Java volatile reference vs. AtomicReference

Short answer is: No.

From the java.util.concurrent.atomic package documentation. To quote:

The memory effects for accesses and updates of atomics generally follow the rules for volatiles:

• get has the memory effects of reading a volatile variable.
• set has the memory effects of writing (assigning) a volatile variable.

By the way, that documentation is very good and everything is explained.

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AtomicReference::lazySet is a newer (Java 6+) operation introduced that has semantics unachievable through volatile variables. See this post for more information.

No, there is not.

The additional power provided by AtomicReference is the compareAndSet() method and friends. If you do not need those methods, a volatile reference provides the same semantics as AtomicReference.set() and .get().