About a month ago, the guys over at AnandTech got a chance to play with an Intel Bay Trail-T reference platform. The device they handled had a 10 inch 2560 x 1440 pixel screen, quad core Silvermonth processor, weight a hair over 600 grams, and was “about the thickness of a 3rd/4th generation iPad”. Unfortunately, they weren’t allowed to run any benchmarks. Now, I’m happy to report that some benchmark numbers have leaked, and they’re nuts.
According to an entry in the AnTuTu database, with Bay Trail-T clocked at just 1.1 GHz, it scores over 43,400 points. That’s a good 10,000 points more than Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon 800. To put this into some perspective, the phone in my pocket, the Galaxy Note II, scores about 17,000 in AnTuTu. That means this Intel tablet is 2.5x faster. Nothing to sneeze at.
When will we be hearing more about Bay Trail-T devices? Good question, and I don’t have an answer to give you right now. Game developers typically write native code to make get the highest performance out of their titles. That means no Intel compatibility. Sure, web browsing on an Intel powered tablet will be spiffy, but that’s about it.
I’ll be keeping my eye out on this.