Intel Pentium 4 Vs. Atom: A Battle Of The Generations

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Most people know that Intel’s Atom is a slow, low-cost processor. But does it even offer enough performance to take it beyond desktop processors nearly a decade old? Today we're comparing a modern Atom CPU to two Northwood-class Pentium 4-based PCs.

Benchmark Results: Audio/Video

iTunes is not optimized for multi-core processors. This workload obviously favors higher clock rates.

The same applies for the Lame MP3 encoder.

Video transcoding prefers the dual-core CPU.

HandBrake video transcoding is quickest on the Atom D510 dual-core CPU.

Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos