While I did originally have some power consumption numbers here to share with you, the truth was I had almost no confidence in their validity due to a BIOS from NVIDIA that we already had decided didn't do the best job with power management.  Also, when taking a CPU with multiple cores and disabling one for testing, the performance results are spot on but power consumption...not so much. 

If I was to take an educated guess, based on the power consumption we know for a single core Atom 230 processor, using about 3.5 watts more under a full load than it does at idle, we can assume that adding another of these cores would at WORST double that difference.  Expect the Atom 330 to use no more than 4 watts additional power over a single-core model. 

Performance

The performance results for the Atom 330 processor are actually very impressive - in a lot of our tests the scaling percentages from a single core to the dual-core CPU are approaching or over 100%!  Of course, it helps with the applications we are benchmarking with are basically starved for processing power with any of derivative of the Atom or Nano processor so that every additional floating point operation available is quickly gobbled up. 


VIA Nano processor thoughts

At the beginning of this review I told you about how well the VIA Nano processor looked when we first compared the Atom and Nano products side-by-side; and that still holds.  When looking at the single-core (HyperThreaded) Atom 230 processor and the VIA Nano L2100, the VIA processor is still definitely a better overall product in terms of total system performance.  That hasn't stopped the Intel Atom product from completely dominating in the market though thanks mostly to Intel's name-brand dominance with OEMs and consumers.  Make an inferior product, spit shine it, and sell sell sell. 


It's hard to blame Intel for being successful, and finally with the Atom 330 processor, the performance tide has been turned against the VIA Nano and the Intel Atom line will truly be the best performing netbook-ready CPU available.  I am curious to see what VIA's response will be - we were told in early 2008 that VIA's Isaiah architecture had the capability to run as a multi-core product as well but they were waiting until the move seemed necessary; I think now is that time.

Final Thoughts

The new Atom 330 processor is definitely going to make the world of netbooks and similarly low-priced machines faster - our benchmarks and experiences clearly show that.  However, the power of the Atom CPU is still easily eclipsed by lowest priced Core 2 processors on the market today and thus I do not think the introduction of dual-core versions will push this processor brand in any NEW product segments.  What it will do is make products like ASUS Eee-series and the MSI Wind products, and even NVIDIA's ION platform, much more well-rounded products and more usable to general consumers.  If you have been holding off a netbook purchase because of slow general compute power, the Atom 330 just might be the tipping point you were looking for.

Related Articles:

• NVIDIA ION Platform Review: Death (and Life) of the Netbook
• NVIDIA Ion Platform Design and Benchmarks
• Apple has plans for iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro in 2009
• Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review
• VIA Nano and Intel Atom Review - Battle of the Tiny CPUs