Intel Atom - Competition

Competition

The direct competitor of the Intel Atom is the AMD Fusion C- and E-series. The C-series (C-30: single core, C-50/C-60/C-70: dual cores) has a TDP (9W) similar to the Atom, while the higher clocked E-series (E-240: single core, E-350/E-450: dual core) has a TDP of 18 Watts that corresponds more to an Atom including a dedicated GPU (e.g. ION2, ATI 5430). The processors include a single or dual core 64-bit CPU with out-of-order execution, DDR3 memory controller and an 80-core Radeon GPU. The performance of the E-series outperforms Intel Atom in most tests - up to 326.5% better game performance according to "Tom's Hardware.com".

Embedded processors based on the ARM version 7 instruction set architecture (such as Nvidia's Tegra 3 series, TI's OMAP 4 series and Freescale's i.MX51 based on the Cortex-A8 core, or the Qualcomm Snapdragon and Marvell Armada 500/600 based on custom ARMv7 implementations) offer similar performance to the low end Atom chipsets but at roughly one quarter the power consumption, and (like most ARM systems) as a single integrated system on a chip, rather than a two chip solution like the current Atom line. Although the second-generation Atom codenamed "Pineview" should greatly increase its competitiveness in performance/watt, ARM plans to counter the threat with the multi-core capable Cortex-A9 core as used in Nvidia's Tegra 2/3, TI's OMAP 4 series, and Qualcomm's next-generation Snapdragon series, among others.

The Nano and Nano Dual-Core series from VIA is slightly above the average thermal envelope of the Atom, but offers hardware AES support, random number generators, and out-of-order execution. Performance comparisons of the Intel Atom against the Via Nano indicate that a single core Intel Atom is outperformed by the Via Nano which is in turn outperformed by a dual core Intel Atom 330 in tests where the second core is used. The Core 2 Duo SU7300 outperforms the dual-core Nano.

The Xcore86 (also known as the PMX 1000) is x586 based System on Chip (SoC) that offers a below average thermal envelope compared to the Atom.

Kenton Williston of EE Times said that while Atom will not displace ARM from its current markets, the ability to apply the PC architecture into smaller, cheaper and lower power form factors will open up new markets for Intel.