The comparative numerical and analytical analysis of scintillation indices of the vortex Laguerre–Gaussian beam and the nonvortex doughnut hole and Gaussian beams propagating in the randomly inhomogeneous atmosphere has been performed. It has been found that the dependence of the scintillation index at the axis of the optical vortex on the turbulence intensity at the path has the form of a unit step. It has been shown that the behavior of scintillations in the cross sections of vortex and nonvortex beams differs widely. Despite the scintillation index of vortex beams has been calculated only for the simplest LG10 mode, the obtained results are quite general, because they demonstrate the main properties inherent in scintillations of vortex beams of any type.