Not new Ultrabook chips
Notebook manufacturers are looking to make cheaper thin-and-light models for consumers. Intel is launching four new Celerons to enable the production of cheaper Ultrabooks thin-and-lights aimed at the $599 price point. DigiTimes reports that two of the Celerons, the Celeron ULV 807 and the Celeron ULV 877, will be sold to the manufacturers at $70 and $86, respectively. These cheaper processors will be launched in Q3 alongside five dual-core Core i3 processors priced from $117 to $138. The cheapest Celeron ULV will be nearly half the price of the most expensive Q3-launched Core i3 CPU.
|
|
Celeron ULV 807 |
Celeron ULV 877 |
|
Microarchitecture |
Sandy Bridge |
Sandy Bridge |
|
Frequency |
1,500 MHz |
1,500 MHz |
|
Cores |
1 (2 threads) |
2 (2 threads) |
|
Bus Speed |
5 GT/s DMI |
5 GT/s DMI |
|
Clock Multiplier |
15 |
14 |
|
Process |
32nm |
32nm |
|
Caches Lvl 1/2/3 |
32kb/256kb/1.5Mb |
64kb/512kb/2Mb |
|
TDP |
17 Watt |
17 Watt |
|
Price in USD |
$70 |
$86 |
The big difference between the current Mobile Celeron lineup and the new Celeron ULV models is the sizeable reduction in TDP figures. All current Mobile Celeron CPUs have a TDP of 35 Watts compared to the upcoming ULV Celerons at 17 Watts.
Ultrabooks with mechanical hard drives
In a separate, but also thin-and-light-related, news snippet from DigiTimes we see another avenue for Ultrabook price reduction that is being pursued right now. It would seem natural for an Ultrabook to come with an SSD drive rather than a slower, more fragile and more power-hungry HDD storage device. However in Q2 2012 DigiTimes estimates that only 56 per cent of Ultrabooks will ship with an SSD installed compared to the 86 percent figure from Q1 2012. SSDs seem to be heading down in price nicely so this trend might get reversed in the following quarters.
Intel is being careful not to devalue its nascent Ultrabook initiative, which could easily be tarnished by too much cheapening. These new Celeron-based laptops occupy a price/model positioning that is manifestly lower than Ultrabooks.
*Update: 21/05/12
Intel has confirmed that the Ultrabook branding and associated trademark is only allowed on laptops featuring an Intel Core processor. This means that any Celeron-powered laptop, however thin-and-light, will not be termed an Ultrabook. Apologies for any confusion in the original article.
