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Bay Trail On The Desktop: Celeron J1750 Gets Benchmarked

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Last week, Intel rolled out its Bay Trail SoCs based on the Silvermont architecture. The company focused most intently on its tablet-oriented Atom models. However, we got our hands on a Celeron J1750, soldered onto a motherboard, for desktop testing.

Results: Media Encoding

HandBrake is optimized for multiple threads. But despite the fact that our Celeron J1750 sample is only a dual-core CPU, it has little trouble trouncing the Hyper-Threading-enabled Atom D2700. Then again, both upgradeable desktop-oriented processors are notably quicker and quite affordable. If it's performance you're looking for, they're smarter buys. The 10 W Celeron is going to be best suited to applications sensitive to power and thermals.

Our iTunes workload, on the other hand, is decidedly single-threaded. We get another look at how effective the Silvermont architecture is compared to Saltwell. Though it's certainly true that the Celeron J1750 spins up to higher clock rates than the Atom D2700, even at the same frequency, the Bay Trail-based SoC would enjoy a commanding lead.

LAME tells us the same basic story. In short, the Celeron J1750 is quite a bit quicker than the fastest desktop-oriented Atom from last generation. The Ivy Bridge and Richland architectures have no trouble posting notably better numbers, but remember that they're 55 and 65 W CPUs, respectively. Celeron J1750 is rated for just 10 W, and it's cruising along.

Going back the other way, TotalCode Studio is well-threaded, and the addition of Hyper-Threading does good things for Atom D2700. Intel's Bay Trail-based SoC is still quite a bit quicker, despite addressing fewer threads. We'd want to see what four physical cores could do in these applications; good scaling could land a Celeron J1850 or Pentium J2850 within striking distance of the A4-4000.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • SteelCity1981
    only 2mb of l2 cache for 4 cores. talk about starving 4 cores with 2mb of l2 cache.
    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... interesting is the modular core thingy.. it ir like the FX module from AMD... 2 cores on joined L2 cache? Hmm... and GPU on the silicon... it seams, intel waits till the software is there...
    Reply
  • stickmansam
    11551610 said:
    ... interesting is the modular core thingy.. it ir like the FX module from AMD... 2 cores on joined L2 cache? Hmm... and GPU on the silicon... it seams, intel waits till the software is there...

    Shared L2 cache exists on Intel's side during the Core 2 era with two or more cores sharing the L2 cache, similar to how L3 cache is shared now except there is an additional private L2 cache. Basically, with Nehalem, Intel moved the shared cache a level lower to L3 and put in a new private cache (L2). GPU on the same die/chip has been on Intel's side too for quite a while as well....

    11551497 said:
    only 2mb of l2 cache for 4 cores. talk about starving 4 cores with 2mb of l2 cache.

    The i5s have actually less cache than the Q9x50's so cache size isn't everything. Their ipc is still lower than the Athlon IIx4's which have similar amounts of cache are not that bottle necked (compared to Phenom II's, maybe 20% slower?). Cache implementation also matters and the shared L2 should be better than the piecemeal Athlon II L2, provided the cores don't thrash each other.

    Bay Trail is a quite interesting chip with good enough performance to pretty much beat out most ARM chips in tablets yet provide comparable power efficiency and graphics. The price is not too high either, with the top end chip ~$40, making it at least somewhat competitive with ARM. The ability to run Android/Linux/Windows 8 means that OEM's can build one product to sell to different markets and save on production line costs. It also lets them adjust the OS to meet market demand on the go potential (ship non selling OS version back to factory and load OS that sells better and send it back out). ASUS seems to have something like that going on with the T100 having buttons half way between Windows and Android and no Windows branding.

    This all makes me want to grab a Bay Trail and run both Android and Windows on it, have Windows when I use it connected to a screen for desktop and run desktop apps and then Android on the go so I get the larger app store (Windows if I am lazy).
    Reply
  • vipervoid1
    There is Kabini in the review ??
    Why compare Richland with this ??
    Isn't Kabini is the one to compare ??
    Reply
  • runswindows95
    Then again, the thing to keep in mind these CPU's aren't gaming / workstation CPU's. These CPU's will quite honestly work for the majority of PC owners, who mainly do social media and Youtube. A quad-core that only uses 10W intrigues me a lot since I don't game, but do a lot of heavy word processing.
    Reply
  • Cryio
    Hey Tom. Winrar 5 is out. Could you please use that? :D
    Reply
  • ojas
    11551718 said:
    There is Kabini in the review ??
    Why compare Richland with this ??
    Isn't Kabini is the one to compare ??
    Agreed.

    Though, Tech Report and AnandTech have previewed the Z3770 and put it up against mobile chips and Kabini.

    (hint: the 4w Z3770 matches a 15w A4-5000 Kabini and soundly thrashes ARM in CPU performance)

    http://techreport.com/review/25329/intel-atom-z3000-bay-trail-soc-revealed

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/7314/intel-baytrail-preview-intel-atom-z3770-tested
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    i sorely missed a kabini setup in the benches and efficiency tests. i woulda liked to see both bay trail and kabini socs run 1080p and 1600p gaming (tablet oriented).

    a few nitpicks:
    in the test hardware chart - a4 4000 doesn't have L3 cache. afaik, neither does baytrail (1MB shared L2).
    in the bga 65w skus vs bga 10 skus table, the core i- cpus clockrates are base clockrate, turbo is missing while baytrail socs' burst clockrate is reported while base clockrate is absent.
    Reply
  • Wisecracker
    11552261 said:
    11551718 said:
    There is Kabini in the review ??
    Why compare Richland with this ??
    Isn't Kabini is the one to compare ??
    Agreed.

    Though, Tech Report and AnandTech have previewed the Z3770 and put it up against mobile chips and Kabini.

    (hint: the 4w Z3770 matches a 15w A4-5000 Kabini and soundly thrashes ARM in CPU performance)
    http://techreport.com/review/25329/intel-atom-z3000-bay-trail-soc-revealed

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/7314/intel-baytrail-preview-intel-atom-z3770-tested

    Not according to Tom's ...







    Power consumption looks great ... especially compared to a 65w Richland desktop (WTF, THG?) ... but the A4-5000 remains quite formidable in efficiency according to Tom's own testing
    Graphics performance compared to the AMD SoCs must blow, or it would have been hyped to the max. I suspect this means Bay Trail will be Temash'd (or, Kabini'd).


    Reply
  • CaedenV
    Looks like these new Atom based Celerons and Pentiums are what I want to look for in my little always-on server build I am prepping for. Extremely low power, enough performance to run a gigabit NAS, and hopefully some passive or other extremely quiet cooling solutions. I just hope that the motherboards offer some RAID options to work with in FreeNAS and the price is appropriately cheap.
    Reply