ASUS EeePC 1215N: Bringing NG-ION to the 1201
by Vivek Gowri on November 25, 2010 12:00 AM ESTASUS Eee PC 1215N Gaming Performance
So, here we are with Next-Gen ION. The graphics chip identifies itself as ION, but it’s just an underclocked version of the NVIDIA G 210M/310M dGPU that was in some of our favorites like the UL80Vt. The GT 218 core has two versions for NG-ION netbooks, one for 10” platforms with 8 CUDA cores and one for larger platforms with the full 16 CUDA cores. The 1215N has all 16 SPs, so it’s going to be faster than the new 1015PN that has the Atom N550 and the 8 SP NG-ION chip.
Our gaming test suite is completely different now than it was when we tested the Eee PC 1201, so we can’t directly compare the two, but the 1215N is similar in that it gets blown out by its larger brethen, even though they are also running the same basic GT 218 core. Obviously, the G 210M and G 310M are clocked higher, but it’s still a sizeable difference. The ASUS U35 outdoes the 1215N by roughly a factor of two or three, except in STALKER and ME2. In our Call of Pripyat test, the NG-ION doesn’t actually have the ability to run the benchmark with anything other than static object lighting, so it’s not really on the same page as the other results. I re-ran the UL80Jt with the same settings just for comparison’s sake and got 96.1 fps, so again roughly double the 1215N. ME2 tends to be less CPU bound than some of the other benchmarks in our suite, so the drop in performance there is probably equally related to the lower GPU clock speed as it is the CPU bottleneck. Either way though, it’s simply not possible to run native resolution games at playable levels, even with bare minimum settings. To get playable framerates on most modern games, you will need to turn the resolution down to 1024x600 or so and just scale up to fullscreen.
But let’s stop comparing it to dedicated graphics cards—how does it do against some of the better integrated solutions? The NVIDIA 320M isn’t even a comparison worth talking about, since it’s about two times faster than the 310M. A bright spot for the NG-ION platform is that it outperforms the current AMD integrated graphics platforms in most of the tests, but again, given the AMD HD 6250 and HD 6310 (Ontario and Zacate, respectively) on the horizon, there’s going to be pressure on NVIDIA to boost the performance of their low end graphics solutions.
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mutter - Thursday, November 25, 2010 - link
Agreed with Evil_Sheep aside from the Macbook Air being nearly perfect... more so than even most apple products the air is an expensive toy.Since 2003 I have prefered laptops under 4 pounds with 12-14" screens. My selections were from the Dell XPS series, Satellites and even some offerings by the shitty company Averatec... my latest is a 1201n and it has been my most loved. I hope a better alternative to the Atom can be used to push variety and usefulness of machines in this size and capacity.
86waterpumper - Thursday, November 25, 2010 - link
I have had a lenovo ideapad s12 for awhile now. I agree with what most are saying. I love the size of this netbook and it has worked out well. I think 12 inch is the perfect compromise in size.I knew when I bought it that the atom cpu would be the achilles heel of the system but at a 400 dollar pricepoint I saw nothing to compete with it.
I like the fact that mine has the more usable 1280 x 800 screen resolution. I have used some of the 10 inch netbooks and they are pretty well worthless for web surfing and the keyboards suck bad if you are able to type at a decent speed.
I also do NOT want a 16:9 screen. This machine does have regular windows 7 and 2 gigs of ram, in fact it is very similar to the tested asus here except obviously for the dual core. It has been used alot lately for watching dvd rips on trips for the kids, and to play games such as plants vs zombies and of course email and internet surfing. I do wait for the cpu here and there, I found that the main place it really lagged was trying to stream hulu in 480 or 720p over the hdmi. However it will do this smoothly when it is run at 1.8ghz via oc software :P
One thing I am really jealous of is the ability to turn off the ion graphics this is the only thing killing my battery time. Eventually I will hand this down to the kids but I am hopeful that in the next couple of years we will get some real solutions for a better netbook type cpu that still gets a good battery life. A decent 2ghz dual core would rock whether it be from amd or intel either one.
svojoe - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
I feel like this article should have mentioned something really important. Unless I am very mistaken Intel removed Nvidia's ability to access the ATOM directly when it released pinetrail. Forcing Nvidia to access ATOM via the pci bus. Basically killing ION. NG ION only brings one real advantage and thats the ability to switch between pinetrail and the ION chip. But while its a modest power saving feature. The real benefit of the ION is gaming and decoding and that can't really get a whole lot better. Regardless of cores or clocks because the bandwidth has been castrated.I feel like if this is true at least some bone should be thrown to Nvidia for playing against a stacked deck. If it wasn't for Intel trying to protect there vision of our ATOM based future its entirely possibly NG ION could have been really worth while.
Yeah its better, yeah dual core atom is a little faster. But I don't think this is compelling enough better to jump from my HP Mini 311, almost two years and no real advancement in the 12" and under portable gaming market.
Well I guess I made a future proof choice being a early adopter of the ION platform. But its so frustrating to see so much potential.
lowlymarine - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
With the U30Jc being readily available for $750 these days (http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-U30JC-X3K-13-3-Inch-Lap... I'd find it difficult to recommended a $500 12" netbook to anyone. For $250 (and the loss of internal Bluetooth, I suppose) you move from an Atom to a Core i3, NG-ION to a 310M (though the only real differences there are clocks and 1x vs 16x PCI-E, those add up to a fairly major performance delta), 2GB of DDR2 to 4GB of DDR3, a 250GB hard drive to a 500GB one, gain an internal DVD+/-RW drive, not to mention get markedly better battery life, which from a portability standpoint should outweigh the minor difference in weight to most people.While it's true that $250 isn't exactly pocket change, I'd argue that over the life of the machine it'd be a small price to pay to avoid the unpleasant experience that is Windows on an Atom. I've been there, and I'm in no hurry to go back.
svojoe - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
$750 is too much, thats just it. If I was going to spend $750 I'd get a 'real' portable gaming laptop and skip ATOM or even CULV altogether.The appeal of these gaming netbooks is bizzare but strong, Sure, it sucks at games. but IT DOES game (even if it sucks) You should see it, I play CIV 4 with friends, they have dual-core machines that superPI in 35 seconds. (my atom takes over 2 minutes) but my CIV 4 game is buttery smooth, scrolling/zooming etc etc. They are watching a slide show with the Nvida 7400's,amd 4225's and the Intel HD's on much faster computers. And my netbook is small, I have a 11.6" 1366x768 screen that is more crisp and looks sharp as hell since its so small compared to there 15.6" screens. If we figured out a price for dollars vs FPS in the $500 or less market I bet this comes out on top barring any black friday deals. You go near $400 and forget about it. ATOM+ION gives you something nothing else can compete with. Tiny and almost-real modern gaming, with good last gen gaming.
It tears up old games, Battery lasts 3.5 hours hardcore gaming, 4 hours light gaming and 5 hours dim screen browsing. Thats killer for almost anything with real discrete graphics.
I can expound about ION for a long time, but I think the biggest difference is that I k now its weaknesses and I have atoned for that. I feel like almost every reviewer and almost everyone that comments on this stuff really misses the point. ITS CHEAP! and Tiny! Decent battery! games! aaaahhhh!
Sorry just freaking out a bit. I agree with you 100% that a couple hundred bucks gets you into a whole new world, but this thing will be at $425 retail very soon, (who sells at list price?) and to kick it up to 700$ to get albeit a lot more performance is the equivalent of getting a 27,500$ car instead of a $18,500 car to get a 6cyl with automatic windows and locks and a higher trim package. Some people go for it, Others just need to get there even if it isn't pretty.
I want more products and competition in this market. I want bettering gaming, smaller, faster and cheap. I want it all! And as sad as it is Atom-ION is it when yo factor it all in. (size, price, gaming, battery)
Penti - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Do you still have problem running Adobe Flash Player on NG-ION (high-res videos)? Have it gotten any better, I do see the bandwidth limit as a big usage issue and disadvantage. Why not build on GS40 and a Core 2 based Celeron instead in these cheap lappys? At least they should handle flash more or less fine. I mean come on for this price you can even get a 11.6" system with Nehalem/Core i based ULV. And just the OS is a fifth of the price really.Can't these Atom models just die already? The point became meaningless when the OS got upped to more then $20 USD and the screensize got enlarged, but they still don't offer anything better then the ULV alternatives. It's actually just a pain that they do sell computers with just 1GB of ram, just because they has that as a limit for 7 Starter OEM-licenses. Upping to 2GB also means upping the OS cost by about 80 USD. Adding in a Broadcom CrystalHD accelerator and a 300 dollar netbook becomes a 450 dollar one, and then you could just get some dualcore Core 2 based thing. Which won't really have any worse battery life or anything. (Look at the comparison, they usually have worse battery life if they are atombased). Asus got much better options like outgoing UL30A/newer UL20FT or UL80Vt, or any of the Acer's with ULV.
frederico - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
I am an enthusiast with a powerful desktop, 3 laptops of varying ages and a netbook
At the moment I find myself using the netbook more and more
I can veg with it outside in the sunlight, pick it up and browse while watching the tv, use it on regular long train journeys, watch films on it at night falling asleep, etc, etc
I couldnùt do this if the netbook had the same weight portability and battery life as a laptop
Let me rephrase - a netbook is a thing with long battery life, portability and low weight.
A laptop is cumbersome, heavy and has short battery life (I have 3)
My current samsung netbook is tiny and has an 8 hour battery life - great.. BUT, like most netbooks, it cannot play HD, .mkv files, open a lot of flash, or do a spot of light gaming - something that is crucial to me (not most netbook users)
Its a lifesaver but I need something with just a tad more cpu power, graphics power, and that won't roast the legs off me - BUT maintains the same portability and battery power (very important)
This ASUS is about the only netbook out there with favourable reviews that fits the bill (except for the dodgy fragile power pin - check amazon reviews)
Just wanted to clarify the above - as the reviewers and comments here seemed to be a little hazy as to its function
gralex - Friday, December 3, 2010 - link
Totally agree!And would like to take it even further by saying "I'm tired of having a (full blown) laptop". I just don't see the point of having a laptop AND a netbook (assuming of course, one has a desktop). I actually DO need a "netbook on steroids". A lot of you are probably thinking "Yeah but then what you REALLY need then is a CULV that'll run circles around...". No, I don't. And here's why:
I'd rather spend 500€ now and another 500 in 2 years, instead of 1000€ now and another in 4 years. It's also easy to poke fun at an Atom (I'm looking at you, The0ne) and a dinky little ION, but here's the deal. I run Seti@home and have had the 1215n for almost 2 two months now. The Atom+ION combo is 15x faster than the 2,8GHz processor on my old laptop. Not to mention my old processor is rated at 73W! Plus Seti "sees" the Atom as having 4 cores and crunches 4 workunits simultaneously... go figure. Plus the ASUS can max out the Atom, ION, download non-stop over wi-fi at full connection speed (all in the background) while playing HD video on my Plasma (flawlessly I might add) and have the battery last approx. 4hrs! So for a "desktop" processor, an extra gig of ram, a larger hard drive, a higher resolution screen, "real" Windows 7, HTPC & light gaming capability.... It's totally worth the extra 200€! Especially since your browsers are going to be (officially) GPU accelerated soon. Not to mention the fact that your media players ALREADY are...
CONS: Vivek's comments on the screen are 100% spot-on. Also the charger-pin is somewhere between the old Nokia chargers and the new ones, in size. It really IS scary to use. Trip over the power cord and I'm pretty sure you'll be without a laptop 'till it get's repaired. Lid and palmrest are plastic of course as stated in other comments (I've got the silver one), but I was suprised at how nice it is (you'll have to see it for yourself to understand that comment). Sturdy too. But the bezel and keyboard-surround are made of a flimsy, shiny plastic that's both cheap and ugly.
The0ne - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
Finally a comment that is sensible and reasonable to accept from Anandtech,"While most people label it a netbook, I wouldn’t strictly call it so—I tend to define netbooks as anything with a 10” screen running Atom at a sub-$400 price point. The 1215N has more power, a larger screen, and a higher price tag, but it’s still running Atom so it’s not an ultraportable laptop either. CULV will eat the dual-core Atom for lunch and not even bother spitting the bones out. You don’t even need to ask about Core i3 or its ULV equivalent."
I hope users and Anand reviewers, especially Anand himself, would abide by your stance.
Hrel - Thursday, December 2, 2010 - link
ASUS N53JF-XE1I think it's a pretty amazing deal for 1K. BD drive, 1080p screen, a DX11 GPU that will run every game out there smoothly at 1280x720 ie 720p. USB 3.0.