Atom Z540 vs Phenom II X4 N970
Aggregate performance score
Phenom II X4 N970 outperforms Atom Z540 by a whopping 365% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Contents
Primary details
Comparing processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.
| Place in the ranking | 2716 | 3466 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Series | 4x AMD Phenom II | Intel Atom |
| Power efficiency | 1.13 | 3.54 |
| Designer | AMD | Intel |
| Architecture codename | Champlain (2010−2011) | Silverthorne (2008−2010) |
| Release date | 16 December 2010 (14 years ago) | 2 April 2008 (17 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | no data | $160 |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance per price, higher is better.
Performance to price scatter graph
Detailed specifications
Phenom II X4 N970 and Atom Z540 basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.
| Physical cores | 4 (Quad-Core) | 1 (Single-Core) |
| Threads | 4 | 2 |
| Base clock speed | no data | 1.86 GHz |
| Boost clock speed | 2.2 GHz | 0.07 GHz |
| Bus type | no data | FSB |
| Bus rate | 3600 MHz | 533.33 MT/s |
| Multiplier | no data | 14 |
| L1 cache | 512 KB | 56 KB |
| L2 cache | 2 MB | 512 KB |
| L3 cache | no data | 0 KB |
| Chip lithography | 45 nm | 45 nm |
| Die size | no data | 24.18 mm2 |
| Maximum core temperature | no data | 90 °C |
| Number of transistors | no data | 47 Million |
| 64 bit support | + | - |
| Windows 11 compatibility | - | - |
| VID voltage range | no data | 0.75 -1.1V |
Compatibility
Information on Phenom II X4 N970 and Atom Z540 compatibility with other computer components: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.
| Number of CPUs in a configuration | no data | 1 (Uniprocessor) |
| Socket | S1 | PBGA441 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 35 Watt | 2.4 Watt |
Technologies and extensions
Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Phenom II X4 N970 and Atom Z540. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.
| Instruction set extensions | no data | Intel® SSE2, Intel® SSE3, Intel® SSSE3 |
| Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST) | no data | + |
| Turbo Boost Technology | no data | - |
| Hyper-Threading Technology | no data | + |
| Idle States | no data | + |
| Thermal Monitoring | - | + |
| Demand Based Switching | no data | + |
| FSB parity | no data | - |
Security technologies
Phenom II X4 N970 and Atom Z540 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.
| TXT | no data | - |
| EDB | no data | + |
Virtualization technologies
Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Phenom II X4 N970 and Atom Z540 are enumerated here.
| VT-d | no data | - |
| VT-x | no data | + |
Synthetic benchmarks
Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.
Combined synthetic benchmark score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating.
Passmark
Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance. Other than that, Passmark measures multi-core performance.
Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core
Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.
Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.
3DMark06 CPU
3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.
wPrime 32
wPrime 32M is a math multi-thread processor test, which calculates square roots of first 32 million integer numbers. Its result is measured in seconds, so that the less is benchmark result, the faster the processor.
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 0.93 | 0.20 |
| Recency | 16 December 2010 | 2 April 2008 |
| Physical cores | 4 | 1 |
| Threads | 4 | 2 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 35 Watt | 2 Watt |
Phenom II X4 N970 has a 365% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 2 years, and 300% more physical cores and 100% more threads.
Atom Z540, on the other hand, has 1650% lower power consumption.
The AMD Phenom II X4 N970 is our recommended choice as it beats the Intel Atom Z540 in performance tests.
Other comparisons
We've compiled a selection of CPU comparisons, ranging from closely matched processors to other comparisons that may be of interest.
