So how’s the Intel Atom performing in the real world?
Many folks have been anxious to see devices start appearing that incorporate the latest Intel mobile processor, the Atom, to provide better battery life and decent performance. I have expressed my doubts about the performance side of the Atom based on early benchmarks that others have published but as I’ve said before benchmarks don’t tell enough of the story. What matters to me is how a given device and processor performs in the real world, doing the tasks I do every day. How a device "feels" performance-wise is very important over the long term as that is what creates the "love/ hate" relationship with a device. So now that various mini-notebooks are appearing with the Intel Atom I am curious how it is performing in the real world?
I do not have my hands on one of the new Atom-equipped gadgets so I’m in the dark on this issue. If anyone has first-hand experience with one please chime in here and let us all know how the Atom is working on a day-to-day basis. I know that the processor can make a big difference in how well a device works as I always have multiple mobile PCs at my disposal and I get to switch among them whenever I want. While I don’t have an Atom-equipped gadget here I do have some with the Via C7, Intel Ultra-low Voltage (ULV) and the Intel Low Voltage (LV) processors and I can attest to how big a difference the processor makes in producing the daily user experience impression.
The Via C7 processor is certainly fast enough for most things but when I compare it to something running the Intel ULV the difference is night and day. I have several notebooks running a 1.2 GHz ULV processor and they all get good battery life and have very good performance doing daily tasks and I have no complaints. Of course, when I pick up a notebook running the 1.6 GHz LV Intel processor (all of the ULV and LV are Core 2 Duos) I am immediately blown away with how fast things happen. None of this is surprising but I just wanted to point out how big a difference having a good performing CPU can make to the user experience. This is where I am the most curious about the Intel Atom so pipe up if you have one and can fill us in.
Ihave used Atom for 3 weeks and am completely underwhelmed. The biggest problem are Flash 9 sites, where it skips and comes to a crawl. Even worse, movie trailers and video. Hulu is downright painful. Forget about Hulu HD. Don’t even try it. So if it can’t do the web well, what’s the point?
I figured that buying one of these cheap notebooks would be great for my kids. How wrong I was. My kids had a hard time running their favorite web sites. Try one of these Intel Atoms on sites like disney.com, nickjr.com, lego.com and all hell breaks loose. “Daddy, whats wrong with the PC,?”, I get asked as they are surfing. This is on a new purchase.! I went into task manager to figure out what was happening and sure enough, the CPU was spiking between 60-100%!! These new Intel Atoms are losers.
I think a big problem with the Atom is that it’s being combined with an old chipset. Unless video decoding can be offloaded to the GPU the Atom performance likely to suffer.
Paul and Jake, could you identify exactly which devices you are using that have the Atoms. I am interested in the MSI Wind, but may have to reconsider that now.
Thanks
Have any Silverthorne devices been released yet? I thought they’d only release Diamondville?
And what about MSI Wind power engine button… 1.6 GHz to 1.9 GHz ???
*cough* *cough* liars
all professional reviewers/bloggers i’ve seen have said they were surprised by how well Atom performs with XP. personally i would put my trust in people who can be held accountable for their statements, not random anonymous commenter’s in 1 of James posts.
I take all comments with a grain of salt but I would never call someone with a differing opinion to mine a liar. Often performance is a direct factor of the task being performed and it’s possible that any processor would bog down with some of them. Doesn’t mean the commenter is lying which is a harsh statement with no fact.
I don’t appreciate being called a liar. I will tell you exactly what I am using. I used: Intel D945GCLF motherboard, Intel Atom 230 1.60GHz CPU, 2 gigs RAM, latest BIOS and all Intel drivers. Happy now? So which loser Intel Atom system are you testing and which apps did you test that contradict my facts?
Bought Asus Eee PC 901. Lorie, I think that the “pros” may be all wet on this one or maybe reviewing in context of emerging markets. All I can do is share my own experiences and cannot speak for anyone else. One thing I forgot to mention was the awful performance on my son’s favorite web game, ToonTown. I returned the Asus and got a Compaq 15″ dual core processor notebook with DVD RW, 250gig hard drive, nvidia graphics, for $100 less. No complaints from the kids on that purchase!
odd that James posts an article asking for opinions of a CPU, even i have seen no less than 1/2 dozen reviews myself. then the very 1st comments to the post just happen to be all negative. it’s almost as if James/Kev are trying to keep their A1xx/Atom hate alive & well.
although i think James has the kind of pull to get the cable guy to come back out. there is no way a company like Intel is going to redo their future CPU design choices based on you guys. no matter how much you complain about it.
Actually, I don’t “hate” any CPU despite what you think. I do report what I hear about stuff like this though. And if you reread my post I was asking for experiences with the Atom, not opinions.
I have seen good reviews of Atom equipped devices and believe them. I also believe real world experiences reported by our readers and why I want to hear them. There’s no reason to disbelieve them as far as I’m concerned.
I wouldn’t even consider trying to get an Intel to change their strategy, but I do want our readers to have information to make the proper choices for themselves. The only hate I see in this thread are the ones who don’t believe what some are sharing.
Wow, thanks for creating this blog post! I’ve also been very curious about its REAL world performance, not just stale benchmarks. I’m thinking of getting an EEE or Wind myself or my little brother may for college.
What is it with some of you guys? It’s not like you’re related to Atom processors so why take criticism of them so badly.
It’s hardly surprising that these weak processors are incapable of running all contemporary software. If you buy a device with an Atom or a Celeron processor you can hardly expect to be able to do everything you could on a more powerful device. The 1.2 Ghz Core Solo in my P1610 struggles with flash sites like YouTube so I’m not surprised to hear that the Atom processors are as well.
I think a lot of you need to take a chill pill.
Your 1.2ghz Core Solo struggles with YouTube Jake? My previous Vaio TX with a 1.3ghz Pentium M processor was perfectly fine with Youtube, even running several flash videos at once, as with my current TZ. The processor usage would spike up then and the fan would start running constantly but no struggling.
to be honest, Paul & Jake just sound like they dont know what they are doing. Jake, a 1.2ghz P-M that struggles with flash videos are you serious? clearly there is something wrong with your actual set up. i have even weaker machines that can run flash videos just fine. so if mine can do it so can yours, unless mine are “magic”? your incorrect setup is probably being spanned across to other machines & thats why you cant run certain software.
you guys really need to stop loading up your/kids machines with alot of crap software & probably spyware/virus’s as well. they can eat up a tremendous amount of resources. now i know you will deny everything & claim that you know what your doing, but there is a reason people with the same machines can run stuff fine & you all cant.
Well, none of this was helpful.
But … hulu HD?! H frikkin D?
These machines are geared for portability and lower power consumption while maintaining x86 compatibility, not to give a jaw dropping multimedia experience. The OS running on these devices needs to be optimized for running on such a platform. GNU/Linux distros are most adaptable but can only go so far if hardware vendors dont release docnumentation about things like DSDT tables, wireless and video drivers and the like. I run Debian-based GNU/Linux OSs such as Xubuntu and Maemo on old PIIIs and ARM based devices, and it surprises me how functional and enabling they can make older, lower power hardware. I think x86 compatibility is a great thing to shoot for because of the availability of software, but it is not yet the most efficient architecture for a small portable devices. Debian and its derivatives are porting to ARM most of their software already.
I have to agree that kids won’t really have much patience for low power devices to view bloated commercial franchise websites and play 3D games made for faster machines, if they are already used to their parents computer. But they can be handy for playing puzzle, strategy and other turn based games and watching properly compressed movies in the car. These devices really shine in being lightweight and small enough for a kid to carry.
I am a computer programmer wanted to have a machine other then my main Core2Dual desktop. Here are some details of my netbook and softwares:
Machine: EEEPC 1000h (no upgrade made to hardware)
Softwares usually use at once:
Firefox, Thunderbird, Putty, Dreamweaver MX 2004, Avira anti-virus, Adobe Reader, XP firewall turned on.
With the above softwares started all at once, the machine in my own opinion is performing smoothly, but not as snappy as the Core2Dual.
I have a great time with this little machine, it became my main working computer over my two other desktops for its portability.
It ran flash, wmv and RMVB movies smoothly with no problem. Some 720p movies runs smoothly but not others, I guess its depending on the encoding algorithm.
I am doubt on what Netbook you guys are talking?
I have run several tests on Eee PC 901 and 1000H and found no problem on them. Playing youtube and playing 720p and 1080p movies!!
http://www.umpcfever.com/news/?postid=1006
One thing you have bear in mind is that both 901 and 1000H have a performance buttons that when you consider running “Big” programs you have to switch to “Super Performance” to enable the maximum CPU loading. Then everything is gonna fine!
@jake
I have a P1510 with only 512mb of ram and uses the same intel 1.2ghz processor. I see absolutely NO trouble running youtube or multi-tasking and youbtube at the same time. You might want to have your system checked out.
I had the original EeePC with the Celeron and it actually performed better than the Atom 1.6. Yes, I know, strange, but when you actually dig into the Atom architecture. it makes sense. The code execution is different (”in-order”) and actually uses HT, which for all you posters whose parents let you use their computers, slowed down single threaded applications. OEMs turned HT “off” on the P4.
Hello, I just recently purchased the atom processor on the Intel d945gclf board. Here is my configuration:
Intel D945GCLF – Atom 1.6Ghz
1 gb Kingston 667
640GB Western Digital Sata II
Old creative Cdrom
and a spare PCI ATI 9250
I currently have xp sp3 running perfectly smoothly. I have used it for HD movies here is what I tested:
1080P
Roughly 15fps not really enjoyable to watch
720P Smooth as silk no choppiness.
I purchased it:
A: Because it was 75 dollars
B: Test it for Police Officers Mobile Units
C: Using it as a file server or NAS (freenas specifically)
D: Because its something new of course!
I am the IT Tech for a small town in Nevada and have the opportunity to test and implement all different kinds of ideas for components and new technology, it helps I am the only one in my department.
Do not buy this and complain that it is not a speed demon. However it will do most basic and some even more advanced functions with great ease.
So this is my real world experience with the atom… it works great, for the money, for the power consumption, for the size of the device, there are so many aspects of this device that really makes it a good choice for many.
Any questions just ask and I will be more than happy to share more details.
I have just purchased an advent 4211, which is a rebadged ms wind,here in uk
Comes loaded with xp home, inc works and windows media 9.
As the idea is to use it to select and player music and pictures maybe video based on a nas outputed to either tv or music ctn,
In order to do this i have upgraded to Windows Media 11.
What i have found is that for reasons i can not explain when displaying pic loaded on to hard dive, it will quite happliy dispaly the sample pics loaded with windows and some of my own pics, but then it will freeze and then blue screen! The stop message reply from Micrsoft suggests that video graphiics is stuck and to obtain a grahpics driver update
Although same pic will dsiplay with windows pic viwer and infran view.
So have i got a suspect netbook, or is just that it can not handle w/media player 11,
Any thoughs or usefull comments would be appricated.
I have MSI Wind U100 and Intel D945GCLF
so two Atoms here, I really enjoy Wind, I can watch Divx movies, run MS word and stuff and surf the web. My desktop with D945GCLF is additionally packed with Radeon2400Pro(PCI – not PCIe), both systems suffer from unplayable flash (which is strange cause no problem with HD movies with radeon) – screen just freezes with fullscreen flash. I’ve tried recently to Run OLD dos game on Atom, can you imagine…game was unplayable despite its less than 4 mega installer – dont know the cause. anyway I enjoy Wind and curse desktop. Will try to switch desktop to Linux.