ASUS Eee PC 1005PE: Pineview Arrives
by Jarred Walton on December 21, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Has Graphics Performance Improved?
The initial results in PCMark look like the GMA 3150 is really no better than the GMA 950, and the tests in 3DMark pretty much confirm that. See for yourselves:
SM3.0 doesn't work on the 3150, so 3DMark06 only generates a partial result, but that's better than what we managed previously with GMA 950. 3DMark03 has the 1005PE tied with the M1022 and trailing the 1005HA slightly, but they're all so slow it doesn't really matter. 3DMark05 does show a 20% improvement for 3150 vs. 950 (1005PE vs. 1005HA), but 20% faster than dirt-slow is still dirt-slow. Meanwhile, the ION LE in the HP Mini 311 is over five times as fast in 3DMark03, nearly eight times as fast in 3DMark05, and pretty much an order of magnitude faster in 3DMark06 (which it manages to run properly, unlike the 3150).
The 1201N ups the ante and improves on the HP Mini 311 by 17% in 3DMark05/06, as well as being able to run Vantage (DX10 is enabled in the ION but not the ION LE, unless you hack the drivers).
Our experience with actual games echoes what we see here, but we can provide a few more details. First, forget 3D gaming on the GMA 950/3150 unless you want to run titles that are from 5+ years back. Second, the GMA 4500MHD is better, but it still has a ways to go. Interestingly enough, we could run more games with the latest Intel drivers, but performance is still less than half what the 9400M (ION) can provide. That's the bad news (for Intel).
As far as ION goes, we have some good news (for NVIDIA). Single-core Atom is still insufficient for most games, but the Atom 330 in the 1201N adds just enough to make gaming borderline possible on some titles. Batman averaged 24FPS on the 1201N at 800x600 and minimum details, but there were areas where Batman would run in slow-mo (around 10FPS) and other areas where performance was closer to 30FPS. You could play the game, but it leaves a lot to be desired. WoW on the other hand isn't as demanding in terms of the CPU, so you should be able to get your MMO fix that way (though large raids are likely to cause problems).
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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?