974
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6361
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:29 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:26 pm

biffzinker wrote:
What's wrong with you guys? Your not enthusiastic about more Netbooks aka Cloudbooks? I'm surprised Intel insists on still pushing Netbooks since they have always seemed to be lacking performance or poor value.

I Agree. These things are only useful to those who are cash strapped or for giving to kids.
 
Pancake
Gerbil First Class
Posts: 161
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:04 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:56 pm

zzz wrote:
biffzinker wrote:
What's wrong with you guys? Your not enthusiastic about more Netbooks aka Cloudbooks? I'm surprised Intel insists on still pushing Netbooks since they have always seemed to be lacking performance or poor value.
I got your sarcasm, I'm in the same boat

I'm really not interested in this. This is tech aimed at schools or thirdworld countries or people losing their mind about power consumption. I'm not a school, or live in a third world country and while running this vs something useful to me could save single-digit dollars per year in power consumption; I'm going to go with something better than this.


I am very interested in this. I have lost my mind over power consumption. It is an... illness.
 
DancinJack
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4494
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:21 pm
Location: Kansas

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 7:06 pm

whm1974 wrote:
I Agree. These things are only useful to those who are cash strapped or for giving to kids.


I disagree. Not everyone needs/wants to spend 1K+ on a computer. Not everyone needs every computer they own to do 1K+ of work either.

Seems like a pretty good platform for Chromebooks. I wouldn't mind having an extra Chromebook lying around the house for something, say, in the kitchen or the like. I'm not a huge fan of tablets and this could be a good alternative. And to drive it home, I am in no way cash strapped or a child.
i7 6700K - Z170 - 16GiB DDR4 - GTX 1080 - 512GB SSD - 256GB SSD - 500GB SSD - 3TB HDD- 27" IPS G-sync - Win10 Pro x64 - Ubuntu/Mint x64 :: 2015 13" rMBP Sierra :: Canon EOS 80D/Sony RX100
 
synthtel2
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 956
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2015 10:30 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 9:29 pm

Yeah, I've used netbooks on plenty of occasions just because I didn't need anything more. I even did some development serious enough to get paid for on an old dual Atom / 2GB RAM / SSD netbook, but it was embedded so the dev machine hardware requirements were nearly non-existant, and for that job the portability was a huge plus. Gaming doesn't work too well on laptops that aren't pricey, bulky, or both (though that's starting to change), for most of the non-gaming stuff I do even that dual Atom / 2GB RAM / SSD rig was (and would still be) fine, and I have a desktop for gaming and such, so the value proposition for more performance in a laptop looks really bad for me.

My feeling is that for the average joe who isn't gaming, the only reason processor tech might still be relevant is because of bloatware. A modern Atom will be perfectly fine for the usual web browsing / word processing / movies / whatever, and for that kind of use screens use much more power than processors. Modern cheap laptops kinda fail at basically everything else except thinness, but to fix everything else you have to first pay for what's usually a needlessly fast CPU, because marketing. :roll:
 
biffzinker
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1998
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: AK, USA

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 9:59 pm

I do have a Acer Chromebook C720 (cost $170.00) the 2GB/16GB MSATA SSD config. I flashed the firmware (Coreboot) so it's capable of booting any OS. For being a Celeron with a 15 watt TDP, and based on two fat Haswell Cores clocked at 1.4 Ghz the performance was better than I expected. I should of bought the C720 config with 4GB of DDR3 however, might of gotten me dual channel instead of single which constrains the Intel iGPU performance.
It would take you 2,363 continuous hours or 98 days,11 hours, and 35 minutes of gameplay to complete your Steam library.
In this time you could travel to Venus one time.
 
biffzinker
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1998
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: AK, USA

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 10:13 pm

I forgot one other netbook I had. Google sent me their first chromebook (CR-48) to beta test Chrome OS for free, and mine to keep after the beta was over. The screen the CR-48 came with was 12 inches, and the resolution was 1280x800 pretty high-end screen for a netbook considering default resolution of 1024x600 for most netbooks.
Edit: Here's a link if anyone is interested. Cr-48 Wikispaces
It would take you 2,363 continuous hours or 98 days,11 hours, and 35 minutes of gameplay to complete your Steam library.
In this time you could travel to Venus one time.
 
Flying Fox
Gerbil God
Posts: 25690
Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 2:19 am
Contact:

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sat Apr 16, 2016 11:47 pm

It may be interesting once they bring this to the X3/5/7 stuff to be used in a potential Surface 4.

And to the OP: we do have this thing called a life. Not everyone is stuck at home on a Saturday F5-ing TR forums. :P
The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Gerbils unite! Fold for UnitedGerbilNation, team 2630.
 
LostCat
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2107
Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:18 am
Location: Earth

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 1:04 am

biffzinker wrote:
What's wrong with you guys?

Lots of things are wrong with me, however I don't know what I should think here.

I'd love to grab a new Atom system at some point as my experience with Bay Trail systems and tablets was overall much better than expected.

I don't really have much in the way of a hardware budget right now and I'd like to save up for Zen.
Meow.
 
LostCat
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2107
Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:18 am
Location: Earth

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 1:14 am

My brother might be interested, he's rocking a Bay Trail convertible right now.
Meow.
 
Chrispy_
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4670
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Europe, most frequently London.

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 6:05 am

I'm looking forward to Goldmont.
What Bay Trail (Silvermont/Airmont) can do with just 2W is staggering:

It's good for any reasonable amount of web-browsing, can deal with 1080p video decode, it will Word/Excel/Powerpoint for hours on batteries and it will deal with the vast majority of browser based gaming and 3D web content without even sweating.

It's obviously not a gaming laptop but the 12 Haswell/Broadwell-generation graphics EUs are good for light gaming. Anything that used to run on an Ivy-bridge laptop IGP will run at roughly the same sort of framerate on most Bay Trail devices - That means Minecraft, CS:GO, Dota2, WoW, FIFA/NBA type stuff, TF2, LoL and similar. For what it's worth, those titles alone cover something like 90% of the gaming demographic worldwide.

If you're looking forward to Goldmont as a 2016 AAA gamer with 1080p60 $200+ dGPU expectations, you're doing it wrong;
Goldmont will be for the kids, for your parents, for the other 99% of PC users, and for desktop gamers who don't want to be completely isolated from their games when they pack their ultraportable/tablet into a bag for a weekend away.
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
derFunkenstein
Gerbil God
Posts: 25427
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2003 9:13 pm
Location: Comin' to you directly from the Mothership

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 7:12 am

I'm in the same position as Deadsalt. When I'm on the go, I don't need a ton of performance. Mostly just need to hook up to projectors to run PowerPoint presentations, do some light web work, and check email. A smaller system with a 12" display and a light mass is needed, too. There's no reason to spend even $650 or more on a mainstream Ultrabook for those purposes. I really hope some OEM cranks out a "full-fat" Apollo Lake system that has at least 4GB of memory (2GB is usable but it's borderline) and at least 64GB of storage with an 11-12" display. That's about all I need and I'll order one today.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Twittering away the day at @TVsBen
 
whm1974
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6361
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:29 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 7:20 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
I really hope some OEM cranks out a "full-fat" Apollo Lake system that has at least 4GB of memory (2GB is usable but it's borderline) and at least 64GB of storage with an 11-12" display. That's about all I need and I'll order one today.

That is one of the two issues I have with these types of devices. Not enough memory and storage, and the build quantity isn't that great.
 
DreadCthulhu
Graphmaster Gerbil
Posts: 1022
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2003 12:43 am
Location: R'lyeh

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 7:58 am

I have been eyeing the Chinese tablet market for a bit, and they will certainly take advantage of chips. The Chinese OEMs have been doing some very interesting stuff in the tablet space - they make a lot of tablets that dual boot Windows & Android, and they actually put full-hd or better IPS screens on even some rather cheap tablets. $200 or so will get you a Cherry Trail atom, 4 GB of RAM & 64 GB storage, and a ~10 inch or so screen @ 2048x1538 or 1920x1200 resolution. I just haven't gotten around to picking out which one I want to actually buy.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. The competent use violence well before last resorts are necessary.

If violence isn't solving your problems, then you aren't using enough of it.
 
Mentawl
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 504
Joined: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:21 pm
Location: UK

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 8:24 am

If I could buy one of these systems maybe at the 12"-13" size, decent keyboard and trackpad, 1080p screen, 4gb of RAM and either a 2.5" drive I could replace or failing that an MSATA slot, I'd buy it in an instant. Sadly most seem to be using 32GB integrated storage and 2GB of RAM that can't be upgraded, and neither are quite enough. Annoys me because I'm sure the real price difference to double both quantities would be about £20.
i7-8700k @ 4.7ghz | MSI Krait Z370 Gaming | nVidia GTX1080 | 16gb DDR4 3200 | 2x SSDs 1x HDD | Antec Solo II | Dell U2713HM
 
NTMBK
Gerbil XP
Posts: 371
Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2013 11:21 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 8:37 am

I miss my old netbook- it was nice to have a really portable "beater" laptop that you aren't too worried about breaking/getting stolen.
 
sergios
Gerbil In Training
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 8:06 pm

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 8:54 am

Netbooks are great if you are on a tight budget, sort of a student)
 
whm1974
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6361
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:29 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 10:30 am

sergios wrote:
Netbooks are great if you are on a tight budget, sort of a student)

Or for giving to kids... :P
 
Chuckaluphagus
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 906
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:29 pm
Location: Boston area, MA

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 12:57 pm

NTMBK wrote:
I miss my old netbook- it was nice to have a really portable "beater" laptop that you aren't too worried about breaking/getting stolen.

I've been using a hand-me-down Samsung Chromebook (the original one) for that purpose for a year or so now, and it's been fine. It just needs to handle web browsing, e-mail/light typing, and Netflix, and it does those perfectly well while weighing next to nothing and getting decent battery life.
 
whm1974
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6361
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:29 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 1:05 pm

Chuckaluphagus wrote:
NTMBK wrote:
I miss my old netbook- it was nice to have a really portable "beater" laptop that you aren't too worried about breaking/getting stolen.

I've been using a hand-me-down Samsung Chromebook (the original one) for that purpose for a year or so now, and it's been fine. It just needs to handle web browsing, e-mail/light typing, and Netflix, and it does those perfectly well while weighing next to nothing and getting decent battery life.

OK another point for these kind of devices. I have given some thought about buying a netbook or Chromebook for this reason.
 
Flatland_Spider
Graphmaster Gerbil
Posts: 1324
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:33 pm

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 1:41 pm

whm1974 wrote:
sergios wrote:
Netbooks are great if you are on a tight budget, sort of a student)

Or for giving to kids... :P


Or you just need a text editor, VPN, and SSH.

biffzinker wrote:
What's wrong with you guys?


I'm a server junkie, and I don't want to quit.

biffzinker wrote:
Your not enthusiastic about more Netbooks aka Cloudbooks? I'm surprised Intel insists on still pushing Netbooks since they have always seemed to be lacking performance or poor value.


I would be except the OEMs are going to produce crap, they'll be saddled with Windows, and ChromeOS is most likely on a long slow trip to the grave to be replaced by Android. It's more a lack of faith in humanity in general rather then a specific apathy towards netbooks.

The real market for these is in the embedded/low power x86 space, which is where the current generation of chips really shines, and I'm interested in seeing what's new with the current generation. I'm specifically interested in seeing if Intel added the security extensions to all of the chips in the line rather then just the network specific ones.
 
whm1974
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6361
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:29 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 2:40 pm

Flatland_Spider wrote:
I would be except the OEMs are going to produce crap, they'll be saddled with Windows, and ChromeOS is most likely on a long slow trip to the grave to be replaced by Android. It's more a lack of faith in humanity in general rather then a specific apathy towards netbooks.

I for one would like to see something decent wise running Linux.
 
synthtel2
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 956
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2015 10:30 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 4:13 pm

whm1974 wrote:
I for one would like to see something decent wise running Linux.


Once upon a time, Linux was the usual for netbooks, but they tended to use uselessly dumbed-down and generally terrible custom distros. :roll: Now if Dell were to do such a thing they might put Ubuntu on it and all would be decent, but Acer, Asus, and IIRC Toshiba have already failed epically at this once.
 
biffzinker
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1998
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: AK, USA

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 4:39 pm

synthtel2 wrote:
whm1974 wrote:
I for one would like to see something decent wise running Linux.


Once upon a time, Linux was the usual for netbooks, but they tended to use uselessly dumbed-down and generally terrible custom distros.

Asus Eee PC 701
Linux (Xandros)
Hot Hardware - ASUS Eee PC Hands On Preview
It would take you 2,363 continuous hours or 98 days,11 hours, and 35 minutes of gameplay to complete your Steam library.
In this time you could travel to Venus one time.
 
whm1974
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6361
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:29 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 4:41 pm

synthtel2 wrote:
whm1974 wrote:
I for one would like to see something decent wise running Linux.


Once upon a time, Linux was the usual for netbooks, but they tended to use uselessly dumbed-down and generally terrible custom distros. :roll: Now if Dell were to do such a thing they might put Ubuntu on it and all would be decent, but Acer, Asus, and IIRC Toshiba have already failed epically at this once.

I do believe I could better, but I don't have the capital to get started in the market. :cry:
 
NovusBogus
Graphmaster Gerbil
Posts: 1408
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:37 am

Re: New Low-Cost PC Platform: Apollo Lake with Goldmont Core

Sun Apr 17, 2016 7:48 pm

I love netbooks but unfortunately the ones they make these days are too lame to care about. Everything's soldered down and disk storage is usually limited to 8-16 gigs, which is just barely enough for a real Linux distro let alone a Windows/Linux dual boot which is what I have on my old 10 inch netbook. I'd love it if Intel pulled a NUC and rolled their own subnotebook to show us all that the form factor doesn't have to be dog poop, but until that happens it's going to be hard to get fired up about it.

And on the embedded side of things, it takes many years for these things to make it into actual products. My company's still shipping second-gen D525s because that's the best we can get for our particular I/O needs.

NTMBK wrote:
I miss my old netbook- it was nice to have a really portable "beater" laptop that you aren't too worried about breaking/getting stolen.

This is what I use mine for as well. $2000 ultrabooks aren't generally something you want to be using in a factory environment or obscure public wifi APs.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On