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Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > CPUs > [Solved] The difference between Atom, Intel Core 2

[Solved] The difference between Atom, Intel Core 2

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs [Solved] The difference between Atom, Intel Core 2

I wonder what is the difference between these 2 processor families from the technical point of view. As far as I know, the performance of a single core Atom is about half that of a Pentium M of the same clock rate. What choices Intel makes to sacrifice performance to save energy? Cache size? the length of pipeline? fewer ALUs?

Reply to icoming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom

Reply to rolli59

Dadiggle wrote :

Atom is the mobile gpu

You really don't have a clue what you are talking about, do you?

icoming: One of the biggest reasons is that the atom is an in-order design. Most modern CPUs are out of order, which means they can shuffle instructions around so that they can still do something while waiting on data for an instruction (or something like that). Atom however has to process things in order, so it can sometimes get stuck waiting for a while between tasks (of course, a while in this case means nanoseconds, but it does add up).

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to cjl

die size would be the main physical difference,
and Core2s dont have hyperthreading, while i think all atoms have it.
and Core2s run at TDP from 25-100++ watt,
Atoms barely exceed 20watt in the worst case.

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Reply to greghome

Best answer

Read up:
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 947-5.html

Reply to amnotanoobie

Thanks a lot for your information. It's exactly what I was looking for. It totally makes sense. I wonder if there is difference in cache and memory access other than smaller cache and slower FSB.

I have another question which might not be very related to my original questions: since some Atom processors integrate GPU, what is the bandwidth of the data transmission between GPU and CPU? Is the GPU support general-purpose GPU programming?

Thanks

Reply to icoming

Short Answer: Atom;s IGP are complete crap...........they're only for display and that's all.

Sucks in Gaming, Terrible in Computing, Horrible in media playing,
they're there just so u can see ur desktop

Dadiggle wrote :

Atom is the mobile gpu

Is this guy for real how are you even posting here if you don't even know what an Intel Atom is.

The Atom is a scaled back I3 for the newer versions it was designed for minimum power draw, maximum efficiency. These CPUs are primarily used for netbooks and net top boxes but are now becoming popular for HTPC builds and many people are using them to build mobile systems for their cars.

Message quoted 2 times
Message edited by SAAIELLO on 02-04-2011 at 08:11:59 PM

Reply to SAAIELLO

maximum efficiency ?
:lol:

a Core i3 is more performance/watt than any Atom I've seen............

Dadiggle wrote :

Flaming Attempt=FAIL try again

For you as well http://whatis.techtarget.com/defin [...] -atom.html

Btw any idiot with half a brain could see I made a typo there.

Ok Big whoop has got the performance of half a Pentium not sure your point but nice try. You said its a GPU its sad that you have to use Google just to figure out what an Atom is. And BTW you sir if you knew anything about the core lineups you would know that Intel went back to the same arch that they used with Pentium III so keep trying that Google out some more maybe you will learn something useful and post something meaningful one day.

Quote :

they are based on 45nm Hi-k next generation Intel® Core™ microarchitecture.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/atom/index.htm

Nice try on almost coming up with an educated answer.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by SAAIELLO on 02-05-2011 at 03:33:42 AM

Reply to SAAIELLO

SAAIELLO wrote :

The i3 would suck if it was based on, or if it had any relation to the Atom.

From what I've read before, the Atom was a complete spin-off project that wasn't related to Nehalems or Clarkdales. It was focused primarily on a very small die size and very low power draw, efficiency was somewhere last (if it even was) on the list.

The atom is there for Intel to make money in market segments that Intel have had a hard time penetrating, ultra mobiles. They could make CULV variants of their current processor, but it proved that it was still too expensive and draw too much power. Remember the first MID's? (A100/A110/Stealey)

Reply to amnotanoobie

^+1, I personally consider the Atoms a 45nm Pentium III , arch wise, and Pentium 4 performance wise

A very good found. I am sure you know how and where to get a good clue and sound info. Good explanation. It's simple and clear cut after reading it.

Thanks for sharing.

cheers,
gim

Dadiggle wrote :

Yes I have a clue

Quote :

Atom is Intel's family of x86 and x86-64 processors that are optimized for small computing devices, such as smartphones and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Most netbooks on the market today run on Atom.

Processors in the Atom product family are inexpensive and have low power requirements. These two criteria are essential for smaller devices, to keep component costs down and extend battery life. An Atom processor performs at a level about half that of an equivalent Pentium chip. The trade-off between power consumption and performance is intentional because the target devices for the processor are used mostly for Web use rather than compute-intensive activities like gaming.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/defin [...] -atom.html

Read that so you can get a clue

Reply to cngim

Best answer selected by icoming.

Reply to icoming

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