The competition
The MSI Wind ships with an Intel Atom N270 CPU that clocks in at 1.6GHz and runs off a 533MHz front-side bus. A little extra juice is afforded by the hyper-threading-enabled architecture, keeping things chugging along nicely.
Now, as we know, clock-speed numbers tell us scant little about overall performance, so we grabbed two current mid-priced laptops, based on Intel Centrino 2 and AMD Puma, for a mini-comparison.
Here are the specs:
| System name | HP TX2500 Puma | MSI Wind Atom | Novatech Centrino 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Turion Ultra ZM-80 (2.1GHz, 2x 1,024KB L2 cache, dual-core) | Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache, single-core) | Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 1,066MHz, dual-core) |
| Motherboard | Quanta HP 780G (780G+SB700) | MSI U-100 (i945GE+ICH7M) | Clevo M720T |
| Memory | 3GB (2GB + 1GB) PC6400 | 1GB PC5400 | 2GB (2x 1GB) PC6400 |
| Memory timings and speed | 6-6-6-18-2T @ 805MHz | 4-4-4-12-2T @ ?MHz | 5-5-5-15-2T @ 800MHz |
| Graphics card(s) | ATI Radeon HD 3200 IGP (500MHz core, 800MHz mem) | Intel i945GE | Intel Mobile X4500 |
| Screen size and native res | 12.1in - 1,280x800 | 10in - 1,024x600 | 12.1in - 1,280x800 |
| WiFi | Broadcom 4322AG 802.11a/b/g/n | 802.11b/g | Realtek RTL8187B 802.11b/g |
| Disk drive(s) | Western Digital 250GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache | Western Digital 80GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache | Hitachi 200GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache |
| Optical drive(s) | HLDTST GSA-T30L | None | TSST SN-S083A |
| Graphics driver | CATALYST | Intel 6.14.10.4906 | Intel |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, 32-bit | Windows XP SP3 | Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, 32-bit |
| Current price | £649 | £330 | £650 |
| Benchmarks | HEXUS.transcode - 200MB 1080p clip to iPhone (480x272px, medium quality) HEXUS.photofix - 152MB photos auto-fixed - 25 images HEXUS.squash - 205MB photos compressed into one file HEXUS.gaming - Quake 4 v1.3 custom-recorded netdemo at 1,024x600/768 |
|---|
Notes
The system setup page shows that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison, insofar as pricing and form-factor are concerned. Rather, we're concerned with just how close Atom can get to the benchmark figures laid down by the higher-priced pair - indicative of current technology - which also ship with integrated graphics.
So, is Atom useful for power-hungry apps or is it just a processor for menial tasks? Let's find out.