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Putting an atom chip in a laptop with a full OS and stuff running in it is just pure sadism (or masochism, depending on which side you are).
Atom cpus are typically aimed at low-power embedded devices that still require a bit more juice and/or x86 compatibility (for whatever reason).
Though with ARM making big leaps forward nowadays, Intel can definitely no longer sit on their ass anymore -
@endor
Sure, for embededs, sure.
Whenever AVR or similar stuff is just not enough, sure, i can clearly understand this use case.
But why on the motherfucking world some fucking company thought putting it into even cheappy laptop is good idea.
This should be illegal and considered crime against humanity.
But hey, at least it boots...
;-; -
@DubbaThony if people keep buying it, someone's gonna keep selling it 🤣
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You're actually kinda right but consider a few other things
1. You can't compare the workload of an Atom and an i7 that easily. I guess if you run a sustained heavy computation like a Blender render or games or numerical work then sure the i7 will probably turn out to be more efficient, but my Atom netbook and i7 laptop both play videos and music and edit text and stuff with just about the same smoothness, so the Atom is miles ahead in efficiency there.
2. i7 is a huge and expensive chip to validate, design, and manufacture which drives up costs, Atom is way simpler so cheaper that way.
3. The i7 would overheat any small form factor device especially if it's a fanless design because it needs to work faster to be efficient. Everyday computing (what Atoms are designed for) needs sustained low power performance not bursts of high power. For eg. the i7 can't prerender a YT video that I will watch an hour from now because that's a future task that can't be predicted. -
Also I have no idea why your company's having issues with cheap laptops. I have an atom 3735F based netbook with windows and it works just fine for everyday tasks, including Office (including PowerPoint) and browsing. At least, fast enough that I'm not slowed down enough to care much (we're talking instantaneous vs nearly instantaneous here), which is kind of the point of an ultracheap device I guess.
Also another point I forgot to mention, sustained power delivery to feed a hungry i7 in a small/cheap device is a pretty hard thing to do, low power processors can do with cheaper and simpler power electronics (afaik).
I will say though that x86 is a horrid architecture and I hope Qualcomm and Microsoft's ARM based laptops effort pays off. -
@RememberMe
Okay, so to fully reply you.
1. Having big cores makes really great difference. Sure, i compared it to 45W chip dialed down by significant chunk. I refuse to belive it used more than 5W at this point. I compared it to fully boosting Atom, and Atom had only few things to do - handle OS and firefox. I7 had many things in background. I would easly say more than 2.5x work done in this super simple test. Thats not power efficient. Im annoyed that they will give you mini cores instead of like 2 big cores (big dosent must mean frequency. Its more to that. Instruction set, operations per clock etc).
2. Both machines were running 64 bit OS (thats reason linux in the first place, 32 bit uefi). To atom's credit, on 32 bit windows i was just really annoyed at speed of machine, didnt feel urgent need to throw it out the window.
. -
@RememberMe
Now consider scenario having 2 big cores dialed down a lot, like I did. Still, cheap to power, definitely more expensive, lets face it, and whole another world of performance.
These craptops are ment for presentations and some other minor stuff but I got explicit request that they need to run 64 bit app on it. I asked if linux will do, got positive anwser. But just working on this... Saying that its hidieus is really gross understatement -
@sSam
O_o
There are cpus in this price range that will get you better performance but wont be as efficient power-wise. But i think everything is possible. And I wouldn't consider atom as old also. -
@DubbaThony OK, nice predicament you found yourself in! Now, regarding the processors themselves:
- Yes, cheap processors are for embedded systems
- Yes, using them in full OS systems is moronic
What you can do, IF AND ONLY IF you are sure about it, is to try and scale down the linux kernel itself. Trim out unnecessary components, compile everything to tailor it to your specific system, cute stuff that will make your eyes bleed and your fingers fall off.
Maybe try to show THAT to the presentations, and make sure that your tears of blood are visible. About 80-90% chance they will never bother again. Works like a charm <3
Keep the coffee close and your sanity closer. You'll need them. -
@bladedemon
Well, it might be finally time to start LFS...
Oh, fuck my life ;-;
Im just noob that tries to work for living, i can code no problem but why they give me such fucked up tasks that arent code related by any mean ;-;
Since producer of these laptops didnt even bothered to lock bios and we have bios in dev mode i could cause it to hardware brick and tell my employer that workload is to heavy for this crap and we need to have something a tad better...
Anyway im finally home after 8 hours of triggered state so i can chill out a bit and try hard to not think tommorow im going to work again... Shit, just thought about it.. Nope... ;-; -
@bladedemon
I may also tear a bit of hair getting as light distro as i can find on internet, set up openbox and start from there... -
@DubbaThony question: do you have an hdd or an ssd in your laptop? An hdd would explain the painfully slow experience you're having vs @RememberMe 's ssd-based laptop (I assume)
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@endor
It's 32 gig emmc memory, so have to be ssd.
Although idk how slow it is, didnt bench it. But i know bus for it works at 57 mhz. (It was in bios lol)
I mean it boots reasonably quick, around 30-40 seconds, which imho for literally cheapest... Thing you can get around is quite impresive... But its linux, my machine boots linux 2-3 seconds but i have almost 4 GB/s nvme ssd... -
I have an Atom netbook from 2010, and it's still kinda good for browsing. These were the first Atoms.
Afterwards, Intel tried to get into the smartphone market, and battery life is prime here. A smartphone isn't being used for the purposes you'd use an i7 for.
Turned out that nobody wanted Intel smartphones because most binaries were for ARM. Intel's emulation was quite good, 50% efficiency, but ultimately pointless.
And nobody wanted to deal with Intel as only CPU supplier because Intel has earned itself a very bad reputation.
Technically, the Atoms were on a par with ARM, but if you are late in the market, that's not enough, you'd have to be a lot better. That's why Intel gave up. -
@Fast-Nop
That would by why they didnt gave a shit about making it good, and making it boot something was "good enough"....
I seriously feel its comparable to intel core 2 duo from windows XP times.
I should try for funsies windows xp but it has uefi...
when your code is a mess but everything work out in the end
When you keep getting +1s on a rant you posted a month ago.
Go big or go home.
!dev
Guys, we need talk raw performance for a second.
Fair disclaimer - if you are for some reason intel worker, you may feel offended.
I have one fucking question.
What's the point of fucking ultra-low-power-extreme-potato CPUs like intel atoms?
Okay, okay. Power usage. Sure. So that's one.
Now tell me, why in the fucking world anyone would prefer to wait 5-10 times more for same action to happen while indeed consuming also 5-10 times less power?
Can't you just tune down "big" core and call it a day? It would be around.. a fuckton faster. I have my i7-7820HK cpu and if I dial it back to 1.2Ghz my WINDOWS with around lot of background tasks machine works fucking faster than atom-powered freaking LUBUNTU that has only firefox open.
tested i7-7820hk vs atom-x5-z8350.
opening new tab and navigating to google took on my i7 machine a under 1 second, and atom took almost 1.5 second. While having higher clock (turbo boost)
Guys, 7820hk dialled down to 1.2 ghz; 0.81v
Seriously.
I felt everything was lagging. but OS was much more responsive than atom machine...
What the fuck, Intel. It's pointless. I think I'm not only one who would gladly pay a little bit more for such difference.
i7 had clear disadvantages here, linux vs windows, clear background vs quite a few processes in background, and it had higher f***ng clock speed.
TL;DR
Intel atom processors use less power but waste a lot of time, while a little bit more power used on bigger cpu would complete task faster, thus atoms are just plain pointless garbage.
PS.
Tested in frustration at work, apparently they bought 3 craptops for presentations or some shit like that and they have mental problems becouse cheapest shit on market is more shitty than they anticipated ;-;
fucking seriously ;-;
rant
intel
performance
potato