Intel’s new Pinetrail Atom platform processors tested and benchmarked
December 22, 2009 
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Wondering whether it’s worth jumping on netbooks and nettops featuring Intel’s new Pinetrail Atom processors once they become available early next year? Two hardware sites have run down the numbers, comparing performance of the new Atom processors to the old ones, and are letting you, the reader decide for yourself.
The recently announced Asus Eee PC 1005PE netbook was used by HotHardware to pit the Intel Atom N450 processor with others to see how well it performs, and as it turns out it doesn’t perform quite a lot better than its counterparts from the last generation of Intel Atom CPUs. The same conclusion was drawn by PCMag in its benchmarks, when it tested the new Atom D510 processor against old nettop CPUs.
But while Intel’s Pinetrail Atom processors don’t seem to improve a lot in terms of sheer performance, they still carry a significant reduction in total power draw and heat produced, so for the intended market of netbooks and nettops, it definitely fits the bill.
For netbooks, 6-cell batteries which used to be good for 9 hours or so of use now serve up to 12 hours on a single charge. Intel is probably still trying to find ways to further reduce power consumption for more iterations of the Pinetrail Atom processor in the future, but the added battery life savings it offers now will surely keep a lot of people happy… for the time being.
Read – HotHardware on the Atom N450 CPU
Read – PCMag on the Atom D510 CPU
