Intel's New Atom D510 Benchmark Tested 86
adeelarshad82 writes "The Atom processor in nettops and netbooks is one of Intel's success stories for 2009. Recently PCMag put the new Intel Atom D510 processor through its paces, to see how it stacks up against previous generation Atom CPUs. Using a whitebox system from Intel, they ran their usual set of benchmark tests on the system. In summary the D510-equipped whitebox finished neck and neck with the dual-core powered Acer R3610-U9012. So while there are differences between the two, if you already have a nettop running the dual-core Intel Atom 330 processor you won't have to upgrade 'just because' there's a new CPU in the wings."
So in other words (Score:2, Funny)
Although lower power is always nice.
Re:So in other words (Score:5, Informative)
Lower power, lower cost, bigger L2.
It's an admission (Score:5, Insightful)
The very existence of netbooks and nettops are an admission by the entire industry that the majority of tasks performed by computers these days are served well enough by a "Pentium III", perhaps with the addition of a better GPU than existed back then.
It's confirmation of the old suspicion that computers were becoming TOO powerful for most current uses, that hardware has been advancing quicker than the typical needs of the software. While everyone may benefit from a quad-core 3GHz CPU once in a while, it's not many of us even here that require it every hour of the day (you guys playing Forged Alliance in Mom's converted basement are excepted). It's that "subjective experience" bit all over again: having to wait longer than an instant for something to complete, even just for a few minutes total a day, is the subjective experience that sticks with us, while we conveniently forget the good times that went on the rest of those 24 hours. It's like what they say about it being the little (negative) things that wind up killing marriages.
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Get what done?
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I think the whole comment was a wildcard.
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Okay... and how many minutes total out of every 24 hours will that be using close to 100% of each core? Is the process so utterly time-critical that you can't wait a few more seconds or minutes for it to complete on a less expensive, less energy-sucking, less heat-spewing CPU? C'mon, admit it... the answer's no, isn't it?
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So? An Athlon XP is also virtually unusable for many tasks now; it's not a reasonable comparison. A more reasonable one would be a comparison to one of the Atom-, ARM-, or Ion-based systems, which are much more capable than the fastest of the old Athlon XP series AND draw less power and produce less heat than both the Athlon XP and Core 2 Duo.
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I wouldn't expect that to be the case. Citations? I need to see proof. :-)
Re:It's an admission (Score:5, Funny)
That is why Flash was developed. It requires lots of resources even for simple tasks. It brings back the computing experience of the late 90s.
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I think I just threw up a little bit in the back of my mouth.
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It's part of a conspiracy of a world-wide cartel of efficiency-oriented programmer that control computing, to ensure their skills remain in demand. Whenever computers start getting too fast, they contrive another layer. The iPhone is another of their strategies.
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And why would you actually want such a thing to take place, unless:
(a) you're a hopeless ADD case addicted to the next shiny thing*, or
(b) you're in the business of selling overpriced computer hardware?
* In which case, build yer own damned next shiny thing and pestering the rest of us.
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What lawn? All I see is a meadow of weeds... *swish* *swish*
*thump* Damn, what's a lawnmower doin' in here? Looks like it hasn't been started since the Eighties... which might explain the meadow?
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Why should we need a multi-GHz computer to do word processing and look up information? Those tasks should be instantaneous on a 100MHz computer!
Re:No kidding (Score:2)
Frankly to the detriment of my own business I have done more repair and upgrade than new builds. I'm a bit too honest for my own good I guess, but I just don't see the point in telling a customer that the upgrade they think they need could be achieved through more ram or a better video card. There are some exceptions of course but mostly heavy gamers or those into audio/video stuff. I used to upgrade every 6-8 months, but my main desktop I have had for going on 3 years. In fact the only machines I have
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Indeed, that's the case now for the most part. The last two upgrades I've had (laptop & desktop) have been because the prior one broke. While it's nicer to be able to render something in 15 seconds vs 60, it's still long enough that there's a definite gap. (Also, 15 seconds is in some ways more annoying, because at a minute, you are free to do something else, 15 seconds isn't enough time to finish much of anything.)
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No matter how far back you go, portable computers ALWAYS had CPUs slower than their desktop counterparts for the sake of lower heat, and longer battery life.
When the majority of DESKTOP PCs use such slow CPUs, THEN you might have a point. Right now, you're ju
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Wrong! I live deep in the recesses of a cave, so I don't have a worldview!
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touché
You're right, some data to back it up (Score:2)
$ uptime
17:04:37 up 3 days, 7:03, 0 users, load average: 0.04, 0.06, 0.01
$ cpufreq-info | grep "cpufreq stats"
cpufreq stats: 2.40 GHz:1.97%, 2.13 GHz:0.03%, 1.87 GHz:0.04%, 1.60 GHz:97.97% (302491)
cpufreq stats: 2.40 GHz:2.11%, 2.13 GHz:0.02%, 1.87 GHz:0.03%, 1.60 GHz:97.84% (254077)
cpufreq stats: 2.40 GHz:2.18%, 2.13 GHz:0.02%, 1.87 GHz:0.02%, 1.60 GHz:97.78% (203704)
cpufreq stats: 2.40 GHz:1.15%, 2.13 GHz:0.01%, 1.87 GHz:0.01%, 1.60
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You were taking my comments more literally and absolutely than they were intended; I didn't literally mean a Pentium III should be fine. I meant it relative to, say, a Core i7 or a Phenom II X4 9950. In that context, your Atom is the figurative Pentium III, good enough for 90% of what needs to get done without being SO under-performing that it actually causes a material problem. If it causes perceptual problems, well... be patient and get over it. :-)
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The very existence of netbooks and nettops are an admission by the entire industry that the majority of tasks performed by computers these days are served well enough by a "Pentium III", perhaps with the addition of a better GPU than existed back then..
I agree 100% the problem is Code Bloat and no optimization.
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What is very significant is that performance a decade old is being marketed directly to end users, in more or less overtly "computer" shaped packages. If you count embedded stuff, you can find all sorts of archaisms hanging around; but the fact that old performance is showing up in new computers, meant for individual use, is quite interesting.
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Re:Very poor video build in to cpu and no DVI / hd (Score:1)
From the way you talk, there's no point in selling anything but top of the line i7 or Xeon systems, because who would ever want any of those cheaper, less powerful crappy systems?
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It could be that Intel is planning on spinning a STB variant of these new Atoms, or some upcoming equivalent, with video that doesn't suck, and they prefer to keep the two separate(perhaps to
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1) Supermicro has two Atom based "server" motherboards. They have 1 PCI
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Actually the entire design is marketing enforced, everything smells of we try to kill ION in its infancy. Atom itself had the potential to impact the desktop sales of NVidias more powerful processors by simply attaching a decent graphics card on their utter garbage the Atom in fact really is. (Atom is a wannabe ARM which needs ten times the power of a similar specced ARM)
Intel tried to kill ION over illegal pricing structures the last months and now they are doing it the legal way by simply cutting off the
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No joke. I can live without a full PCI-e bus IF you give me some decent performance I would let it ride. God don't they own Ati?
But this thing? Its DESIGNED to take the Ion and anyone else who wants to make a chipset for it out of the game. Look at the whitepapers here: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/atom/techdocs.htm [intel.com]
There will NEVER be a system, using this chip, with a DVI out neither. Why? The CPU outputs DIRECTLY to VGA. It has a LDVS interface, but it doesn't look like you can split it
Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
You want to add a PCIe video card to an atom system? WTF? Do you also want to fit a racing spoiler on your Smart Car? This is a low power chip. It is designed for efficient systems that doesn't do a whole lot, like netbooks. It is not designed for gaming. If you want a system with external graphics Intel makes a chip for that too. You hay have heard of a little thing called the Core 2, which is available in desktop and mobile versions, is fast as hell, and uses external graphics.
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Actually with the old netbooks it was like that. Plain ATOM reference design, cheap junk doing the bare needs. Add to that an ION, the power consumption went down, you could full HD video without straining the processor and it was possible to play games (not the latest ones, but it was possible)
The new design is like that, you have to buy a SOC and then there is no way to add a better graphics card!
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You DO know the PCIe is a bus right? You don't JUST plug a video card into it, this is not AGP world now.
Most modern motherboards use the PCIe bus for everything. Built in network cards, the keyboard controller, USB ports all run on that bus on the board. Just because there are no slots on the board dosn't mean it doesn't use it all internal.
My complaint was that I thought it only had a single 2.5Gbps bus channel for everything outside of the processor. It was too limiting as if you wanted an MPEG4 deco
Euh, Atom 330? (Score:1)
It sucks.... Major balls... I have an Point Of View Atom 330 motherboard and it's barely usable for common task like surfing, email and word processing. I only tried it using Ubuntu, but I have an ION version so it should compensate for video display. Frankly.... No... It doesn't. Flash video is barely usable, Flash games like Farmville on Facebook are unusable.
I know, I know... the focus is low power, but my Asus EEE 701 4G does better with it's Celeron 900MHz. So saying that it's barely better than a
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Flash games like Farmville on Facebook
Gave my sister an 2.4 Ghz E6600 to tackle that game but it still runs like a dog.
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Re:Euh, Atom 330? (Score:4, Informative)
As the previous posted said, use Flash 10.1. The hardware acceleration makes a huge difference. Before using the "beta" version Flash was practically unusable.
I have a Atom 330 with nVidia ION as well, and it can decode 720p H.264 video just fine (about 10-20% CPU usage in media player classic, or 30-40% with Flash). Haven't tried 1080p, but I'd suspect it works okay too. I'm using Win7, but I'd suspect that shouldn't make a difference.
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That said, I got a Revo 3610 (Atom 330, tiny, ION chipset, wireless N, gige) and so far I'm quite happy with it. It's very quiet-- quieter than anything else in my house, anyway... And hardware support is good under Linux. Video playback with VLC/mplayer is fine. Youtube fullscreen is choppy: again, fuadobe. Come on, HTML5!
I
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I don't know how true or accurate this statement is, but Adobe claims no hardware acceleration on Linux is due to lack of standard API.
In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. The Flash Player team will continue to evaluate adding hardware acceleration to Linux and Mac OS X in future releases.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer10.1_hardware_acceleration_02.html
Either Adobe is full of it (which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest), or somebody better start cracking that egg.
I think the key to remember is not you may not be able to do it on linux (because you clearly can do hardware accelerated video decoding), but that the tools *may* not be
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I don't know how true or accurate this statement is, but Adobe claims no hardware acceleration on Linux is due to lack of standard API.
In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. The Flash Player team will continue to evaluate adding hardware acceleration to Linux and Mac OS X in future releases.
On OSX, can this not be accomplished via OpenCL? And aren't similar solutions available on Linux??
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You might ask the mplayer guys. They seem to do hardware acceleration on Linux just fine. My guess is the single guy who ports to Linux is just incompetent. He can't even figure out ALSA [slashdot.org], and the fact that various helper libraries exist confuses him.
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The main issue here is the new Atom is crippled, it is deliberately designed to keep the ION chipset at bay by doing a SOC design. There is no speed difference to its predecessors.
So what we will see from that will be just another flood of new netbooks doing the old things, and less ION based ones (as if there were that many to begin with, Intel was rather successful to keep them away by outpricing NVidia by illegal means - they sold the GMA + Atom combination cheaper than Atom alone so NVidia was on a lost
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What I noticed at first though that it would often lock up after 15 minutes or so and the screen would go corrupt. It was the know fan/heat issues on this one so I got myself a smaller casing (one made for Atom), bought a better GPU fan, replaced the thermal
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Meh, I run 1080p video just fine on my 330/Ion/Linux machine. It's just flash that sucks balls, and seems persistent in doing so. If flash was open source someone would have patched in VDPAU support long ago, for now we're left at the mercy of Adobe *shudder*. From what I've understood their hardware acceleration support is DXVA = Windows only even in the latest beta, they need to be take out back and shot 100 times as bad as IE6.
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So play Game! [wittyrpg.com] instead, no Flash!
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An Ion based system can run a mythtv frontend with 1080p video and provide 1080i deinterlacing that is superior in quality to the software deinterlacing you can get off of a Core 2 Duo, and the Ion system does it with CPU >90% idle and about a 25 watt power draw for the whole system.
power savings (Score:2)
Although performance is no better, the new chip sips power. That will lead to longer life or cheaper batteries. Win.
Who cares about benchmarks? (Score:2)
I care a bit. A little bit.
What I care more about, though, is if it can even come close to ARM CPUs in power per watt ratio. (Atom fanboys: First add the giant north bridge monster to your calculations before you answer. ^^)
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Well wonderful then, I'll just get an ARM netbook and run all my apps on it! What's that? My apps don't run on ARM? Well there you go then.
ARM fanboy: The reason people like the atom is because it runs the massive amount of x86 OSes and apps out there. You can crow on about how much better your CPU is as much as you like, it doesn't make any difference when you are sitting there not running anything because it doesn't have a good base of software. There is some extreme usefulness is having binary compatibil
Re:Who cares about benchmarks? (Score:4, Insightful)
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This shit is modded up? It should be marked -1 Troll as that's what it is.
Unlike you, some of us left the MS treadmill long ago so our apps run just fine on ARM. Many of the apps I use on my desktop Linux machine even work on Debian I have running in a bootstrap on my G1 cellphone. Just because you are locked in through your combination of fear/ignorance/laziness doesn't mean everyone else is too.
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No mod-points but: Parent Is Right!
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Well... My apps run on ARM. They run on x86, SPARC, MIPS and would run just the same on zSeries mainframes.
If your apps don't run on the hardware you want, then, perhaps, they are not really your apps - they belong to their makers and you are just the person using them.
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(Atom fanboys: First add the giant north bridge monster to your calculations before you answer. ^^)
Perhaps the ARM fanboy should RTFA, since there is no more giant north bridge?
Nettop itx ATOM board done right. (Score:1)
Look at the picture of this board. Unlike typical atom330+945gc nettop board it has NO FAN. And if we recall the fact that 945gc chipset consumes 25w of power, way more than 8w cpu itself, I would rather call this board "Nettop ATOM board done right, powerwise". So if you already have netbook which uses 945gse mobile chipset(which is already power efficient), this would mean nothing more than minor facelift. But if you're going to buy atom330+945gc itx nettop board, this is much improved product to consider
More reviews at techreport.com and anandtech.com (Score:3)
The main benefit of the new Atom platform is its improved efficiency.
More info at:
Intel's next-gen Atom arrives in Asus' Eee PC 1005PE netbook
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18167 [techreport.com]
"Pine Trail's pseudo-system-on-chip architecture is quite a departure from the first Atom platform and an impressive achievement for Intel. Not only has the company managed to drop the number of chips and dramatically reduce the platform's footprint, but it has also lowered power consumption by a healthy margin. Those improvements should make it easier for manufacturers to churn out slimmer and lighter netbooks with better battery life than ever before."
Intel Atom D510: Pine Trail Boosts Performance, Cuts Power
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3692 [anandtech.com]
"First, new vs. old Atom. With a real world performance improvement approaching 10% on the desktop, I'm happy with the performance of Pine Trail. Short of Intel introducing a brand new architecture, Atom isn't going to get much better, so the fact that we're getting anything is worth being happy about.
The impact of the on-die memory controller is noticeable on overall system performance. As I said earlier, my Pine Trail testbed was snappier and more responsive than my older Atom machines. It's by no means fast, but it's noticeably faster than before.
Power consumption is also much improved thanks to Intel ditching the archaic 945 chipset. Although the impact on battery life in netbooks is going to be more exciting than drawing less power at the wall. Pine Trail is worth waiting for."
ASUS Eee PC 1005PE: Pineview Arrives
http://anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3693 [anandtech.com]
"The latest release of Atom brings quite a few changes, but the net result isn't quite as impressive as we were hoping. We have an integrated memory controller in the CPU along with a GPU on package. Those are cost saving measures that also provide some benefits in terms of power requirements. What they apparently don't provide is a significant improvement in performance. Anand saw around a 10% improvement in performance relative to Diamondville on the desktop, but the real problem is what we didn't get.
Specifically, Pineview needed a lot more than GMA 3150 to make it attractive. Given a choice between N280 ION and N450 Pineview, ION will offer a better overall experience for the vast majority of users. If you want to do a silent HTPC, Pineview is going to need some form of external graphics, making the GMA 3150 a waste of space. We would have been much happier if Intel had included GMA 4500 instead, and even then it would be underpowered compared to ION."