Benchmark Results: Power Consumption
Obviously, idle power is lowest on the newest system as a result of its more advanced silicon manufacturing process and degree of integration.
Despite its two cores, the new Atom D510 offers lower idle power than the single-core Atom 230, thanks to platform-based improvements.
Both Pentium 4 systems require idle power similar to what a current machine based on an Athlon II, Phenom II, or Core i3/i5/i7 would require when utilizing a discrete graphics solution.
Peak power on the Atom machines doesn’t change too much in comparison with the idle power results. The Pentium 4 side, however, requires considerably more power, which tells us that power efficiency should be rather poor on these old setups, since performance fails to scale upward with power consumption.
