Is an Intel Atom Dual Core upgrade worth it?

Despite Intel’s suggestion that the new Atom N330 Dual Core was made for nettops, that doesn’t mean netbooks can’t have them installed onboard. PC Corner is offering chassis upgrades to support the Intel Atom N330 Dual Core.

Question is — will an upgrade to the dual core Atom processor worth the performance gain and price?

First, it won’t be cheap. The chassis upgrade alone will cost you about Php4,000USD 68INR 5,778EUR 65CNY 496. Then, you will pay extra for the price of the dual core Atom CPU. All in all, expect to shell out about Php6k to Php8k for the upgrade.

Second, what performance increase are we looking at? Will it speed up browser performance? How about office productivity tools like MS Word?

Gaming maybe? But Intel says the Atom wasn’t built for gaming of heavy applications. That’s where the Centrino 2 comes in.

The Atom N330 will still be rated at 1.6GHz and the only solid update aside from the extra core is the L2 cache which is now doubled at 1MB. Of course, there’s the extra juice that the cores will suck off the battery.

Maybe a dual core Atom upgrade may end up more of a disadvantage after all.