Atom Benchmarked: 4W Of Performance

Features
By Bert Toepelt
published

Test System, Drivers, Benchmarks, Settings

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Component Details
AMD MotherboardASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, Rev. 1.03G nVidia nForce5, BIOS: 1001 (03/13/2007)
AMD 780G MotherboardMSI K9A2GM-FD/FIH AMD 780G, BIOS: 1.4 (04/06/2008)
Intel MotherboardGigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R Rev. 2.1 Intel P35 BIOS: F3e (03/27/2008)
ITX Intel Celeron 220Intel D201GLY2 SIS 662, BIOS: 0137 (01/04/2008)
Memory2x 1GB A-Data DDR2 1066+ Vitesta Extreme Edition TakeMS 1x 2GB
DVD-ROMSamsung SH-D163A, SATA150
Graphics CardFoxconn nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX GPU: 575 MHz Shader: 1350 MHz Memory: 768 MB DDR4 (900 MHz, 384bit)
Sound CardCreative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Power SupplyCoolermaster RS850-EMBA, ATX 2.2, 850 W
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Component Details
Operating SystemWindows Vista Enterprise Version 6.0 (Build 6000) Windows XP SP2 VL
DirectX 10DirectX 10 (Vista Default)
DirectX 9Version: April 2007
SoundcardVista Driver 2.13.0012 (15.03.2007)
Soundcard - AtomVista Driver VIA HD V5.30.32.080228
Graphics DrivernVidia ForceWare Version 158.18 (32 Bit) WHQL
Intel X38 ChipsetVersion 8.1.1.1010 (21.11.2006)
Intel Atom ChipsetVersion 8.2.0.1008
nVidia Chipset DrivernForce Driver: 15.00 (02.02.2007) WHQL
82945G Express - AtomVersion 15.8.2.64.1461 (03.01.2008)
Intel G33 ExpressVersion 15.9.0.1472
JavaJava Runtime Environment 6.0 Update 1
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Benchmark Details
iTunes 7.2Version: 7.1.1.5 Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 min High Quality (160 kbps)
Lame MP3Version 3.98 Beta 3 (05.22.2007) Audio CD Terminator II SE, 53 min wave to mp3 160 kbps
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Benchmark Details
Grisoft AVG Anti-VirusVersion: 7.5.467 Virus base: 269.6.1/776 Benchmark Scan: Vista Enterprise (Windows folder) 8 GB
WinRARVersion 3.70 Beta 8 Compression = Best Dictionary = 4096 kB Benchmark: THG-Workload
Maxon Cinema 4D Release 10Version 10.008 Rendering from a scene (Water drop at a rose) Resolution: 1280 x 1024 - 8 Bit (50 frames)
Deep Fritz 10Version: Nov 16 2006
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Benchmark Details
PCMark05 ProVersion 1.2.0 CPU and Memory Tests Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646 Windows Media Encoder 9.00.00.2980
SiSoftware Sandra XI SP1cCPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / MultiMedia Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark
Bert Toepelt
49 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Where's Linux tests?.
    Reply
  • randomizer
    This saved me time researching for an assignment :)
    Reply
  • jaragon13
    Shouldn't it be on 9 - cooling and temperatures,be idle and load,instead of idle and idle? >.
    Reply
  • When you look at the power consumption on load and compare it to the slowness of the chip while performing on load, it becomes clear why it only uses 4 watts more...
    Reply
  • A CPU without a platform is useless.
    Analyzing the Atom platform quickly from the power/performance perspective.
    CPU name / idle W / load W/ Lame (seconds) / total Lame W used
    Atom 230 / 40.5 W / 44.2 W / 773 s / 9.49 W
    Celeron 220 / 44.9 W / 55.4 W / 375 s / 5.77 W
    E2140 / 58.5 W / 69.5 W / 271 s / 5.23 W

    Clearly the Atom platform is the most inefficient power/performance wise.
    At idle you might win some W, but as soon as you try to do something you spend more power and waste more time.
    There are other things you should consider, the frustration of having to wait for things that now we are used to do near instant and the inability to play HD video or use any significant graphics.

    The only thing positive for atom is it's price. It's cheap. And maybe with a new chipset it might even be power efficient. But for now it's just cheap.

    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    I wonder if it'd be able to play games if one were to equip it with a pci based 2400pro & 4gb of memory?
    Also, I wouldn't be surprised if someone invents a voltmod for those boards, so they can increase voltage for cpu, mch & ich enabling 2ghz+ speeds
    Reply
  • nachowarrior
    so in other words atom is pretty much a failure unless it's pumped into a tablet or umpc? and even then apparently isn't cost effective or readily available, nice...sounds like a great product launch.
    Reply
  • I ran a google search for ECS 945GCT-D mainboard, and could not find it.
    I don't get it, why do you publish tests with products that don't even exist on the vendor web site?

    Thank you, anyway
    Reply
  • Lans
    Raiden, while your numbers are true, I think a fairer comparison would be to use 773s for all processors (meaning the rest go to idle alot quicker). I suppose you can power your computer down afterwards or start up a web browser etc.

    Atom 230 (773s load / 0s idle) : 9.5W
    Celeron 220 (375s load / 398s idle): 10.7W
    E2140 (271s load / 502s idle): 13.4W
    Sempron LE-1100 (43.9W idle, 70.4W load, 301s load / 472s idle): 11.6W

    Sure this is biased against the Atom (not going idle at all) but with 4W delta between load and idle, I am too lazy to change the numbers already used.

    I find it comparing the Atom to a Sempron LE-1100 more and Celeron 220 interesting:

    "A Celeron at 1.20 GHz is 35% faster than an Atom at 1.60 GHz, but the Atom only consumes a fraction of the energy used by the Celeron. The AMD Sempron system, which uses almost the same energy in idle mode as the Atom system, is 43% faster."
    Reply
  • haley0918
    in anyway, despite of the low power and low performance, i still think it'll also be good as simple file server or home server besides as umpc. for experts, it'll be enough for some robotics and control application. just like the one used for Aiko in http://www.projectaiko.com
    Reply