Intel just recently show cased the latest Atom x5 Z8500 soc in a reference Tablet. So what can we expect in the next gen of Chinese tablets from the likes of Cube, PiPo, Onda and Teclast?
Looking over the Intel Z8000 series Ark and Intel Z8000 series data sheets, you can see that they are step up in terms of power, the Z8500 can take up to 8GB of ram and dual channel. Think of it as the Z3795 in the current gen, something I doubt the Chinese tablets will get unless high end due to the tray prices.
The Atom X5 8300 is more likely what we will see in the next gen retina tablets, and while it’s a step up in terms of graphics 16 EU cores vs 4 with the Intel 5000 HD graphics there is still the worrying limit to only 2GB DDR3 1600 single channel ram on this soc. And it’s ma boost speed is 1.84Ghz similar to the Z3735F with 1.8Ghz. So it looks like unless the tablets have the high end Atom x5, we are still going to be limited to just 2GB of ram. However they are going to finally be 64bit 100%. Still Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 run just fine of 2GB of ram, but for anything serious we are gong to need that Z8500 chipset.
It will be interesting to see if Teclast, Cube or Onda also move to eMMC 5.0 standard and USB 3.0 ports (Since the new chipsets support it) ??? That will also see a nice pump in performance.