Now, i admit, there are some very questionable design decisions made by Intel.
First, why was it that a company capable of such technical prowess as cramming a fully x86, 64bit ready, dual-threaded architecture in to a tiny 45nm core and package could not pair it properly to its platform, and instead had to resort to a mash up from a severely crippled "Lakeport-G" (a.k.a, the three-year old Intel 945G/GC) and a PowerVR Mobile core (similar to the one found on the iPhone) for its 3D duties -the 2D and video output engines were designed in-house by Intel but i wished they weren't, as they can't do much more than 720p-level resolutions over a D-sub/VGA analog out, therefore wasting the "Full-HD" H.264, VC-1 and MPEG 2 codec support from the 3D portion-.
Second, with 90nm GM965 and G35 cores (and a 65nm G45 on the way very soon) out for more than a year, why did they make this mash up in a very old and very, very power inefficient 130nm process (you've read that correctly, a 130nm Northbridge+Southbridge design made with the same Pentium 4 "Northwood" -welcome back to 2001 ;)- process technology) ?
Third, with this "Poulsbo" chipset negatively impacting the surface mount required for integration in mobile devices (it dwarfs the CPU in both die size and package dimensions), and the lack of support for the PCI bus, SATA and digital video output, i'm afraid the original concept of the "Silverthorne" might be absolutely doomed, as there are right now much more power-efficient, feature-rich and popular Linux-based ARM solutions.
So, the core will only really be attractive when paired with the standard 945GC in ultra low-cost mobile machines and entry-level desktops for the 3rd world or network access point for medium to large businesses.
Those will be the famed "Diamondville" cores, that, because of it's high Vcore and TDP, will also be much cheaper to mass produce.
Ironically, when it comes down to power consumption, Intel is even "promoting" the superiority of SiS chipsets over their own in this slide:
Yep. Intel 945GC + ICH7 = 22W TDP.SiS 671 + SiS 968 = 8W TDP.
Of course, "Diamondville" can also *in theory* be paired to any Core 2-ready chipset, since they share the GTL+ Quad-Pumped Front Side Bus protocol, but i guess that will be up to the motherboard manufacturers themselves, as there will be no socketed version of the CPU (and even if there was to be one, i doubt it would use the same pin-count and layout as standard Centrino Core Duo and Core 2 Duo-based CPU's).
"Silverthorne" won't have that "luxury", because only the "Poulsbo" chipset can function in the FSB's exclusive "CMOS mode" to save additional power.
In all, i think the launch was a double-edged sword.
"Diamondville" may turn out to be one of Intel's best-selling CPU's ever (if their platforms are marketed and sold properly at attractive levels).
But "Silverthorne" faces a very uphill battle, since the Windows option is not there (and Linux is already extremely wide-spread among ARM vendors, because of its ease of modification and cross-platform development tools).
For a real fight, we'll have to wait for "Moorestown" in roughly 1.5 years' time.
That -presumably still 45nm-based- successor to the "Silverthorne"/"Diamondville" will do away with the chipset, and integrate the Northbridge and Southbridge functions (memory controller included) directly into the CPU core die itself.
Of course, by then, the dual-core, shared L2 cache, 40nm Cortex A9 basic design from ARM will also be on the market, and it might prove to be a tough nut to crack.
