Atom vs Celeron

[teeth_03]

How would you compare these 2 processors?

From what I've read,the Atom uses less power,but therefore is less powerful at the same freqency (EEE PC benchmarks dont show that much of an increase from the 900 mhz Celeron to the 1.6ghz Atom). But the power usage is the big factor for the mobile products.

Now in reference to the article on the main page about the 'Mini PC for under $80,it reviewed a motherboard with a 1.2 ghz Celeron. But theres also a model with the 1.6 ghz Atom processor. In the case of these 2 mini ITX motherboards,whats the more powerful processor?

I would guess the Celeron,but I'm not sure. It seems to me,the Atom is good for low power usage,but the Celeron is a more powerful processor. So is it safe to conclude the following?-

Atom for mobile products (low power usage,longer battery life)
Celeron for desktop products (a slightly more powerful CPU,maybe?)

Now,like I said,im not sure which of those 2 processors is more powerful,but I would guess the Celeron,least with single threaded apps,I dont know weather it has HT or not,I know the Atom does.

Also,link to the 2 motherboards on newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2+50001157+40000446&Manufactory=1157&SubCategory=446&SpeTabStoreType=1

 

[perez8434]

u mean athlon or atom

 

[jimmysmitty]

^Um the Atom will use much less power than the Celeron. Thats what its made for. Something like 5w while idle.

In terms of power the Atom you are looking at is between a 1.2GHz and 1.6GHz Pentium M (much better than the Celeron 900MHz).

So short the Atom is a better choice.

 

[turboflame]

The Celeron 220 in the mobo you linked to is Conroe-L based, much faster than the Celeron in the EEE and much faster than any Atom. However the Atom would use far less power.

u mean athlon or atom

lolwut

 

[perez8434]

OOH intel Atom! NVM

 

[will14]

The atom is a processor designed for phones and super low power devices.
The Celeron is a core-due type with all it's cache cut off running at lower frequencies.

Go with the Celeron.
An atom wouldn't even be on the same chart if you want to benchmark it as I think benchmarking an Atom would almost defeat it's purpose as it is not constructed with performance in mind.

 

[cjl]

The atom is a processor designed for phones and super low power devices.
The Celeron is a core-due type with all it's cache cut off running at lower frequencies.

Go with the Celeron.
An atom wouldn't even be on the same chart if you want to benchmark it as I think benchmarking an Atom would almost defeat it's purpose as it is not constructed with performance in mind.

The difference isn't quite as extreme as that - the higher end, hyper threading atoms are competitive with a much lower clocked celeron. The 1.6GHz atom is about even with a 700-800MHz celeron IIRC. The celeron is certainly faster, but the Atom is not complete garbage.

 

[Wisecracker]

According to the Super PI test result, the Atom at 1.6GHz is a little bit faster than the old Intel Pentium III-M “Tualatin” at 1.13GHz, but slower than the laptop-use Intel Celeron M “Dothan-512″ at 900MHz

http://laptoping.com/intel-atom-benchmark.html


Preliminary benchmarks have VIA's Isaiah besting Intel's Atom
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/18/preliminary-benchmarks-have-vias-isaiah-besting-intels-atom/


THG benchmarking
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Atom-Efficient,1981-15.html

 

[Slobogob]

What i would really like to see is an Atom-multi-core CPU. Given it's power consumptions, production cost and cooling requirements, i would buy one right away for my file-servers etc.

 

[teeth_03]

nice article TH just put up.

call me stupid tho,but its hard to make sense out of this benchmark result chart :/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Atom-Efficient,1981-13.html

 

[cjl]

I think (and I could be misinterpreting it - it isn't all that clear) that the one marked "Intel Atom 230 Hyper-Threading" is showing the percentage improvement in each of those apps with hyper threading enabled as compared to hyper threading being disabled. The other chart is showing how much faster each of those other CPUs (sempron and celeron) is than the Atom.

 

[sarwar_r87]

atom withs its HT cant compete with celeron.....

even via nano is better than atom in both performance and power

 

[cjl]

The Via Nano pulls quite a bit more power than the Atom does, and they aren't really designed for the same thing.

 

[MU_Engineer]

The atom is a processor designed for phones and super low power devices.

The Atom is designed for devices smaller than most standard notebooks (anything 11.1"/3 lbs and bigger) but larger than PDAs and smartphones. Even a small standard notebook like my 12.1" unit I am typing on right now can dissipate 20-25 W of heat decently but PDAs and smartphones struggle with dissipating more than 2-3 watts as they are passively cooled. An Atom + 945GMS setup dissipates about half what a Core 2 Duo ULV + 945GM/GM965 in small notebooks do but it dissipates several times what the MIPS and ARM SoCs plus wireless chipsets in phones and PDAs dissipate. That pretty much relegates the mobile Atom to Eee-type subnotebooks and UMPCs with 5-10" screens and a weight of about 1 pound to 3 pounds. I will bet that quite a few mobile Atoms also find themselves in car-based PCs as well.

The desktop version of the Atom is seems to be marketed toward high-power embedded uses such as arcade-type video games, video poker machines, and Internet kiosks. The performance requirements are too much for the typical ARM and MIPS embedded chips but not high enough to require current low-end desktop parts for the purpose. You might also see the desktop Atom be used in industrial control devices. The consumers that buy finished ITX Atom desktop boards will most likely use them in situations where they would currently use AMD Geode, VIA C7s for small file servers, Web servers, firewall/router, DNS server, login server, home automation, SDTV and music playback, or any use that one might have otherwise used an old Pentium II or Pentium III or an AMD K6/K7 unit for.

The Celeron is a core-due type with all it's cache cut off running at lower frequencies.

The Celeron still has 512 KB L2. A cacheless Celeron 220 would most likely perform slower than the Atom. Just look back at the old PII Covington Celerons with no L2 cache. The famous Mendocino "A" Celerons that came afterwards had 128 KB L2 on-die and were about twice as fast per clock as the no-L2 Covingtons.

Go with the Celeron.
An atom wouldn't even be on the same chart if you want to benchmark it as I think benchmarking an Atom would almost defeat it's purpose as it is not constructed with performance in mind.

The Celeron would be a better choice if you need very much performance as it's quite a bit faster. But if you are running something like a small file server or firewall that needs very little processor power, the Atom setup is more efficient and easier to cool. There is also nothing wrong with benchmarking the Atom. I'd be thrilled if I could see a benchmark under Linux as I have seen none so far.

 

[cjl]

Well, I have an Atom based EEE (901), and I have been running Ubuntu on it since I got it. I could run a couple benchmarks if you want.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Ohhh.... new name for it: CelerAtom or Atomeron. Its like a Celeron only tiny.....

 

[amdfangirl]

I can't see the point of Atom in desktops...

a 4850e @ 1.6GHz undervolted to 0.8v and on integrated 740G graphics would easily rival the Atom. In fact, I'd like THG to compare that. "Challenge the Atom"

I've got my Athlon down to 0.9V but its the 690G that keeps power consumption up. The 740G should be able to lower power consumption as it is a die shrink...

Even if you disable a core it will beat the Atom really badly.

 

[Slobogob]

I can't see the point of Atom in desktops...

a 4850e @ 1.6GHz undervolted to 0.8v and on integrated 740G graphics would easily rival the Atom. In fact, I'd like THG to compare that. "Challenge the Atom"

I've got my Athlon down to 0.9V but its the 690G that keeps power consumption up. The 740G should be able to lower power consumption as it is a die shrink...

Even if you disable a core it will beat the Atom really badly.

For the price of an 9150e i can buy two to three itx mainboards with an integrated Atom. It should be pretty clear that the performance is not the same but for applications that don't need FOUR cores it is a really nice and cheap chip.

 

[amdfangirl]

True, but performance wise the Athlon would win... good point except the Nano is meant to target the same price point...

 

[Slobogob]

good point except the Nano is meant to target the same price point...

It is but if you compare the prices of itx mainboards you will notice that the nano easily costs twice as much.

 

[amdfangirl]

So then, I suppose we have a market for the Atom.

Your really smart. I didn't really think of price.

 

[Slobogob]

Your really smart. I didn't really think of price.

Nah, not smart. More like cheap.

 

[TL2008]

^Um the Atom will use much less power than the Celeron. Thats what its made for. Something like 5w while idle.

In terms of power the Atom you are looking at is between a 1.2GHz and 1.6GHz Pentium M (much better than the Celeron 900MHz).

So short the Atom is a better choice.

NO!! Atom has no out-of-order execution therefore unless the software is lined up perfectly (which is not) Celeron will have higher "real life" performance even at lower clock speed! Check benchmark that focus on "time to completion" not the "calculation/sec".

 

[MarkG]

NO!! Atom has no out-of-order execution therefore unless the software is lined up perfectly (which is not) Celeron will have higher "real life" performance even at lower clock speed! Check benchmark that focus on "time to completion" not the "calculation/sec".

Back in the real world, the Atom 330 vs Celeron comparisons I've seen put them in the same ballpark so long as the software is multithreaded: the Atom won some multithreaded benchmarks and lost others, but was way behind on single-threaded benchmarks. I don't remember which particular Celeron models they were comparing against.

 

[snarfies]

What i would really like to see is an Atom-multi-core CPU. Given it's power consumptions, production cost and cooling requirements, i would buy one right away for my file-servers etc.

They have one. The Atom 330. Its been out for quite a while now.