These little netbooks that we hear about day in and day out are about to get a little zippier, thanks to Intel’s dual-core Atom chip – the 330 – shipping out to vendors. The September launch seems to coincide with what we’d heard earlier, so that’s good.

The 45-nanometer Atom 330 chip will feature the same 1.6GHz bus speed as the single core model, will have 1MB of level 2 cache, and will support DDR2 667 memory.

Full release:

Intel Ships Dual Core Atom for Nettops

September 19, 2008

Intel has officially begun shipping a 45nm dual-core Intel® Atom™ Processor known as the Intel Atom Processor 330. The newest member of the Atom family is designed specifically for nettops, which are affordable desktops purpose-built primarily for web surfing, email, and basic Internet usage. The dual-core Intel® Atom™ Processor 330 features a 1.6GHz processing core, 1MB of level 2 cache, an 8W TDP and support for DDR2 667. The new processor is available as an integrated package and has been validated with the Intel® 945GC Express Chipset, featuring built-in Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 and Intel® High Definition Audio.

[via [H]Enthusiast]

Intel’s got a dual-core Atom chip on the way, likely in September to dovetail with the release of a new motherboard that’s compatible with the CPU. The processor is called the 330 and, although the clock speed hasn’t yet been revealed, it does have a 533MHz frontside bus. The motherboard is called the D945GCLF2 and is a mini-ITX 945GC-based system with Intel’s integrated 950 graphics. The board is due in September, so it’d stand to reason that we’d see the new dual-core Atom then too.

[via Register Hardware]

About a month ago, we reported that Intel would begin production on a dual-core Atom chip in July. I said “Might as well just wait for the quad-core Atoms to come out in August, huh?” Nobody laughed at the joke and we all moved on. Now DigiTimes is reporting that production on these dual-core Atoms has been pushed back to September due to shortages of the single-core Atom chips.

“Finally, Intel was originally planning to mass produce its dual-core Atom 330 processor in July, however, due to shortages of the single-core Atom 230, the company has postponed the launch to at least September this year, will release further planning in August, the sources said.”

So that’s at least September. If you’d been holding out until July for a dual-core Atom device, it looks like you can run out and buy a single-core device today or wait patiently for the dual-core chips to roll off the lines in another few months.

via Reg Hardware

The current Atom platform will be able to support the new chips via a simple BIOS upgrade, too, which is good news for manufacturers.

Bad news for manufacturers, though, is that few people are going to buy single core Atom-equipped devices with the dual-core ones right around the corner;

PC makers are concerned the short gap between the launch of single-core and dual-core models could dampen the introduction of single-core Atoms and well as impact sales of traditional entry-level PC CPU platforms meaning PC makers will need to rethink their product lineups for the later half of the year.

Might as well just wait for the quad-core Atoms to come out in August, huh?

Remember the good old days of scouring Pricewatch.com to see who had the cheapest processors? You’d wait for Intel to release a new chip and watch the one it was replacing plummet to half its original cost, right? Ah, simpler times.

Anyway, Intel’s been busy slashing prices and putting out new chips over the past couple of days, so let’s take a look at what’s what.

First, the price on a couple of the quad-core chips got cut roughly in half from $530 to $266 — the Core 2 Quad Q6700 running at 2.66GHz and the Xeon X3230, also running at 2.66GHz.

As far as dual-core chips go, the 1.6GHz Celeron E1200 dropped from $53 to $43, the 3GHz Xeon 3085 slid from $266 to $188, and the 3GHz Core 2 Duo E6850 fell from $266 to $183. The single-core Celeron 430 (1.8GHz) fell from $44 to $34.

Intel also introduced two new Celeron chips and two new Core 2 Duo chips; The 2GHz dual-core Celeron E1400 ($53) and the 2.66GHz dual-core Celeron 570 ($134) along with the 2.83GHz Core 2 Duo E8300 with 6MB of cache ($163) and the 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo E7200 with 3MB of cache ($133).

via CNET

They’ll be here on January 20th. I hope it’s not too cold out that day because I’d hate to be shivering at the ribbon cutting or the inauguration or the parade or whatever’s going to be happening in Boston when these new dual-core Celeron chips arrive. Two cores!!

The first model out of the chute will be the seductive E1200. It’ll be running at 1.6GHz with an 800MHz front side bus and 512KB of L2 cache and priced at $53 (in thousand-unit orders).

Intel to release Celeron E1000 on January 20 [DigiTimes]