IntensePC_User wrote:What would be the advantage of choosing the Atom E3950 over the Celeron J3455? Does it have lower idle power consumption? Better performance in another area I haven't considered?
Here's a comparison of the two CPUs:
https://ark.intel.com/compare/95594,96488
The only important difference is that Atom x7-E3950 has Intel HD Graphics 505, versus the J3455 which has HD Graphics 500.
HD Graphics 505 has 18 execution units, versus 12 for the HD 500. However, the turbo frequency of the GPU in the HD 500 is 100MHz faster than the 505. I can't guess how this would affect 3D performance, but usually the GPU with more EUs fares better.
The only other differences between the two are the availability (the E3xxx series is long life) and ECC memory, which CompuLab doesn't support anyway.
I have measured idle power consumption to be around 4.5W on my unit (x7-E3950) sitting at the Linux desktop.
Neither CPU is very powerful when compared to typical notebook or desktop CPUs, and the difference between the two in benchmarks is only around 10%. If you are a business customer and are concerned about availability over 5+ years, buy the Atom x7-E3950 version. Otherwise I'd see no reason not to buy the Celeron J3455.
Also TDP numbers are guidelines to cooling designers, and do not really reflect the actual peak consumption of the CPU. Both Intel and AMD have for years been using the TDP to represent the "scenario design power" of the chip, meaning how much heat needs to be dissipated under typical loads. It would be interesting to see the watt-hours consumed by the Celeron J3455 and Atom x7-E3950 during benchmarks, because I would wager they're nearly identical.