CyberpowerPC's Compal NBLB2: Affordable Gaming
by Dustin Sklavos on December 21, 2010 5:50 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- AMD
- Intel
- CyberPowerPC
- Compal
Gaming Performance
With the AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5650 essentially off the chain, let's see how it fares compared to NVIDIA's recent 400 series GeForces in our "Low" setting gaming suite. Also keep an eye on the same GPU when coupled to the Athlon II P520.
At these CPU-limited settings the NBLB2 essentially takes on all comers, even producing playable performance in nearly every game at the native 1080p resolution. While the GeForce GTS 350M should be more powerful and is generally considered a higher class part, at least on paper, the i7-740QM it's strapped to could be bogging it down. The Acer 5551G also sits back anywhere from 10% (STALKER) to as much as 45% slower (BFBC2) thanks to the CPU deficit. What happens when we ratchet up to our "Medium" preset?
Performance is again excellent, and the 5650 trades blows with NVIDIA's lineup, new and old. In most games the NBLB2 is overall able to provide playable performance even at 1080p. That said, performance isn't entirely smooth at that native resolution, and with most games you may want to back down to 1600x900; 1080p seems to push the bandwidth-limited GDDR3 too hard, and this is true with either vendor's graphics hardware. AMD's P520 remains a noticeable bottleneck even at medium detail, with the i7-640M delivering anywhere from 6% (STALKER again) to 36% (BFBC2—or 31% in SC2) better frame rates. That gap will finally disappear at our 900p High settings, though.
When we get to our "High" preset, the NBLB2 falters: the 5650 just can't take the increased stress. This is true of all the parts in this class, as evidenced by the performance of the high-end GPUs. At this point it doesn't matter what processor the 5650 is paired up with, because it's entirely GPU-limited.
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Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
I think that really depends on where your priorities lie.If gaming and budget are top priority, the NBLB2.
If a slightly better screen, slightly better battery life, and slightly better connectivity are important, the B5130M.
If the best battery life is what you're after, we haven't tested the ASUS but imagine it's probably going to do better than the B5130M.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
Wow, I hope Dell brings back the 1080p LCD soon; maybe it's just a temporary thing due to demand? (And if that's the case, you'd think they would realize that a good LCD *can* sell lots of laptops!) As for the rest, speak for yourself... *I've* tested the ASUS N53JF; I just haven't finished writing the review yet. ;-) So, um, SPOILER ALERT!Battery life with a 48Wh battery comes to 271 idle, 233 Internet, and 139 for H.264 playback. That's better than the competition (despite having a smaller battery) in two of the tests. Performance elsewhere is in line with the other i5 + 425M configurations we've tested. Here's the kicker, though: The 1080p LCD sucks. Not sucks as in it's worse than 768p, but sucks as in contrast is 233:1. That means that unfortunately, all the 15.6" 1080p LCDs aren't great; only some of them are. Also, the Dell XPS 15 still has by far the best sounding speakers; ASUS has some Bang & Olafsen tech supposedly, but they just don't sound that great -- they really overemphasize the highs, to the point where a lot of MP3s sound like they have tons of static. Anyway, the full review should hopefully be up this week.
debacol - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
Whats the price of a Dell XPS 15 with the equivalent 640M CPU and 1080p screen? I have a feeling its a bit north of $1,100.Dug - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
I think this is a great improvement over the last review. Easy to read and very informative. Keep up the good work.mattgmann - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
My only question concerns hard drive space. Is there a second slot to add an SSD, or can the optical drive be replaced with an ssd? I really need to have room for data on my next laptop, so a lone SSD isn't going to cut the mustard. I'd be cool though if adding a second drive meant losing the optical drive.I am super impressed with the hardware in this lappy. I need a new laptop capable of doing some of my production work (mostly web stuff, but also lots of flash and photoshop/illustrator work) while I travel. I'm quite intrigued by the i7 640m.
The build quality looks to be a little on the cheap side, but I'm not one for style anyway. I configured a system on cyberpowerpc without an operating system and slid in at ~1100, well within my budget. The Dell XS 15 isn't available with the i7 640m, and similarly configured systems were much more expensive.
debacol - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
I have an old Compal IFL90 and have been using it heavily for about 4 years. I haven't had a single issue with it at all. So even if the build quality doesn't "feel" as great as other laptops, at least from my personal experience, that "feel" hasn't translated into poor reliability.I use my laptop for light gaming and very heavy photoshop use (ie: always working with 300dpi 200+mb files).