Core 2 and Atom difference?

Hey I'm new to the laptop scene. I was only wondering what is the difference between the Core 2 and Atom in real life practical applications?

If I buy a Core 2 T6400 laptop without a graphics card (for longer battery life) and an Atom computer with a graphics card, what will be the major differences and advantages in running things? (To be clear I mean practical things like ability to run photoshop, etc.)

 

I'd like to know more about this too.

 

May I ask why you want to pair the comparatively powerful processor with an integrated graphics card while pairing the very slow Atom with a dedicated graphics card? It just seems really weird to me.

Greg

 

Compare the Atom's performance to a Pentium M processor. They are very close in real-time usage. The Atom is a bit quicker than my old Acer's M, but in multitasking, it is a very similar experience. Compared to a Core 2 Duo [anything] it will not come close. With the single load of an application, you may see similar speeds, but with multitasking, encoding, etc. there is not match.

 

The Core 2 would flat out blow the Atom out of the water in any application. The Atom's purpose is to provide acceptable performance in basic applications like word processing and internet browsing, even then, it barely gets by. It'll run whatever a regular laptop can run, but expect some slowdowns.

 

The Core 2 T6400 (2.00 GHz) has 2 cores, 2MB cache, 800 MHz FSB and 35W TDP
The Atom (say the new N270) has a only 1 core, 512K cache, 1.60 GHz clock speed, 533 MHz FSB and 2.5W TDP.

In terms of performance, the T6400 is superior, but like you suggested, will use more power compared to the Atom processor. If you're running photoshop or any other CPU intensive programs, it's best to avoid using an Atom processor as it clearly will not provide sufficient speed/power. An Atom processor coupled with a dedicated graphics card would provide better performance for photoshopping, given that you are using CS4 or later in which hardware acceleration is enabled and can channel some of the processing tasks to the GPU. However, I'd still opt for the T6400 if photoshop is used in your main line of business.

 

BIG difference, core 2 duo is MUCH MUCH faster than an atom, i have a netbook and laptop, one atom and the other is core 2 duo.. both clocked at 1.8ghz if i want to open IE on the c2d, it would take 3 seconds, on the atom.. it takes an eternity, upwards of 10 seconds and websites take forever to load too.

in essence, a c2d + integrated is 100x better than an atom + dedicated
(and chances are, the dedicated card you're looking at isn't much better than the integrated anyways)

 

Thanks for the responses all, this will assist me so I would like as many opinions.

Most laptops I know with a graphics card have somewhere between 1-2 hours of battery life, which is too low for me.

Besides the example of photoshop, what else do you think would be a difference? I take it the CPU is faster for the Core 2 but i'm considering an integrated graphics limiting the performance.

It is not that slow, 10 seconds, is it? My classmate has a smaller version Atom notebook but it seems just as instant responding as my desktop PC.

 

In terms of practical applications, almost any Core 2 Duo will allow you to encode audio/video files, edit photos, utilise CAD programs, and play games. It will also let you do tasks such as these while you browse the web; in other words, the Core 2 can also multi-task.

By contrast, the Atom cannot really do these things, nor should it; the hardware that it is usually packaged with (ie, screen size, RAM) do not allow for these kinds of intense tasks. Nor does the Atom have any decent multi-tasking abilities. It's strength lies in the A) 1-2W power consumption and 2) the low heat dissipation, which allows for netbook designs (fitting even an ULV Core 2 into a netbook would be difficult and expensive).

Keep in mind that comparing the Core 2 to the Atom isn't just "unfair" in the realm of performance; it's also unfair in the realm of design. The Atom isn't designed with performance in mind; its designed with power requirements as the top priority. So in a sense, comparing the Core 2 to the Atom is really like comparing apples to oranges.

 

David, your reference to PS with the Atom is a good comparison based on the numbers, but not the case in real-life usage. I regularly run PS CS 3 on my 1000H with no issue. I was just editing a desktop the other day. Yes, it is not as quick as my T7700, but has enough power to run the program with nearly no lag on a multi-layered 2MB file. The Atom is great for the common tasks you must run and is decent at some of the more intensive ones. I would not run a video encoding project on it, but I would certainly use it for photo field work, playing some movie (yes even HD will work), and such. The actual limitations of the netbook, in my opinion, are the trackpad and the screen. Once you add-on a wireless mouse and a 19" LCD, it is as-if you were on any standard laptop. I regularly surf the web, type notes, watch a movie, and have my 5-10 tray processes running with zero issues. It multitasks like a dream. My temps stay low and I am on the standard EEE High Performance clock. I have upgraded to 2GB ram and disabled the PF, but that does not account for anything more than a 5-10% improvement, if that.

 

I am only trying to get a better understanding of the two, I thought perhaps the graphics card on the Atom chipset might even the playing fields a little bit which is why I compared them. But I am only trying to get some more opinions on the real life usefulness of the two.

 

Is that with a graphics card or without one? What kind of real life differences in programs can you see?

 

My old 15" Vostro 1500 9-cell had an 8600M GT and T7500 and I'd get 6 hours battery life (And this including playing MP3s and doing office tasks, I'm not talking just leaving it sitting somewhere).

 

The 1000H uses an intel integrated video card. Now take into account, that CS 3 does not utilize the gpu like CS 4 will. By way of real life differences? Loading Firefox takes a couple extra seconds, I do drop a couple frams in fast paced HD video, the save dialog in Word takes another 3 seconds.

My word of advice is to buy a netbook for its size, not features. If you have a need for an ultra portable computer platform, than a netbook is the way to go. If you are looking for a general use laptop with portability, look at the 13" or 14" laptops. I use a netbook because I have a 17" desktop replacement laptop and go to college where the desks are very small. I am not using it as a replacement platform, but as an alternative. When I need to do my serious usage, I am on my beast.

 

We're not going to see many Atom-based laptops with "real" GPUs until nVidia starts rolling out Ion.

 

TMAC, there is the Asus N10 where people have played games such as COD 4 and said that i was at a playable level. ION will be a better integration but not until it is released, which should be for a while.

 

Asus N10 has an HDMI port which makes it a very appealing notebook for it's size

 

Quite true. My previous post wasn't meant to exaggerate the Atom's incompetence, but merely trying to reflect the differences between the Atom and a Core 2. The images I usually work with PS are 10+MB and I usually work 2-3 images at a time, so I guess in my case, the Atom may not be sufficient. However, smaller image files may be ok.


At OP: If you're not going to be doing any gaming or using CAD applications, then an integrated graphics card would suffice. Other than PS, video encoding can also take a toll on CPU usage as some others have already mentioned. A stronger CPU will also yield faster booting times and able to perform better multitasking.

 

An Atom is has a VERY low raw computing power compared to a Core 2 Duo. Take a look at the following benchmark, it is almost as slow as an old Pentium III 1.13GHz came out in 8 years ago.




But for normal work like web browsing, music and movies, most people will find an Atom quite capable. I have used one for a while and it was pretty ok for basic stuff. But DON’T even for a moment think an Atom can be equivalent to a Core 2 Duo with or without a dedicated gfx card when it comes to serious CPU intensive work.

 

watch this space for Dual Core Atoms!

 

That benchmark exaggerates the worst part of Atom. Average performance of Atom is far better than the Pentium III compared. It would only be off by 10-20% per clock.

 

hummm, my p8600 does superpi just like a quad? nice))) i know, it singlethreaded, but still))))

talking about Atom, it's really nice to have as a very portable allternative, but by no means it can be compared to C2D. For example, when I work in PS, it's like 50+ layers, Atom would die on it

 

Atom built for power savings, Core 2 built for speed.

 

Mine too, ~22secs. But you gotta have in mind that the quad doesn't calculate superpi faster because of 4cores, it only use 1 core for it(?)

 

Which is why no one uses SuperPi for multi-core CPUs any more...

 

Exactly

 

Nobody runs a Q6600 at 2.4 Ghz anyway. I get 16 seconds in SuperPI 1M on mine.

 

and what does it have to do with Atom and portability in general?

 

What do these last 4 posts of people comparing their P8600's to a 2.4 GHz Kentsfield have anything to do with an Atom? I didn't hear you complaining about them being off topic.

 

It has to do with how you compare the performance correctly between it and the Atom ofcourse, what else? It's important to know it's single threaded so you can get picture on how it performs in comparison.

The only offtopic reply on the last posts is the one guy who said that "nobody runs a quad at 2.4ghz and that he got a 16s superpi result".

 

indeed

.

 

Mobile Processor benchmark list at Notebookcheck:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

According to this chart it looks like Atom falls a bit under the original standard voltage (24W TDP and 130nm silicon) Pentium M chips (codename Banias).

A bunch of (ultra?) low voltage Pentium M (5W TDP) Banias (130nm silicon) and Dothan (90nm silicon) chips are clustered around it as well.

To be fair the benchmarks are kind of thin this far down the list but as an approximation this should answer your question I think.

Of note: Atom graphics (GMA 950) are 2 generations ahead of the integrated graphics that shipped with the first Pentium M (which came with "Intel Extreme Graphics 2" as part of the Carmel platform)

 

I don't really get how they put them in order. For example, looking at the scores of my P8600, all but one of them are higher than desktop E6600, wich is placed ABOVE it. Humm?

 

According to that, an atom is ~2.2 times slower than a similarly clocked Pentium M dothan. Thanks.

 

Just out of curiosity, didnt the Pentium III 1.13Ghz processor only use like 15 watts of power?
If I remember correctly it did, which would mean that the Atom is slower per MHz clock speed x watt than the pentium III

K-TRON

 

The Pentium III-M Tualatin listed had a TDP of 21.8. That is nearly 5x the the atom, so:
-The atom has 5 times the performence per watt.
-The pentium III does about 30% more work per clock

 

The atom has a 2.5watt TDP, wow. I thout it was 10 watts.
My above post doesnt make any sense than, please disregard.

K-TRON

 

Not all Atoms have a 2.5 watt, for example the N280 doesn't, it is 2 watts.

 

There is no miracle here. The power is "saved" because the L2 cache of Atom chips is small. That is why old Pentium M outperform Atom in some tests.

 

SuperPI inflates the difference between Atom and other chips. Atom is better than SuperPI bench indicates. Atom 1.6GHz is around equal to 1.3GHz Pentium III in single thread applications or a 900MHz Pentium M.

BS. Caches are the most power efficient part of the chip when its active which is what the TDPs are based on. Atom uses multiple tricks to lower active TDP.

Also, clock for clock, thread for thread the Core 2 is "only" 30-40% faster in integer(vast majority of applications) than Pentium M.

 

huh? the atom is no way near as powerful as the pentium m.... the atom barely levels with a celeron m...

 

At least for SuperPi, the difference is much more than 40%.

 

it does, the current atoms perform about the same as the 1.4ghz pentium M from back in 2002/2003

 

Actually according to that SuperPI screenshot, Core 2 is only 20% faster than Pentium M. That would make sense as SuperPI would stress the performance of the core rather than the memory subsystem more(like caches and RAM. Core 2 of course pulls ahead even further in real world because of higher bandwidth, better caches and faster SSE engines.

Same with Atom. The 1.6GHz Atom should be in practical terms equal to 1.3-1.4GHz Atom. The Atom has less execution units than the Pentium III but it has bigger L1 cache, faster FSB, better data prefetchers, Macro Op Execution etc to make up for the lack of out of order execution.

I'm only talking for non multi-thread.

 

Its actually more, a 2.13 Ghz pentium M would do 1M in 34s, thus core 2 is 30% faster.

Hmmm, I could have sworn that the difference was more according to the superpi results on NBR

 

Atom suxx... 5 year old Pentium M rock them... >.<
Its all about marketing. Thats one thing intel is good at.
(dont get me wrong, core architecture roxx, but atom suxx as hell and cant even handle vista)

 

Atom is just a 'modern' Pentium 1. It's designed to (eventually-right now it still draws too much power) compete with ARM CPUs. It's a joke next to...well in terms of the actual execution hardware it's a joke next to a Pentium 2/Pro clock for clock, let alone a Pentium 3 or Pentium M (or newer!)

Makes sense...in a way it's kind of impressive it even does that well. Probably 'cause it has up to date instruction sets and chipsets and whatnot.

 

When will mainstream notebooks be able to do this?: Link

 

Well, it says Q1 of next year. Not that I'm exactly holding my breath for an updated Atom platform. :-D