Core i3 ulv vs. Atom Dual Core vs. AMD Athlon/Turion

All of these processors are dual core, meant to be used for cheap ultraportables. I was wondering which is the best in terms of performance. What do you guys think? My budget for a new netbook is up to $600 (Internet/MS Office/Matlab/Mathematica primary use - I have a desktop for video editing and stuff).

Here are specs for some ultra low voltage processors:

Intel Core i3-330UM: 1.2 ghz/dual core with hyper threading/3MB cache/DDR3 support (ex. Acer Timeline X AS1830-3927)

Intel Atom N550: 1.5 ghz/dual core with hyper threading/1MB Cache/DDR3 support (ex. Eee PC 1015N)

AMD Athlon™ II X2 K325:1.3GHz/Dual Core/2MB cache/DDR3 support (ex. Dell M101z)

 

The Core i3 will deliver the best performance, though performance per dollar is perhaps another matter.

 

^That. The Atom will come in dead last.

 

just an off-topic question, but how do atoms compare to the pentium 4?

 

PassMark - CPU Benchmarks - List of Benchmarked CPUs

 

Tom's Hardware compared Atoms and P4s at one point. I believe that Atom matched P4 in performance, but obviously consumed far less power and had a lower TDP.

 

the i3 is best but realy you'll need something better for matlab... look in 13 inch acer timelineX's... 3820TG... it has sufficient performance and is light and don't be lazy.. i'm carrying my G73 to uni every day for 1.5 hours travel time each way

 

something else to consider if it matters-

The AMD will come with a more powerful IGP,but this machine will have the worst battery life

 

Tom's also did an article of an E7200 C2D and an Atom 330, both on desktop boards. Believe it or not, the DESKTOP Core 2 actually had about the same power usage of an Atom. Atom's success has been it's public perception, because god knows, they're horribly inefficient for what they are. The Core i3 ULV will most assuredly show the Atom up in performance per watt, IN A HUGE WAY.

 

I read the article you linked. Obviously, very few desktop Core 2 Duo systems draw 31W at idle, just as very few Atom systems draw 28W at idle. Also, its interesting to note that Tom's Hardware made this pointed observation:

My point is that Core 2 Duo might be more efficient, but that doesn't mean it consumes less or emits less heat than Atom.

 

Exactly, power efficiency is not the point of the Atom. It's absolute power usage.

Atoms are good enough for what they are intended for: simple netbook usage with long battery life.

The dual core Atom N550 combined with ION will be fine for the average user during normal usage and HD video playback.