CPU ZLib test uses only the basic x86 instructions, and it is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware. A very good test to measure multi-core performance among platforms.

Hilbert Hagedoorn over at Guru3D has gotten a chance to review an ECS 945GC motherboard that has a dual-core, 1.6GHz Atom 330 processor soldered on. The CPU has a thermal envelope of only 8W, and it feeds bits through the same 533MHz front-side bus as its single-core brethren. Dual processor cores aside, ECS's board looks pretty typical for a mini-ITX Atom mobo: it has a lone DDR2-533 memory slot, one 32-bit PCI slot, dual 300MB/s Serial ATA ports, and a VGA display output. ECS also delivers a six-channel VIA audio codec and 100Mbps Ethernet - just what you need for a cheap desktop.

Atom 330 does not look like anything particularly stellar for the desktop it should do the job better than the alternatives by Via. We ran it with Windows Vista perfectly fine, and once you have tried it for yourself, it will be very hard to resist the temptation. Just because it's such fascinating material, yesterday I have it a try with Windows XP 32-bit which is actually runs pretty fast.

Atom 330 dual-core itself then, two is always better than one. And that surely goes for the Atom 330 with it's two logical cores running at 1.6 GHz. The Atom processor is a perfectly decent CPU for web browsing, email, showing friend's your holiday snaps, listening to MP3s, watching DVDs etc. It doesn't need any more performance and all that at 8 Watt ...

My few trivial hints to ECS would be; what it really needs is a fanless motherboard to go with the fanless CPU to cut the noise down a bit more. The board we have is actually a engineering sample, and the cooler on there is a tad too noisy for something so low-level. Other stuff I really would like to see is a PCIe slot, two DIMM slots and preferably a DVI output.