After trying out the Sony Vaio P, I was curious whether there’s any performance difference between the Intel Atom Z530 and the Atom N270. Both chips run at 1.6GHz so I thought they’d have similar results with Super Pi.
Turns out my assumptions were wrong. Clock for clock, the Atom N270 beats the Z530 in Super Pi by as much as 35%. See chart below for the Super Pi results from 16k to 2M.
Numbers are in seconds so the lower the number, the faster the processor.
I can’t really account for the discrepancy in the results. Almost everything is similar between the Silverthorne and the Diamondville CPUs  except maybe for the TDP (2.5W vs. 2W) and the package size (22x22mm vs. 13×14mm). I’m still trying to figure this one out.
Interesting article and argument on Philippines, Technology News & Reviews. Not all can possess the identical views or knowledge. I think I am in line with with this web sites positioning. I’m unswerving and honest, that way everybody recognizes what I feel.
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Abe, what about Z550 vs N450 ?
So which one is better recently launched Z550 and N450?
One difference is wattage. According to Intel’s website, the N270 draws .5 more wattage at 2.5W, where the Z530 runs at 2.0W. More power = better performance, correct?
But the clock speed and cache size remain the same. That’s strange there’s such a difference.
So should i go with Z530?
The problem when running benchmarks on the Sony VAIO P is it’s passive cooling (no fan for the CPU). When you put some heavy load onto the machine, e.g. running benchmarks over a longer period of time, the CPU Core temperature rises over a critical level (90° C) and the processor begins to throttle. Then it runs only with 800MHz instead of 1600Mhz.
See also page 21 of the Atom Z5xx datasheet:
http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/319535.pdf
Improved Intel® Thermal Monitor mode:
-When the on-die thermal sensor indicates that the die temperature is too high, the processor can automatically perform a transition to a lower frequency and voltage specified in a software programmable MSR.
-The processor waits for a fixed time period. If the die temperature is down to acceptable levels, an up transition to the previous frequency and voltage point occurs.
-An interrupt is generated for the up and down Intel Thermal Monitor transitions enabling better system level thermal management.
I got the same problem when running benchmarks on the VAIO P (SuperPI, CrystalMark09 etc.). Sometimes the results fluctuate more than 10% or more, so i searched for the problem. I observed the CPU-Speed during benchmarks and after some time the CPU throttles to 800MHz.
If you keep this in mind, you get nearly the same results in SuperPI as Atom N270 and N280 CPU. Here are my results:
16K – 0.828s
32K – 1.719s
64K – 3.703s
128K – 8.109s
256K – 19.046s
512K – 43.609s
1M – 97.438s
2M – 224.782s
Greetings from Thailand!
myvaiop
Interesting. Up to 128k, the difference isn’t much actually.
I read in NotebookReview that Dell chose Z to run its netbooks because the chipset runs A LOT cooler than N (so they claim) and hence, works even with minimal fan speed.
Apparently and moreso in netbooks, laptop heat and fan noise are primary concerns. This graph shows that the compromise wasn’t much.
Thanks!