An extremely low-energy atom, that runs at half the frequency might have about the same performance as a top-of the line 12-year old Pentium 4, but that's not a meaningful comparison in my eyes, considering that we still have high-end gaming PCs today.
A 11 year old Pentium 4 @3.4GHz has a passmark score of 401. A modern 2-core $40 Celeron G1840 @2.80GHz has a passmark score of 2984. And that's among the cheapest processors you can get as end-user.
>that's not a meaningful comparison in my eyes, considering that we still have high-end gaming PCs today.
It is meaningful when you consider what the average user is purchasing. Back then you had to purchase good stuff to run the latest office apps, etc. It was common that the only thing needed to get a friend into the gaming world was the purchase of a graphics card. Now most casual users do not have anything close to what is offered in high-end gaming PCs.
Right now buying anything that doesnt have an atom gets you a literal monster. I've had a "decent" laptop (entry level i3 and entry level discrete AMD spits with disgust GPU) from 2010 and anything for the same price in 2016 will get you an order of magnitude more powerful machine
A 11 year old Pentium 4 @3.4GHz has a passmark score of 401. A modern 2-core $40 Celeron G1840 @2.80GHz has a passmark score of 2984. And that's among the cheapest processors you can get as end-user.
1: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+4+3.4...
2: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+G1840...