The Atom has been an amazing product for Intel. It has become the de facto CPU under the hood of almost every netbook and in fact has become part of the definition of a netbook for most consumers. But as with many things it has reached the point of stagnation. Consumers are fickle and really do want change. Although many will complain about new products and how much they cost, etc. They will still get bored unless those new items are dangled in front of them from time to time.

Well, Intel has that new bait. As we have told you before the Pinetrail CPU (Atom Plus one package GPU) will be launching soon. Probably in the middle of December (that is just a guess but we think it is close to the mark) to get some interest built up. We will see products with this new technology under the hood being displayed by the time CES 2010 rolls around.

But with the new Pinetrail you are not just getting a new (well old) GPU shoehorned onto the packaging but also a built-in memory controller and a few new speed and multi-core offerings. These will be the N450 1.66GHz Atom Pineview and the Dual Core 1.66GHz D510 and D410. The last two are probably earmarked for nettops and not likely to show up in your garden variety netbook.