Replacing the Atom N2600
This morning I received an email from German touchscreen device developer and manufacturer faytech. The company prides itself in its ability to design and engineer high-quality products in Germany, then have them manufactured cost-efficiently in Asia, while providing local service.
This email, though, wasn’t about their latest touchscreen products. It was about the processors they use in their touchscreen panels and PCs. Specifically, it was about replacing the ubiquitous Intel Atom N2600 with the newer Intel Celeron N2807 and J1900. Faytech seemed especially taken with the N2807, which the company has chosen as the new standard for their resistive touchscreen portfolio. They said, “replacing the predecessor Intel Atom N2600, the new processor has it all: speed, stability, lower power consumption, and much better performance per watt ratio.” The Celeron J1900, by the way, will be the new go-to chip for faytech’s capacitive touch devices.
That caught my attention. Are the N2807 and J1900 Celerons really the N2600’s successor? And if so, why? As is, Intel is making so many different processors and has so many different classifications for them that even those following the industry closely often can’t tell them apart or explain why one processor should be chosen over another.
First, why does the N2600 need replacement? True, the “Cedarview” Atom N2600 was launched well over three years ago, an eternity in Intel’s rapid-fire chip development cycle. But it turned out to be an exceptionally good chip.
A third generation descendent of the Atom N270 that powered tens of millions of netbooks, the N2600 and its slightly faster N2800 sibling were the first Atom chips to use 32nm process technology instead of the older 45nm, making for smaller, more efficient packages. Cedarview processors were dual-core systems whereas before only desktop-oriented Atom versions had two cores. Graphics performance benefitted from a different design and much faster clock speed, resulting in Intel claims of 2X graphics performance compared to the second generation Atoms. And integrated hardware-accelerated video decoding enabled smooth full HD (up to 1080p) video playback, something that was not possible with earlier Atom chips.
Word on the N2600’s qualities got around, and a lot of manufacturers that had been burned by the poky performance of most original Atom chips switched to the N2600. When RuggedPCReview benchmarked a N2600-updated Handheld Algiz 7, we found an overall 3X performance improvement over the earlier Atom Z530-based version. Another example was Motion Computing’s upgrade from an Atom Z670 in its original CL900 tablet to the N2600 in its CL910 successor. Again, the performance improvement was substantial (in the 70% range).
We praised the N2600 as “probably the best general purpose Atom chip so far.” N2600 performance was so good that some manufacturers who later upgraded to some of the lower-end Intel “Bay Trail” chips were in for a harsh surprise. For example, RuggedPCReview found a “Bay Trail” E3825-based tablet no faster than its N2600-powered predecessor.
But that was in 2013, and it’s now Fall 2015. The N2600’s reign seems to come to an end, and Intel’s “Bay Trail” platform is the reason.
Bay Trail represents a departure from Intel’s product strategy of the past few years that differentiated between low end (Atom) and high end (Core) processors. Instead, Bay Trail consists of a large family of single, dual, and quad processor chips optimized for various types of devices. Lower end Bay Trail processors use Intel’s “Atom” brand, whereas higher end versions targeting tablets, notebooks and desktops carry Intel’s “Celeron” and even “Pentium” brand names.
Further, for the first time, an Intel Atom microprocessor architecture is paired with genuine Intel graphics. The graphics cores integrated into Bay Trail systems are of the same HD 4000 architecture and variety as those used in Intel’s 3rd generation “Ivy Bridge” processors, albeit with fewer execution units (four instead of several times that number) and lower clock speeds. The new graphics support most of the same APIs and features, including DirectX 11, OpenGL 3.x (and even 4.0 in some cases), and OpenCL 1.2. Better yet, some clever power-saving features from 4th generation “Haswell” Core processors seemed to be included as well.
So it’s no surprise that Bay Trail has been a resounding hit. By and large, the impression on the street is that “Bay Trail” is much faster than all those old-style Intel Atom chips, fast enough to do some actual general purpose work, even tough assignments that just may come along on any given day. That includes the kind that totally brought almost every older Atom system to its knees. And it all comes at a cost that’s a lot lower than full Intel Core processors. From Intel’s vantage point, Bay Trail cut down on the complaints about Atom performance while, despite all the improvements, still being quite a ways behind full Core processor performance and thus no threat for that lucrative Intel market.
The only problem is that it further increased confusion about Intel’s various product lines. Bay Trail chips, while all using an Atom CPU architecture, are sold as Atoms, Celerons and Pentiums. Aren’t Celerons gutless entry-level loss-leaders and Pentiums some ancient brand from a distant past? Not anymore, apparently. Or at least it’s a different kind of entry level now. Figuring out the difference between all those Bay Trail chips isn’t easy. And to make matters more confusing yet, some new Celerons aren’t Bay Trail chips at all; they are Intel “Haswell” Core processors (like the Celeron 2980U).
So what about the Celeron N2807 and J1900 that the good folks at faytech chose to replace the N2600 as the standard in their touch PCs and panels? Let’s take a look at the two chips.
Both of them are based on 22nm lithography instead of the older N2600’s 32nm, both use the FCBGA1170 socket, and both use low-power DDR3L RAM. But that’s where the similarity stops.
The J1900, which Intel lists as an embedded desktop processor, is a quad-core chip with 2MB of L2 cache, running at a base frequency of 2GHz and a maximum burst frequency of 2.42GHz. Its thermal design power is 10 watts, it can support up to 8GB of RAM, its base graphics frequency is 688MHz with a top speed of 854MHz.
The N2807 is listed as an embedded mobile processor. It is a dual-core chip with 1MB of L2 cache, running at a base frequency of 1.58GHz and a maximum burst frequency of 2.16GHz. Its thermal design power is 4.3 watts, it can support up to 4GB of RAM, its base graphics frequency is 313MHz with a top speed of 750MHz.
For a more detailed spec comparison of the N2600, N2807 and J1900, check this page.
In terms of raw performance, the J1900 would seem to have a clear advantage over the N2807, even though Intel actually lists the recommended price of the N2807 as higher than that of the J1900 (US$107 vs. US$82). Why is the slower N2807 more expensive? Likely because as a “mobile” chip it includes additional low power modes. It also includes a number of special Intel technologies that the J1900 doesn’t have (like Intel Secure Key, Intel Idle States, Intel Smart Connect, and Intel Wireless Display). Unfortunately, even Intel’s spec sheets only present an incomplete picture as the sheets are inconsistent. The technically minded will find some more info in the very technical Features and specifications for the Intel® Pentium and Celeron Processor N- and J- Series document.
What about real world performance? Here we can present some hard data.
According to RuggedPCReview’s database, N2600-based devices scored an average of 476 in the PassMark 6.1 CPU Mark test, 433 in the overall PassMark suite, and 56,070 in the CrystalMark suite. J1900-based devices scored an average of 2,068 in the PassMark 6.1 CPU Mark test, 974 in the overall PassMark suite, and 117,000 in the CrystalMark suite. The sole N2807-based device scored 782 in the PassMark 6.1 CPU Mark test, 570 in the overall PassMark suite, and 83,800 in the CrystalMark suite. Based on these numbers, one might expect a N2807-based system to offer a roughly 1.5X overall performance increase over a N2600-based device, and a J1900-based system a roughly 2.2X overall performance increase over a N2600-based device. And a J1900 system might offer roughly 1.5X overall performance over a N2807-based device.
So is replacing the venerable N2600 with either one of those Bay Trail chips a good idea? Yes. Time stands still for no one, not even for a good chip like the Atom N2600 of just three or so years ago. But we also believe that given the overall breathtaking pace of progress in the CPU arena, replacements should provide a clear and very noticeable best in performance, and not just an incremental one. So our money would be more on the Celeron J1900 which seems to have all the goods to be a solid, remarkably speedy, yet still economical go-to chip for any number of industrial computing projects where absolutely minimal power consumption is not the highest priority.
There is, of course, a large number of other processor options from Intel and from other sources. But the x86 world likes standards and things to rely on, and so we’ve historically seen a flocking to a small number of chips that offer a good overall balance. Chips like the Celeron N2807 and J1900.