Centrino 2 Laptop Roundup

by Jarred Walton on October 24, 2008 3:00 AM EST

1280x800 Gaming Performance

The ASUS U6V really struggles in most games at 1280x800, and many laptops have a WXGA LCD, so we will begin with a quick look at how the various offerings manage that resolution. Because the U6V is all but unplayable in most recent titles at the detail settings we normally test with, we also performed U6V benchmarks at low/minimum detail for comparison.

Assassin's Creed DX9

Company of Heroes DX9

Crysis - Medium

Devil May Cry 4

Enemy Territory - Quake Wars 0xAA

Race Driver: GRID 0xAA

Mass Effect

Oblivion

Unreal Tournament 3

The higher clock speeds of the 9700M GT put it in an interesting position, with scores that are quite a bit faster than the 8600M/9500M/9600M in many games. The 9800M GTS is still an order of magnitude faster (especially at higher resolutions and detail settings), and we have to wonder how the ASUS would have looked with a 9700M GTS (48 SPs instead of 32 SPs). Assassin's Creed (DX9 only - DX10 is significantly slower) has the G50V and P-7811 within spitting distance of each other; performance in Mass Effect and is also relatively close. Most of the time the P-7811 leads the G50V by about 50%, and the average lead in the tested games at 1280x800 is 60%. That said, look at Devil May Cry 4 for an example of a game where the difference is far greater - the P-7811 is 2.8 times as fast!

As for the 9300M GS in the U6V, even at minimum detail there are several titles where it can't reasonably handle 1280x800. Mass Effect and Crysis are the most noticeable issues where even at minimum detail performance is too low; even 800x600 in Mass Effect is essentially unplayable. Assassin's Creed, Devil May Cry 4, and GRID are a few more games that require more than the 9300M can muster. Even where performance is acceptable at minimum detail, keep in mind that many of these games look very poor at these settings - think graphics circa 2002.

Test Setup Gaming Resolution Scaling
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  • JarredWalton - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link

    See http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3435&a...">Anand's article on the subject. The MacBook battery life dropped in half with Vista... but then that could just be that Apple didn't optimize for Vista properly. What we would rather see is a Vista PC that can compete with MacBook; I can't think of a good reason why it can't be done, unless Vista just has some junk that refuses to allow power saving features to fully activate.
  • BushLin - Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - link

    I think it is only fair to the other laptop manufacturers that you at least show the battery life of a Mac running Vista alongside their favourable results, I doubt anyone is still allowed to supply review samples with XP... it's not their fault Vista is crap!
  • phreax9802 - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link

    The VAIO SR series claim 6 hours of battery life running Vista. This is a 13.3" notebook with a 6-cell battery. Can you guys verify this claim, ask for a demo unit maybe?
  • JarredWalton - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link

    I'll see what I can do; Anand has had Sony hardware in the past, so maybe he can get me a laptop from them.
  • GoodRevrnd - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link

    Supposedly the SR also has "battery leakage" issues as well where it will drain over time even when it's off. I have a Z series and can hit 4-5 hours myself. That's at about 50-60% screen brightness, wifi on, pretty much everything else disabled, in stamina mode, with the processor pretty much sitting at Super LFM the whole time.
  • danwat1234 - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link

    Still rocking this laptop today, with an X9100 Core 2 Duo Penryn at 3.45GHZ via multiplyer overclocking. Installed the 17 fin Forcecon fan while I was at it, the same that's comes with the Asus G51VX and G51J for more airflow. 8GB of RAM.
    Still my main machine today. Refuses to die even with a few years of nearly 24/7 GPU & CPU thrashing at 90C +.. The chassis is beat up though, starting to crack on the main chassis around the hinges. But, can get a used 1 on Ebay for cheap.. Batteries no longer made for it so i have a few genuine 9-cell batteries in my fridge.
    About time to upgrade to a Coffee Lake laptop maybe, but I like my Windows 7 setup.
  • falconmarley - Thursday, July 26, 2018 - link

    If you want to long time use your laptop then HP is the best device because its processing system is so fast. And it have more storage and battery life is also good. And the best thing <a href="https://hpetechnicalsupportnumber.com/"> HP Support Assistant</a> always available for customer help.

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