ASUS Eee Box Preview & Intel's Atom Benchmarked
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 3, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
If you aren't familiar with Intel's Atom processor be sure to read our piece on its architecture.
| CPU-Z Latency Test | L1 Cache | L2 Cache | Memory |
| Intel Atom (1.6GHz) | 3 cycles | 18 cycles | 129 cycles |
| Intel Celeron 420 (1.6GHz) | 3 cycles | 14 cycles | 125 cycles |
| Intel Pentium M "Dothan" (1.6GHz) | 3 cycles | 10 cycles | 172 cycles |
Atom has the same 3 cycle L1 access latency of even the modern Celeron 420, but its L2 cache latency is almost 30% greater than Conroe's, not to mention almost double that of the original Pentium M. Atom's L2 cache is far more power efficient than either core we're comparing to here so the sacrifice in performance is not unexpected.
Memory access latency is comparable to the Celeron 420 thanks to the modern memory controller in the Intel 945G chipset, unfortunately Atom needs lower latency memory accesses since it is an in-order CPU. The follow-on to Atom, codenamed Moorestown will address this problem but it won't be until 2009/2010 before we see that.
We started with a full run of SYSMark 2007 to show how the Atom stacks up in the same CPU heavy workload that we subject all desktop CPUs to:
The first result sets our expectations: a 1.6GHz Atom is around 10% faster than an 800MHz Pentium M. Early data Intel shared with us indicated that the 1.6GHz Atom should be around 20% faster than an 800MHz Dothan, so we're within the realm of reasonable here. Compared to the cheapest single-core desktop CPU Intel is shipping today, the Atom offers around 60% of its performance.
The E-Learning suite has the 800MHz Dothan just edging out the Atom in performance and interestingly enough, the 1.6GHz Dothan actually takes the lead here. With a large 2MB L2 cache the Dothan is at an advantage compared to both the Celeron 420 and the Atom.
The video creation suite has the Atom outperforming the 800MHz Dothan by 50%, which is quite impressive given the Atom's significantly simpler microarchitecture. Clock for clock Dothan is still 25% faster than the Atom but its performance is quite competitive here.
These last two benchmarks show the Atom at 1.6GHz about on par with the 800MHz Dothan.
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Casper42 - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Gigabit Network with 2 USB Ports means you could make a sidecar that holds a small Power supply and 2 Desktop Drives (1TB Each) and plug them in USB.That gives you a SATA Boot drive and then either 2TB in RAID0/JBOD or 1TB in RAID1
Small enough to not run up your power bill like crazy and yyet still flexible enough to run your OS of choice for the hosting platform and any other little utilities you might want (cough BT Client cough).
erikstarcher - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Looks like it would make a great car pc. hook up a 7" touchscreen to it for control and you are set. I bet it would do music, video (non hd) and gps without a problem. And it won't kill your battery as fast as some other solutions (like the laptop I am now using).Yooshaw - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
This was my first thought - you could really make a killer Carputer with this thing.strikeback03 - Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - link
I thought that as well, though would almost certainly need a USB audio solution due to lack of other expansion. And the loud fan would be annoying too. I hope some more small devices/components come out for Atom/VIA Nano soon.MooseMuffin - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Splashtop is a killer idea. There's been plenty of times where I've hosed my OS in some way, and this provides a way to still go online and google a solution.LuxZg - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
I agree, and this is one thing that is nice about Eee Box. But since it IS available on other MBOs as well, it's not huge advantage..pnyffeler - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
How does the Atom perform for Remote Desktop and/or any other remote connections, with or without VPN? I just wonder how well this would work for working from home if your company offers such remote options.Martimus - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
I like seeing that Microsoft isn't allowing Windows XP on machines with larger than 80GB HDs. That should help establish a larger foothold for Linux on these types of computers. Of course when marketshare gets bigger, so will the compatibility which means that an alternative OS might actually be feasible. All this caused by Microsoft's attempt to maximize profits in the short term. Looks more like they are shooting themselves in the foot in the long term. I hope this type of computer really catches on and causes Linux or some other OS to really become mainstream.Griswold - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
Put a VIA Nano (C8) in that thing and I'm interested. Atom looks like s ure loser (but will be punched through with Intels might) for anything bigger than Intels envisioned MIDs.eeebox - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - link
People go on about it not being usable as a Media streamer, can't do HD yada yada...but is it powerful enough to be used as a SDTV recorder using a USB DVB-T tuner? I'm not even too fussed about record and play at the same time, simply record. It's been confirmed it can play 4.5Mbps 720p H.264 at 90% and 720p Divx fine so that means it should be able to play SD perfectly fine, so how would it handle the encoding side of it for recording?Seeing as though it'll cost only a little bit more than an average HDD TV recorder I want to get an eeebox for use as a compact low power HDD SDTV recorder with easily replacable HDD and a web browser (Splashtop ftw) and the VESA mounting to the back of a TV is perfect as I use my TV as a monitor.