Efficiency Analysis: Core i3 Trumps Atom On The Desktop

Benchmark Results: Efficiency In Single-Threaded Applications

First, we decided to look at a single-threaded workload consisting of iTunes, Lame, PDF creation using MS PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat, and WinZip.

The long workload runtime for Atom solutions isn’t surprising.

Power consumption is more interesting, because the Core i3 system is far below its peak power. The average power consumption of roughly 50W is more than acceptable. Atom 230 required an average of 36W and the Atom D510 stayed below 30W.

The total power required to complete this first workload is determined by the system power requirements as well as the time required to complete the task. Our Core i3 requires a fraction of the time to complete its homework and therefore is better on overall power consumption. It actually requires half the power that an Atom D510 would burn.