Is an Atom better than an Athlon XP 2400+?
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From: Daniel James on 10 Sep 2009 18:11 In article <h838il$hv8$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Chris wrote: > ... the Ion chipset is much more frugal than the Intel one (from > what I've read). The intel 945G used in most ATOM based boards is horribly inefficient -- it uses much more power than the CPU itself (it's not the CPU that has the fansink on boards like the intel D945GCLF2) -- but it's not a very high performance chipset so its power needs aren't that great. The ION, on the other hand, is a fairly high performance chipset and -- however efficient it may be -- it does end up drawing more power than the 945 under most conditions. I saw a nice comparative review somewhere, with graphs that bore this out ... can't find it now (always the way) but have a look at: http://techreport.com/articles.x/16340/4 (which /says/ that the ion draws more power, and then says that an ion system draws only 25W from the wall, which is actually very good and better than I'd expect from a 945). or http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/nvidia-ion_10.html (not the review I had in mind, but it presents similar findings; showing the ion drawing at least as much as the 945 except at idle where it is very slightly better). I'd say that ion is fairly frugal, and while it does draw more power than the intel chipset under most condition it doesn't draw much more, and does perform better. OTOH the 945 is so bad that it shouldn't be too hard to design a chipset that outperforms it AND draws less power -- the ion isn't that chipset. The ion is also expensive ... �100+ for every Atom 330 board I've seen, while the D945GCLF2 is around �65 (plus VAT, in both cases). You'd have to run the ion at idle for a long time to make up the difference in saved power ... > the Atom cpu uses so little that it's insignificant. The Geode uses even less ... and is a lot slower. It all comes down to a question of which compromises you're prepared to make in the name of being green. Cheers, Daniel.
From: Gordon Henderson on 11 Sep 2009 02:13 In article <VA.00000001.00fea218(a)me.invalid>, Daniel James <daniel(a)me.invalid> wrote: >The Geode uses even less ... and is a lot slower. It all comes down to >a question of which compromises you're prepared to make in the name of >being green. I'm building (500MHz) Geode based 'embedded' type systems - 4 watts, 5 at a push. More than enough oomph for what I'm using it for, but I don't think I'd like a desktop with on (Actually hard with the systems I'm using as they have no graphics!) but way back my first desktop as a 66MHz AMD thing, and for a very long time I was using a 133MHz system... Gordon
From: chris on 11 Sep 2009 05:09 Daniel James wrote: > In article <h838il$hv8$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Chris wrote: >> ... the Ion chipset is much more frugal than the Intel one (from >> what I've read). > > The intel 945G used in most ATOM based boards is horribly inefficient > -- it uses much more power than the CPU itself (it's not the CPU that > has the fansink on boards like the intel D945GCLF2) -- but it's not a > very high performance chipset so its power needs aren't that great. That's right. The cpu draws about 8w (Atom 330) whereas the chipset draws about 20w. > The > ION, on the other hand, is a fairly high performance chipset and -- > however efficient it may be -- it does end up drawing more power than > the 945 under most conditions. That's contrary to what I've seen and the reason why I'm keen on it: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-ion-atom,2153-10.html http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562&p=51 > I saw a nice comparative review somewhere, with graphs that bore this > out ... can't find it now (always the way) but have a look at: > http://techreport.com/articles.x/16340/4 > (which /says/ that the ion draws more power, and then says that an ion > system draws only 25W from the wall, which is actually very good and > better than I'd expect from a 945). > > or > http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/nvidia-ion_10.html > (not the review I had in mind, but it presents similar findings; > showing the ion drawing at least as much as the 945 except at idle > where it is very slightly better). I wonder where the disparity comes in, then. They do mention different power supplies in your second link which could easily be where the extra draw comes from. I have seen benchmarks of poor quality PSUs being highly inefficient. > I'd say that ion is fairly frugal, and while it does draw more power > than the intel chipset under most condition it doesn't draw much more, > and does perform better. If you mean the xbitlabs benchmark, I doubt the 1w differences are significant. All you can say is that Ion has about the same draw in their conditions. So, at worst you get better performance for the same power draw. > The ion is also expensive ... �100+ for every Atom 330 board I've seen, > while the D945GCLF2 is around �65 (plus VAT, in both cases). You'd have > to run the ion at idle for a long time to make up the difference in > saved power ... That is true. Although the power difference isn't the only reason for choosing the Ion, that is a big price difference. hmmm... This isn't as obvious as I first thought. >> the Atom cpu uses so little that it's insignificant. > > The Geode uses even less ... and is a lot slower. It all comes down to > a question of which compromises you're prepared to make in the name of > being green. I want a useable desktop system (with X, Gimp, OOo and iPlayer functionality); a Geode won't give me that, from what I've seen. cheers...
From: chris on 11 Sep 2009 05:14 Gordon Henderson wrote: > In article <VA.00000001.00fea218(a)me.invalid>, > Daniel James <daniel(a)me.invalid> wrote: > >> The Geode uses even less ... and is a lot slower. It all comes down to >> a question of which compromises you're prepared to make in the name of >> being green. > > I'm building (500MHz) Geode based 'embedded' type systems - 4 watts, > 5 at a push. More than enough oomph for what I'm using it for, but I > don't think I'd like a desktop with on (Actually hard with the systems > I'm using as they have no graphics!) but way back my first desktop as > a 66MHz AMD thing, and for a very long time I was using a 133MHz system... Yup. I had an AMD 486DX4 100MHz for some of my degree and whole of my PhD (95-2001). It ran win98 well. It did have 32Mb of RAM, though... :)
From: Gordon Henderson on 11 Sep 2009 07:13
In article <h8d4d1$qfo$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Gordon Henderson wrote: >> In article <VA.00000001.00fea218(a)me.invalid>, >> Daniel James <daniel(a)me.invalid> wrote: >> >>> The Geode uses even less ... and is a lot slower. It all comes down to >>> a question of which compromises you're prepared to make in the name of >>> being green. >> >> I'm building (500MHz) Geode based 'embedded' type systems - 4 watts, >> 5 at a push. More than enough oomph for what I'm using it for, but I >> don't think I'd like a desktop with on (Actually hard with the systems >> I'm using as they have no graphics!) but way back my first desktop as >> a 66MHz AMD thing, and for a very long time I was using a 133MHz system... > >Yup. I had an AMD 486DX4 100MHz for some of my degree and whole of my >PhD (95-2001). It ran win98 well. It did have 32Mb of RAM, though... :) Er, well mine ran Linux, of-course :) Gordon "0.9r6" Henderson |