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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tynopik - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
in case i'm not making myself clear, your time based charts are NON-LINEARat the high end, going from 10 seconds to 9 (10% improvement) is far more impressive that going from 200 seconds to 190 (5% improvement), yet the bar representing that 5% improvement is 10 times longer than the bar representing the 10% improvement
tynopik - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
where are the T3400's and T6400's and the P8400's and Celeron 585's and Athlon X2 QL-62's and Turion X2 RM-70's and their ilk?the atom is mainly a MOBILE processor
so where are the other MOBILE processors?
casteve - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
Another +1 for adding an old Athlon or two into the mix. Looking forward to the GPU ratings as well. It would be nice to include a WoW benchmark with your midrange gaming cards - it may not be a graphics hog, but it's the most popular multiplayer game out there...pattycake0147 - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
I'd really appreciate an Athlon XP or two in the mix the 3000+ would be a decent place to start. I'd also like to see a couple non-HT P4's maybe 3.2 and 2.4 GHz.On the side there is currently an error in Bench.
The notes for the Athlon LE-1620 are just a long list of procs instead of the info on the system.
Eri Hyva - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
a Pentium3 @ 1Ghz and a single-core A64 3000+ would be nice.They run WinXP very well.
solarisking - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
Hell yes, include the old P4s.I bought the P4 2.8C, the first mainstream cpu with hyperthreading. It was the last one that held a performance advantage over AMD until the Core processors came along. So yeah, include them. In fact, one like mine with HT would be particularly interesting to see simply because of the HT.
Lord 666 - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
Actually the 2.4C was the first maintream Intel HT. Since the 2.4, 2.8, and 3.0 are the same CPUs, but just binned, any of them would be valid.I agree with your position as previously noted due to HT's revelance with Atom and i7. Not to mention corporate America still uses them.
DLimmer - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
I'd like to see a minimal dual core like the D820 (2.8)faxon - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
I have an Athlon 64 S939 4000+ San Diego which cost like $300 back in 2006 (pre Core 2 /cry). It is currently doing loaner duty with 2GB ram and an HD4670 on an evga NF47 Ultra board. could you guys possibly bench some of these old CPUs? there are probably still a lot of people out there who got these as gaming rigs back when dual core cpus all still cost like $6-900 and didnt give a major boost in gaming performance yet (pre core 2), and im sure there are still a couple of people who are using these rigs even today. it would be nice to compare the atom vs something like this since i would consider buying an atom computer for the same purpose (loaner/backup) as i would consider using my 4000+ rig for. Also, i still have a 2600+ T-bred rev-b AthlonXP with 1GB of ram and a 9800PRO 128mb. if you guys have something like this lying around still, that would be a sick thing to see benched, since im looking to donate this box to a friend soon if i cant find a better use for it (its an emachine with a new gpu ram opticals and PSU). If an atom machine would be a better performer, i might be able to convince him to shell out for something a bit better and get a new system instead of dealing with this old beater lolTA152H - Thursday, May 21, 2009 - link
I'd like to see a couple of Tualatins thrown in there, for comparison sake.I currently run a Celeron 1.4 GHz for one of my machines, and it's actually pretty good running Windows 2000. I don't know how it would run the bloated, but now somehow classic Windows XP, and I'm sure Vista would be horrible on it, but it's fine for the stuff I do on it.
A 1.4 GHz Pentium III-S would be nice to add to. My feeling is, this will beat the single core Atom, but I am curious about it.
Most importantly, I'd add the Centaur chips in as well, since they are competitors. Although, really, it seems the Nano (stupid name, is it not?) is somewhere between the Atom and the Core. The previous generation was very simple though, and I foolishly bought one at 800 MHz, figuring it wouldn't be THAT bad. A 400 MHz K6-III+ easily is faster :-P . I would be curious how they ran at high clock speeds though. So, I think one Nano and one C7 would be interesting.