Efficiency Analysis: Core i3 Trumps Atom On The Desktop

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Atom was designed to be a low-cost, low-power solution, but its value in the desktop space is debatable if you consider performance. We pit the cheapest Core i3 against Intel's Atom on a performance-per-dollar and a per-watt basis to see which is better.

Benchmark Results: Audio/Video

We use HandBrake to transcode MPEG-2 into H.264 video at high quality. What takes five minutes on a Core i3 will require nine times longer on an Atom 230. Fortunately, the Atom D510 is much better here, but still requires four times the i3-530's processing time.

iTunes can convert digital audio (WAV) into AAC, which also requires significant time on Atom systems. We use the Terminator II soundtrack to test this type of workload.

Lame does very much the same, but it converts audio data into MP3 format.

Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos