An Atom is roughly clock for clock about as fast as a Pentium 3, so it's a little slower than a Pentium M at the same clock which is itself a little slower than a Core Solo, CoreDuo is two Core Solos and is slower than C2D by a reasonable margin (not to mention quite a bit hotter).
You're realisitically looking at around at less than a quarter of the speed of a C2D with an Atom. With the newer i3,i5 and i7 gear that performance gap is only going to increase.
People seem to be missing the point. This 1.6 GHZ Atom-base Amiga-like unit costs $300USD. What you should be comparing it to is a SAM. It probably outperforms SAM and is 1/3 the cost too boot and is SILENT and has a nice case and mounts behind a monitor.
AresOne is the high-end machine. This is Imica.
Congrats to Stephen! Now if only SSD prices would drop. ;-)
