Intel Atom N2600 vs AMD E-350 vs AMD E1-1500

Intel Atom N2600

The Intel Atom N2600 is a dual core entry level processor for netbooks and tablets. It was officially announced in December 2011 after some troubles with the graphics drivers (according to rumors). 

The N2600 features a PowerVR SGX545 based graphics card (at 400MHz) named Graphics Media Accelerator 3600 and a video decoding engine for MPEG4 Part2, VC-1, WMV9, and H.264. Furthermore, the chip now also supports DisplayPort 1.1 and HDMI 1.3a outputs.

The processor core is still similar to the old Atom processors. Therefore the performance of the N2600 is comparable to an older Atom N570.

The integrated 64Bit Single-Channel DDR3-800/1067 memory controller supports two SODIMMS and a maximum of 2 GB RAM.

AMD E-350

The AMD E-350 (codename Zacate) is a dual core processor for small notebooks and netbooks. It offers a relatively powerful integrated graphics card and a single channel DDR3-1066 memory controller.

Inside the E-350 two Bobcat cores can access 512KB level 2 cache per core. In comparison to the Atom processors, the Bobcat architecture uses an "out-of-order" execution and is therefore faster at the same clock speed.

Performance

The average E-350 in our database is in the same league as the V120, E-450, E1-2500 and also the Celeron SU2300, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned.

The ThinkPad X121e as well as the ThinkPad X120e are among the fastest systems built around the E-350 that we know of.

The integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics adapter offers 80 shaders and an UVD3 video processor. Compared to the slow GMA 3150 in the Atom processors, the HD6310 offers a lot more performance and is about as fast as the Nvidia ION graphics solution.

The power consumption is rated with a TDP of 18 Watt by AMD. According to first reviews of Brazos prototypes the power consumption was between 11 to 29 Watt. This would be on a level of a (much more powerful) 11" MacBook Air using Windows 7.

AMD E1-1500

The AMD E1-1500 (codename Zacate) is a dual core processor for small notebooks and netbooks. It offers a relatively powerful integrated graphics card and a single channel DDR3-1333 memory controller. Compared to the old E1-1200, which is based on the same chip, the E1-1500 offers an 80 MHz higher CPU and 29 MHz higher GPU clock rate.

Inside the E1-1500 two Bobcat cores can access 512KB level 2 cache per core. In comparison to the Atom processors, the Bobcat architecture uses an "out-of-order" execution and is therefore faster at the same clock speed. However, the performance is far worse than similar clocked Penryn (Celeron) or Danube (Athlon II) cores. On average the cpu performance of the E1-1500 is a bit below an Athlon X2 L310 at 1.2 GHz. 

The integrated Radeon HD 7310 graphics card offers 80 shaders and an UVD3 video processor. Compared to the slow GMA 3150 in the Atom processors, the HD7310 offers a lot more performance and is about as fast as the Nvidia ION graphics solution. In the E1-1500 the 7310 is clocked at 529 MHz and therefore not much different to the HD 6310 (488 - 500 MHz depending on the APU).

The power consumption is rated with a TDP of 18 W by AMD. That's similar to Intels (faster) Ivy and Sandy Bridge ULV-CPUs.