Introduction

When we think of the CPU in our systems today, we think of high powered Core 2 processors or a cheaper Phenom in order to power our gaming systems of the day. These two processors are fighting it out for the top of the performance ladder and a battle it has become.

While we concentrate on this sector, the focus is now moving towards the lower end of the spectrum. VIA has really cornered this market in the past when it came to ultra compact PCs; EPIA has been VIA's biggest success and with the evolution of the VIA processors, each generation has gotten just that little bit more capable. Now Intel has seen just how popular this is, we finally have some competition in this sector.

Until recently the C7 processor defined performance at lower power consumption, but not to be outdone, Intel released at Computex 2008 its introduction to take on VIA; the Atom series processor. However, VIA wasn't going to let Intel win here, and at the same time announced its latest update to its processor range; the Nano.

Today we will be pitting the Atom platform against the Nano platform. Who has the best performance and energy savings? - Well, we don't know yet, but by the end of this we will have an informative answer to that. Let's move on and check out the platforms individually before we get into the testing phase.