Processor Comparison

I won't. Honest.

Is anything I do on my A1 constrained by CPU performance? No.

Will the N330 reduce battery life? Yes. (Not admitedly, by a huge amount, but it all adds up.)

 

I'll probably pick up another netbook if they release one with a dual core, the wife wants one anyway so I'll fob her off with this one, take all the thanks and appreciation from her and then WHAMMO! I'll come home the next day with a new better one...

 

Interestingly, I ran some benchmarks in SiSoft Sandra Lite tonight on my A150, and the results seem to show that (at least in "synthetic" benchmark testing), it's pretty close to even with a Pentium M 1.4ghz.

Processor Arithmetic: 3881/3345 Atom 1.6ghz, 3392mflops/4544mips Pentium M 715 (1.4ghz)
Processor Multimedia: 29255/19910 Atom 1.6ghz, 14689iit/13289fit Pentium M 715 (1.4ghz)

(Note, I didn't test a Pentium M 715, it has numbers for probably a couple hundred different processors to compare performance with.)

 

I think it will be a fairly huge amount given that the 330 has a TDP of 8W compared to the 2.5W of the N270. But then again it has two cores and hyperthreading for a total of four virtual cores, which may be a bit excessive in a machine meant for basic tasks.

And i'm pretty sure the N270 has the Celeron M 353 900Mhz soundly beat in responsiveness, which can not be measured in numbers, thanks to hyperthreading. I was impressed by the speed boost anyway.

 

the power consumption isn't even optimal because intel isn't good at making chipsets. I saw test on toms hardware where they ran the atom platform against the slowest sempron possible...and the sempron outperformed by like double while consuming less energy.

 

umm, atom consumes less power than semprons...

 

right...but the Atom platform consumes more power. Remember the Sempron has half the chipset built in (memory controller) and that makes the entire platform more efficient. It doesn't really matter if the actual CPU consumes less power if the whole computer consumes more.

 

yeah, exactly! :lol:

 

I think GPU goes up to 7 to 10W, I know it's a "lot" but I still love the ideia of having a 2W CPU. I know it isn't enough to make a low consuption netbook and I know (while in charge) this little toy can go up to 30W. It coud be less, but with any other CPU it would be even more, thats for sure!

So, my question is... What CAN'T you do with N270?

 

A Mac Mini goes to 27W with a Core Duo processor...

 

No, actually it doesn't. It doesn't matter if the memory controller is in the CPU or the northbridge, it will use exactly the same amount of power. The difference is the efficiency of the memory controllers, but that isn't an issue of which piece of silicon they are on. The real power draw in all these chipsets is the integrated graphics, and Intel's is probably not as efficient as AMD's considering they aren't a real GPU manufacturer. The other thing those comparisons are also missing is non-load power use, the whole point of the Atom is that it can cycle down to use almost no power when it isn't under load. That is what gives good battery life.

The people who are waiting for the dual core Atoms are silly, I doubt the ones released this year will make it into netbooks the power draw and heat output is too high. You will have to wait for a core shrink and the new chipset that will come out next year.

 

The measurements and testing methodology are often chosen according to which one lends evidence for a pre-determined conclusion. Be very, very careful with what you read on hardware review sites... and manufacturer datasheets are rarely any better.

The desktop atom board doesnt use the same chipset as the netbook atom board. Totally different power draws.

Various results for Atom vs Sempron, Atom vs Nano were so far all done on desktop systems, generally with rather power hungry chipsets and very little if any energy optimisation.

The Intel desktop GMA950 is a pig, large idle and max power. The Atom 270 is 3W max, <0.1W idle.
The Intel netbook GMA950 5.5W max, probably a 1-2W idle. The Atom 270 is 3W max, <0.1W idle.
The AMD chipset runs cool, so even if the underclocked Athlon64 is a bit more power hungry than the N270, the CPU+chipset is fair bit less than the desktop Intel.
The VIA desktop chipset also runs cool, but the desktop version of the Nano runs hot at max power. Idle power draw is less than Intel, max draw is more. The CPU performance is better though.

We don't know yet how the netbook Nano system will stack up with netbook Atom, but knowing VIA as I do it will be a day late and a dollar short as always, showing up just about the time Intel releases a next generation product that outclasses it completely. Every indication is it will be "comparable" (being generous here) with the present generation Atom. Prediction: a little hotter, a tad faster, but poor, buggy graphics.

 

I don't quite agree with this statement. The fact that the memory controller is built into the CPU rather than another piece of silicon means that the component has to be designed with more power efficiency in mind as the ratio of TDP versus die area (surface area) is significantly lower on a CPU than it is on a chipset. Since chipset chips are a lot larger, this isn't as much of a concern.

 

Yes, but is not a matter that requires the memory controller to be in the CPU, it is a side effect and is what I meant by "efficiency of the memory controllers". I am certain that the chipset for the die shrunk dual core Atoms (that will be out 2nd/3d Q 09) will put more effort into lowering the TDP of the chipset*. Given the TDP of the atom they could have moved the current 945 memory controller to the CPU and not needed to make it more efficient, because the rest of the 945 functions would still be kicking out more heat then the CPU and memory controller combined.

* They have already done this for the version of the 945 in the AA1, compared to the desktop version. The desktop Atom boards are hilarious, because the Atom has a tiny passive heatsink, and the northbridge has a huge active cooled heatsink. When they remake the northbridge using Atom tech, they will save a huge amount of energy.