Desktop Atom 1.6GHz Tested

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Those of you itching to see Intel’s Atom put to the test should hit this link to get that itch scratched. Fudzilla has put a pre-production sample through a handful of tests and the results aren’t what you might expect.

For Atom, Intel uses the old 945GC Northbridge with the ICH7 Southbridge. From the specs we have seen the chipset draws more power than the CPU itself. The tiny CPU is a stripped Core derived unit with 512kB of L2 Cache, 1.60GHz clock and only 133MHz FSB (533MHz quad pumped bus). It doesn't offer any special features, except that Intel re-worked their Hyperthreading feature, which will boost this single core's performance in some applications.
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It still doesn't tell me what I really need to know. They need to do UMPC processor benchmarks so I can decide which one to get. VIA C7-M vs Atom would benefit me better.

At home I use an Athlon 62x2 5000+ Barton and it's plenty fast. At work I use a Core2Duo 2.20ghz T7500 and that's even faster. But I have no experience with the Celerons listed, so I can't really tell how much slower it is.

I guess I'll have to see if I can get my hands on an Atom powered UMPC and try it myself at a computer store.
 
A little disappointing. I was hoping to use on in the near future to build a small home server, but that might not pan out unless the price is right.
 
*sigh

Intel designed this chip to have _lower_ IPC. This is actually because it will yield better _Total_ performance over _Total_ power used.

They've already said that the 1.6GHz Atom should have the performance of a 900MHz Pentium M.

So why this benchmark is surprising in any way remains to be seen.
 
It's a great chip for very small form factor cases and tiny mobiles*, but it looks like the initial version leaves a lot to be desired in desktop use. It's probably usable for many applications, but i'll stick with my Core 2-based picoBTX SFF desktops for server and media/htpc duties for now.

* check out the average power running office apps under XP for the mobile Z Atoms (wow): http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080529-via-takes-the-wraps-off-isaiah-meet-the-nano.html
 
Azhar is right. The market for the Atom goes up against the VIA C7 and against embedded chips/aps: Points of Sale/registers, kiosks, ATM machines, eeePC, internet-enabled TVs and Bluray DVD players.

Intel also wants this chip on future i-phones and UMPCs (internet browsing and media playback). Forget about building a PC/server with it (maybe an internet kiosk for your child or grandma), you will be better off using a celeron for any real PC builds.
 
Wow, I do not believe I have ever seen a "review" as bad as this one.

I see at least five other cpu combinations that the Atom was compared with, and they provided some arbitrary metric on which to compare the board with.

I see that the Celeron 220 was "twice as fast" in LAME, no comparison with SuperPI, "Two times slower" then the Celeron D 420 in the FPU Test, and the E8400 was "10 times better"

I guess the important information is there that it is lower performing then the D201GLY2 platform, but its difficult to quantify the real differences, as the tests were too centric on one specific function per comparison.
 
We need to see, a full lineup of via's and atoms, + C7's vs eachother!

And maybe amd's low power cpu's aswell as intels other low power cpu's to get a full picture, what do you desire most, low powerconsumtion vs more performance with abit more power consumtion.

For pda's i dont see reason why not to use a ATOM, in laptops, i dont see a damn reason to be honest.

Phones atom

laptops Isiah!
 
I wonder how it will compare to the D201GLYL (little valley - Celeron 220) when it gets a dual core version.

I have a Little Valley system already that I built in my office and for about $69 you get a NICE little system. (mobo/cpu combo) The only problem I have with it is that it can get a little laggy when its doing a lot of stuff at once (multi-tasking), which the Atom dual core MIGHT handle better.
 
I agree, it's not surprising at all considering that Atom is an in-order architecture processor with relatively little cache for an Intel chip. I for one am very interested in the new VIA nano CPUs (especially since they are pin-compatible with the C7s and are out-of-order). I think given time and multiple cores, Atom will be a great CPU.
 
slightly less power usage, helluva lot less performance. im not seeing the value here.
 
Monkey God said:
slightly less power usage
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I'm not sure where the reviewer got the "5W" difference. Intel lists the Celeron 220 as a 19W TDP processor and the 1.6GHz desktop Atom as a 4W TDP processor. The difference in system power may be around 5W at idle, but definitely not under load.
 
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