Intel's Atom processor has been around for a while; we all know it already as the most power efficient and cheapest CPU on the market. Even so, there are not too many things that we are aware of when it comes to the Atom chipset. That would be the 945GC chipset, the one that makes the Atom microprocessor do its best. The name may sound familiar, yet the price of the 945GC is not something you come across every day.

The giant chip manufacturer has combined the Atom processor with the 945GC chipset, and decided to put on sale the Northbridge and Southbridge for merely $20. Of course, this is the price for thousands or more units purchases, as the chipset cannot be actually bought at retail. For those interested, the company has the 945GZ chipset at $20 as well.

These two products are notebook chipsets. Since the Atom processor is available for desktops as well, nettops to be more precise, Intel also has some chipsets for the job. The 945P chipset goes for only $33, while the IGP version named 945G is priced for no less than $37. The 945GT chipset is placed above these two, and it goes for as much as $39.

If we are to take a look at the Atom chipsets series from top to bottom, we'll easily see that 945GT costs double in comparison with the 945GC. Even so, the cost is small enough for the products. Even more, if the analysis of the chipsets is broaden a little, the first thing to come up is that Intel went on with some sort of “a dollar per watt approach” with the series. The 945GC is said to be the hottest and most energy demanding component of the Atom subsystem and, while competitor AMD is claiming performance per watt for the products, Intel seems to be doing quite well from the dollar per watt angle.