jmke

FudZilla got a chance to test Intel's low power CPU dubbed the "Atom". Running at 1.6Ghz they ran a few benchmarks on the CPU which they called slow overall.


The benchmarks include MP3 Lame encoding, Sisoft Sandra and the enthusiast all time favourite: SuperPi !

Not very promising, but it's a low power unit, raw single threaded application performance can be gauged by running SuperPi 1M:



If these results can be trusted, the Intel Atom 1.6Ghz scores 92.766 seconds at 1M.

If we take a look at the HWbot.org database and check for results between 92 & 93 seconds we get the following list of CPUs:


The Atom 230 (1.6Ghz) is as fast/slow in SuperPi as:
- Pentium 4 Wilmetta @ 2125Mhz
- Pentium 3 @ 1517Mhz
- Athlon Tbird @ 1616Mhz
- Pentium M 745 @ 1804Mhz
- Pentium 4 Nortwood @ 2.4Ghz
- Duron 600@1069Mhz

The SuperPi 32M result is even worse, as it's not even able to match Pentium 3 1Ghz CPU ( http://hwbot.org/listResults.do?cpuM...true&limit=100 )

Do note that SuperPi performance is also decided by memory bandwidth, so take these results with a grain of salt when comparing raw CPU performance.

It does give a clear message though that this CPU is not really going to be that hot for building yourself a low power system; if you buy an entry level 45nm Core 2 Duo you won't be using up that much power and you'll get plenty of performance. Even if the Atom 1.6Ghz uses less than the average power-saving light-bulb, it's not really enthusiast material;

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Massman

Superpi 1M has a future after all

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jmke

A P3 1Ghz has TDP rating of 26W
A Pentium M 2.16Ghz 27W
A Pentium M 778 1.6Ghz... 10W rating

... and let us not forget:

A Core Solo U1400 1.2Ghz 5W which does SuperPi 1M in 48.97 seconds http://hwbot.org/result.do?resultId=603809

but the real advantage of the Intel Atom is neither power usage or performance. Physical size is what it is all about:

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