ASUS Eee PC 1005PE: Pineview Arrives
by Jarred Walton on December 21, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
ASUS Eee PC 1005PE: Pineview Arrives
Way back in the day (Fall of 2007 to be exact), ASUS launched a little device called the Eee PC. It was very light and portable and it could do basic computing, but that was about it. Some people loved the original Eee PC, but I wasn't one of them.
The Eee PC would eventually grow up to deliver 9.1", 10.1", 11.6", and even 12.1" models. The larger chassis sizes allow for a few additional features, but the core concept remains largely the same: deliver a small laptop that can run the software people need, along with some of the software they want. If your needs include gaming or computationally complex tools, you'll still want to look elsewhere, but for basic office and Internet use a netbook will suffice. What's more, netbooks can achieve all day computing on a single charge, so many are willing to trade performance for battery life.
One of the other changes in the netbook market has been improved CPUs. The original underclocked Celeron found in the Eee PC 2G/4G was very limiting, and for the performance offered it wasn't very efficient. When Intel released the Atom CPUs, netbooks received a dramatic boost in performance and battery life. Today marks the launch of the newest Atom CPUs, previously code-named Pineview.
As we have already discussed, Pineview isn't designed to provide a radical improvement in performance, but instead it focuses on the mobility factor. At the same clock speeds, Pineview should be about 10% faster than the previous Diamondville processors, give or take. The more interesting aspect of Pineview is that the GPU and memory controller are now integrated into the CPU package. Where previously Atom had to get by with outdated chipsets manufactured using a relatively archaic 90nm process technology, now the entire package is manufactured using Intel's latest and greatest high-K 45nm technology. The result as you might imagine is a significant decrease in power requirements, so if nothing else Pineview should improve battery life on netbooks.
The integrated graphics are updated from the old GMA 950, although the upgrade isn't particularly noteworthy. The new part is dubbed GMA 3150, which is similar to the GMA 3100. That makes the 3150 a DX9 part with SM3 provided via software rather than being built into the hardware. The only significant difference between GMA 950 and 3150 appears to be support for OpenGL 1.5 with the 3000 series parts, plus slightly higher clocks. Most of the 10% performance increase with Pineview is going to come from the integrated memory controller (IMC). Gaming and HD video decoding are sadly still neglected.
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krazyderek - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
the last two sentences pretty much sum it up for me.thornburg - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
I'm used to articles on Anandtech being more scientific and thorough than some of the recent fare, and particularly this article.If you're speculating about the differences between Win7 and XP causing performance issues, why not install the same OS on both machines and try it? It's silly and unprofessional to speculate when there is a fairly simple way to test.
What's the story? Why leave the topic only half investigated?
Zero110 - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
I imagine it's for the same reason that the battery life tests are "half-done." Limited time, and over a weekend no less. They'd rather have this and updates down the road then get scooped by every other tech site.JarredWalton - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
Yeah, that's about it. Working over 24 hours over a weekend to post an article like this stinks, especially when it's close to Christmas. So I ran as many tests as I could squeeze in.More than that, there's really nothing special about the PCMark results. The detailed results table tells us what we need to know in most areas: Pineview is similar to Diamondville in most areas, and HDD, RAM, and other system components come into play with a composite score like PCMark. It's really not a big improvement from previous Atom designs, outside of the battery life issue.
Zero110 - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
I actually wasn't expecting any updates this morning because of the season. I guess Intel screwed you on that one. For what basically amounts to a non-event for most people. But, thanks for all the hard work. Merry Christmas to you, and wish everyone else on the staff a Happy Soonest Applicable Holiday.crimson117 - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
And especially for such an underwhelming product... ;)
R3MF - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
Hi AT team,How come the 3250 is SOOOOOOO bad?
I know the GMA 3100 is pretty rubbish, but it was way better than the GMA 950, but that isn't apparent today.
How has this come to pass?
JarredWalton - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
The X3100 was a much bigger step up from the 3100. X3100 is DX10 (supposedly -- drivers make this a questionable claim), and it has 8 pixel shaders vs. 4 on the 3100. When you couple an IGP like GMA 3100 with a single channel memory controller in a netbook, you cut bandwidth to the system in half, and it was already a limiting situation. The net result is that GMA 950 and 3150 are about the same, which is to say they're junk.R3MF - Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - link
Thanks for the info, didn't know that. :)Regards
SilthDraeth - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
Just wondering, and would this chip work in the Ion platforms?