Tell me about Intel Atom

[wersdaluv]

I've been looking for machines and now, I'm considering Intel Atom-powered ones.

I want to have firefox, pidgin, rhythmbox/banshee, xchat, prism, and a windows xp virtual machine all at the same time. I can't do that with my Celeron M-powered laptop. If I run a windows xp virtualbox, I should close all those other apps or leave just one app open for my desktop to run smoothly.

How fast is Intel Atom? How much faster is it than my Celeron M? How is it compared to Core 2 Duo? If I run windows with it and play games like warcraft, will it run smoothly?

[kevin11951]

I've been looking for machines and now, I'm considering Intel Atom-powered ones.

I want to have firefox, pidgin, rhythmbox/banshee, xchat, prism, and a windows xp virtual machine all at the same time. I can't do that with my Celeron M-powered laptop. If I run a windows xp virtualbox, I should close all those other apps or leave just one app open for my desktop to run smoothly.

How fast is Intel Atom? How much faster is it than my Celeron M? How is it compared to Core 2 Duo? If I run windows with it and play games like warcraft, will it run smoothly?

lets just say the Intel atom processors were made for mobile devices...

[z0mbie]

If you're looking for virtualization, I wouldn't recommend the Atom processor. Intel's Atom is targetted for lightweight cloud computing.

[gn2]

How fast is Intel Atom? How much faster is it than my Celeron M? How is it compared to Core 2 Duo? If I run windows with it and play games like warcraft, will it run smoothly?

An Intel Atom is a single core CPU which performs less work per Ghz than a Celeron M.
It is likely to be even less suited to your specific needs than your current Celeron, which if I remember correctly from previous posts is a 530?

Typically the new Intel Atom Netbooks cost about £330 in the UK, I was going to buy the cheaper Acer Aspire One, but have decided to go for an Asus F9E (http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=75&l3=480&l4=0&model=1833&modelmenu=1) for £400 instead.
It would easily perform all the tasks you need.

[wersdaluv]

An Intel Atom is a single core CPU which performs less work per Ghz than a Celeron M.
It is likely to be even less suited to your specific needs than your current Celeron, which if I remember correctly from previous posts is a 530?

Typically the new Intel Atom Netbooks cost about £330 in the UK, I was going to buy the cheaper Acer Aspire One, but have decided to go for an Asus F9E (http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=75&l3=480&l4=0&model=1833&modelmenu=1) for £400 instead.
It would easily perform all the tasks you need.
I have an Intel® Celeron® M processor 360

[gn2]

I have an Intel® Celeron® M processor 360

If that CPU won't do all you require, neither will an Atom.

The Atom fitted netbooks are intended for light internet browsing and word processing etc, they are not up to running multiple apps and VM's simultaneously.

If you need that capability look at a Core 2 Duo.

[wersdaluv]

If that CPU won't do all you require, neither will an Atom.

The Atom fitted netbooks are intended for light internet browsing and word processing etc, they are not up to running multiple apps and VM's simultaneously.

If you need that capability look at a Core 2 Duo.

Or Core Duo, right?

[Eclipse.]

Core Duos are really old now, I would try and avoid them.

They were released in January 06.

[gn2]

Or Core Duo, right?

Yes, but the difference in price between a Core/Pentium Duo and a Core 2 Duo isn't that big, so better to go for a newer Core 2 Duo.

[ssam]

if you want fast virtual machines, then you need a CPU that supports it, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

on intel chips that means you want one with intel VT http://www.intel.com/technology/virtualization/

Not all core 2 duos have it so it is worth checking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors is a handy resource

[zachtib]

you don't NEED VT to run VMs, but yes, it would be advisable

[shuffman37]

If you can find one of the dual core N330 models it would be slightly better for multitasking. For single threaded stuff that Celeron-M would do a much better job. The nvidia-ion based boards are pretty good when it comes to graphics acceleraton but are very pricy and I haven't seen any netbooks with that chipset :confused:

[Sporkman]

The Core 2 Duo(tm) is the best processor in le monde!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj4aJIfUwwM&feature=related

[armandh]

my dell mini9 [atom powered] runs 8.10 with all the cube video goodies,
but I dual boot xp for the little bit I need quickbooks.

your stated use is probably out of it's reach.

[kerry_s]

i got the dual core atom 330, its pretty sweet it's taken everything i've thrown at it in stride, i have gotten it to stutter a few times but i think thats more internet related rather then the cpu fault, usually streaming, i'm on wireless. multitasking works like a champ, i've browsed the web, while working on docs, while watching a movie without any noticeable hiccup.

[3rdalbum]

The Intel Atom works very well for home servers, and pretty well for netbooks (or, I guess, nettops). Running a virtual machine will be painful, because not only is the Atom a low-power-low-performance processor, but the rest of the computer is also built for low power use so you'll have a slow front side bus, the RAM will barely run at DDR2 speeds, you'll have a laptop hard disk or a low-grade SSD, and the extremely-ordinary Intel graphics has been underclocked.

[andersja]

Has anyone got Atom vs Celeron M comparison experience for Skype video?

Planning to set up an as-cheap-as-possible video phone with Celeron M laptops + Ubuntu Karmic + Skype, but would appreciate your thoughts: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1283176

[rockney]

Another good use for the Intel Atom is in low-power appliances. Low-power means you can build a quiet fanless system with no moving parts. It would not make any noise at all. And it eliminates maintenance of the thing that causes the most problems in long-running servers - fan and hard drive bearings.

I'm about to order a fanless Intel Atom mobo, a solid state hard drive (SSD), and fanless Mini-ITX chassis with an external power supply (brick) and run Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server on it.

This is to replace a very old 233MHz Pentium III system that is my firewall, gateway, etc. system. Thought I'd better replace it before it dies of old age ;)

I'll report back with how it goes together when it's done.

[rockney]

Well - we built these new servers with the 1.6GHz Intel Atom processors, 2GB of DDR-2 RAM, and a 32GB solid-state drive (SSD).

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty server went in very well. Worked great.

Was about to deploy it ... then decided to upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 Karmic. Bad mistake. The upgrade is glacial in performance and trashed several packages and configurations.

So although it all has to be done over again the hardware works well for a "cigar box" sized appliance. This MSI ITX mainboard has 2 ethernet ports making it great for a firewall/gateway - and it's fanless all solid-state so there's no moving parts.

I would not use an Atom processor for production servers or a workstation. But for particular dedicated applications they're great.

[kerry_s]

Well - we built these new servers with the 1.6GHz Intel Atom processors, 2GB of DDR-2 RAM, and a 32GB solid-state drive (SSD).

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty server went in very well. Worked great.

Was about to deploy it ... then decided to upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 Karmic. Bad mistake. The upgrade is glacial in performance and trashed several packages and configurations.

So although it all has to be done over again the hardware works well for a "cigar box" sized appliance. This MSI ITX mainboard has 2 ethernet ports making it great for a firewall/gateway - and it's fanless all solid-state so there's no moving parts.

I would not use an Atom processor for production servers or a workstation. But for particular dedicated applications they're great.


yeah, the intel drivers in karmic are just so boned & the weird crashing for no reason, which only tells you your system may now be unstable.
i moved my system back to debian lenny, which runs like a champ, everything just works. this is on my second atom machine, just a single core with 512mb ram, i haven't been able to afford a 2gb stick yet.
i'm running this now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119011
but i got it when it was on sale for $86.99

[rockney]

Nice little box. We got 2 of these http://www.itxdepot.com/xcart/product.php?productid=2119#options with the MSI 945GC single-core CPU. With a 32GB SSD and 2GB of RAM it was right at $400 and ITXDepot.com put it together for us.

I'm going to take a quick run at burning this bad 9.10 upgrade off then trying a scratch install ... just to see if the upgrade procedure is the issue. Will report my findings soon.

[Warpnow]

If you play a song an atom CPU Firefox will struggle to load flash content and will slow up when more than 2 tabs are open.

Edit: The atom is likely slower than your Celeron M, not faster.

But finding another cpu that retails with a motherboard for $50 and uses 20watts as a total system will also be difficult.

[cascade9]

Dont forget that a lot of Atoms come with the 945CG chipset, that uses 22watts by itself. The 945GSE is much lower powered, but I've only the 945GSE in laptops so far.

To the OP- like everybody else said, an Atom would be fine, apart from virtualbox. Get a Core 2 Duo or an AMD. If your worried about power use, there are new 45watt AMD quad/triple/dual core CPUs around.

[dudekaz1]

here is a comparison
atom to yours

this is taken from wikipedia


ATOM__
Produced2008–presentCommon manufacturer(s)Intel
Max. CPU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit) clock800 MHz to 2 GHzFSB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_side_bus) speeds400 MHz to 667 MHzMin. feature size45nmInstruction set (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_set)MMX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMX_(instruction_set)), SSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions), SSE2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2), SSE3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE3), x86 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86), x86-64 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64)(not for the N and Z series)Cores (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_(computing))1, 2Package(s)441-ball µFCBGA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-FCBGA)
Core name(s)Silverthorne
Diamondville

Celeron M
ProducedFrom April 1998 to presentCommon manufacturer(s)Intel
Max. CPU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit) clock266 MHz to 3.6 GHzFSB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_side_bus) speeds66 MHz to 1066 MT/sMin. feature size250 nm to 45 nmInstruction set (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_set)x86 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86), x86-64 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64)Microarchitecture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microarchitecture)P6 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_P6), NetBurst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBurst), Core (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_(CPU_architecture))Socket(s)Slot 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_1)
Socket 370 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_370)
Socket 478 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_478)
LGA 775 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_775)

Socket M (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_M)
Core name(s)Covington
Mendocino
Coppermine-128
Tualatin-256
Willamette-128
Northwood-128
Prescott-256
Cedar Mill-512

Conroe-L