Intel Announces new Z2580-dual-core processor for mobile devices...........

  Intel had a few updates about its Android SoC strategy for us at MWC this week. The first is a spec revision. The Atom Z2460 we talked about in great detail at CES was originally specced to run at a max of 1.3GHz but it could burst up to 1.6GHz if the thermal conditions allowed it (ala turbo boost). Z2460 yields on Intel's 32nm LP process are apparently better than expected so the Atom core will be able to turbo up to 2.0GHz instead of 1.6GHz. The default max frequency remains unchanged at 1.3GHz.

Next, Intel announced two new Atom SoCs for the smartphone market: the Z2580 and the Z2000.
The Z2580 is a higher end part, back from the fab now but shipping in devices in the first half of next year. It features the same architecture as the Atom Z2460 but instead of a single Saltwell core it has two, with Hyper Threading enabled (2 cores, 4 threads). The CPU cores can burst at up to 1.8GHz, while the default max CPU frequency remains at 1.3GHz.

The CPU isn't the only part of the SoC to get an upgrade: Intel equipped the Z2580 with a PowerVR SGX 544MP2 GPU running at 533MHz. The SGX 544 is similar to the 543 used in Apple's A5, however it adds support for Direct3D 9_3. At 533MHz you can expect roughly twice the shader/compute performance of the 543MP2 that's in the A5. Granted by early next year we'll likely see competitive, if not faster GPUs implemented in SoCs (quite possibly long before then).

Intel Android Atom SoC Comparison
	Low End	Mid Range	High End
Name	Intel Atom Z2000	Intel Atom Z2460	Intel Atom Z2580
CPU Clock (base/turbo)	1.0GHz	1.3GHz/2.0GHz	1.3GHz/1.8GHz
GPU	PowerVR SGX 540	PowerVR SGX 540	PowerVR SGX 544MP2
GPU Clock	320MHz	400MHz	533MHz
Process Technology	Intel 32nm LP	Intel 32nm LP	Intel 32nm LP
Availability	1H 2013	1H 2012	1H 2013