Intel launches dual-core Atom 330 processor at IDF

It’s the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this week and chip manufacturer has used the shindig as cover for the launch of its dual-core Atom processor. Confirmation of the new processor's existence comes from from a ‘news fact sheet’ that Intel quietly slipped onto its IDF press web site. The sheet ostensibly details the new D945GCLF2 desktop motherboard, but it's a mini-ITX motherboardthat comes with an integrated Atom 330 dual-core processor.

Unfortunately, the fact sheet only lets slip a little information about the chip itself (the formal launch is expected later today), so there’s a recap of what we know about the Atom 330 for sure – and what we suspect – after the cut.

According to the D945GCLF2 news sheet (PDF download), the Atom 330 will have a 533MHz system bus and will come with the Intel 945GC Express Chipset and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. There’s no news on the Atom 330’s clock speed yet, but it’s expected to run at the same 1.6GHz as the Atom N270 used in current netbooks like the Asus Eee PC and MSI Wind . It’s also expected to have 1Mb of cache (512Mb for each core) – twice that of the Atom N270.

With each core supporting Hyper-Threading, the Atom 330 should appear as four CPUs in Windows Task manager. Despite the increased power consumption of though, the Atom 330 is expected to have a TDP (Thermal Design Power – essentially peak power use) of just 8W.

The D945GCLF2 mini-ITX desktop motherboard will begin shopping in September, but there’s no news on a mobile version of the Atom 330 (or N330 – the ‘N’ designates a mobile chip) yet. The reason for this is thought to be the sheer size of the dual-core Atom 330 – it’s just too large for mobile use.

Intel has also posted a sneak peak video of some new Atom-powered UMPC devices. They look pretty mediocre to us, but take a look for yourself:

[Intel IDF]