Intel Atom D525 vs Apple A6x

Intel Atom D525

The Intel Atom D525 is a dual core processor that is intended for nettops, but also used in netbooks (like the Asus Eee PC 1215N). It consists out of two Atom cores clocked at 1.8 GHz and due to HyperThreading, the D525 is able to process four threads at a time. The D525 misses Speedstep and is therefore running at 1.8 GHz all the time (and using a lot more power than other Atoms without load).

In the processor package, the Atom D525 has an integrated DDR2/DDR3 memory controller and the GMA 3150 called graphics card.

The performance of the D525 can be on a level of slow clocked single core CPUs like the Intel SU2700 or AMD K125 if both cores are used. In single threaded applications, the performance is clearly worse and only on the level of a 1.8 GHz Atom CPU.

Apple A6x

The Apple A6x is a dual-core-SoC (System on a Chip) with ARM compatible CPU cores (ARMv7s instruction set). Both can be clocked at up to 1400 MHz depending on the load. It is used in the iPad 4 and compared to the A6 in the iPhone 5, the A6x offers a faster GPU (PowerVR SGX544MP4).

The CPU-Performance of the A6x is similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960T, while the GPU is about as fast as the Adreno 320.