Intel's Atom Processor Compared to 68 CPUs in Bench
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 20, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Anand
A few months ago I launched something we quickly titled "Bench". The idea behind AnandTech Bench is that it's a publicly accessible version of the database of benchmarks we've run internally. You can currently compare 34 AMD CPUs and 36 Intel CPUs in the engine across 18 benchmarks. I'm working on adding power data as well.
You can access Bench at its own URL: http://www.anandtech.com/bench
Currently Bench only has CPU data in it but there are plans to expand it to storage and GPUs in the future, the former being far easier than the latter due to constantly changing drivers. The data used in bench is the same data used in our reviews, but it has to be entered in manually after a new CPU launches. If you ever see a chip get reviewed on AT but don't see its data in Bench, drop me a line and I'll make sure it gets in there.
Today I added in data for the Atom 230 and 330 processors using Intel's D945GCLF and D945GCLF2 motherboards so you can see exactly how both single and dual-core Atom stack up to modern day desktop microprocessors.
I'm also considering running data on an older CPU. In my recent Zotac Ion review I included performance results from a single-core Northwood Pentium 4 2.66GHz processor, which inspired me to want to run a whole slew of older P4 numbers for inclusion in bench.
I don't think it's wise to spend several weeks rerunning every single old CPU out there, but I figured one or two couldn't hurt.
Any suggestions from the crowd? Is a single-core Pentium 4 good enough or would you like to see some dual-core P4 stuff? What about anything from the Athlon 64 days? Respond in the comments and come to some sort of reasonable agreement and I'll see about getting the data in there :)
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Zak - Friday, May 22, 2009 - link
Very useful, thanks!Z.
lemonadesoda - Friday, May 22, 2009 - link
I dont think it is necessary to have so many CPUs of the same architecture in the database, but just with different Ghz speeds. IMO, you only need 2 CPUs of the same architecture; a low speed one and a high speed one. That information is sufficient for us to see if the CPU scales well with speed.However, at the same time, I think there should be more architectures in the database; e.g. Tualatin, Northwood, Gallatin, and DP Xeons, like Sossaman, Woodcrest, Clovertown, Harpertown, Gainstown.
The table would then be very thorough/comprehensive.
Denithor - Friday, May 22, 2009 - link
This is exactly the direction my thoughts were going as well.Instead of cluttering things up with 50 different CPUs just pick a standard speed and compare in a variety of single and multi-threaded apps.
Chips with HT should be tested with & without to show the impact in both single & multi-threaded apps.
LtPage1 - Friday, May 22, 2009 - link
I'd be curious about an Athlon XP (specifically, the 2400+), because that's the chip I got into enthusiast computing with.JonnyDough - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
I would really like to see one of each of the following listed: High clock and low clocked single and dual-core athlons (that's 4 Athlons total - use DDR@400mhz of course), and a Pentium 3 @ 1Ghz for good reference if you can. A couple Pentium 4's are fine as well, although we already know they place a bit behind the Athlons. If these chips are too old or too insignificant, I might remind you that dual and single core Athlons are still quite capable of playing a lot of modern day games, and many of us are still on them.~Ryan
Randomblame - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
athlon xp 2500 plzlemonadesoda - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
... but please also add P4EE Gallatin (if you can) to the one or two P4s. Please also add a P3-Tualatin-high end... since these things still sit around in many servers. The performance and power compared to the Atom may determine many upgrade decisions.And for enthusiasts, please add dual Xeons and Nehalem-EPs. I chose the route of dual Xeon 5420's at stock and silent rather than the cheaper but noiser route of Core Quads on major overclocks.
Comparing dual Xeons to i7 to N-EPs would be very helpful indeed!
Etern205 - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
Just when to Intel's site and found out the Atom N330 is a dual core with HT.Now does that mean if HT is enabled then users will have 4 logical threads?
Etern205 - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
Add some Celerons to the mix.tynopik - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
you will quickly limit yourself and make it hard to see differences at the topinstead of minutes to complete task convert it to frames/sec or MB/sec or something so longer is better