Intel Pentium 4 Vs. Atom: A Battle Of The Generations
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: Efficiency
The Atom systems are pretty constant when it comes to power consumption. A 30 W to 35 W average draw during our efficiency run is a good result. The P4 machines require 3x to 5x more.
Total power used is lowest on the dual-core Atom D510 because it completes our workload quicker than the single-core Atom 230 while consuming even less power. Both Pentium 4 systems are comparable. The faster 3.2 GHz unit requires more power, but it’s faster, and hence finishes quicker. Nevertheless, we measured that the 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 actually requires less power to complete our efficiency workload.
The dual-core Atom D510 provides top performance. The single-core Atom 230 is slowest.
If you look at performance related to watt-hours used, the Atom solutions deliver many times better power efficiency. Looking at this diagram alone proves that it doesn’t make sense to keep a Pentium 4 machine if you can afford a low-cost Atom nettop PC.
The efficiency diagram visualizes power consumption throughout the workload and the total runtime of each system.
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