Synthetic Graphics Performance
We don't place a lot of stock with the performance results generated by Futuremark's 3DMark applications, and really the HP laptop isn't designed with gaming in mind -- at least not if you go with the GMA X3100 integrated graphics. What we did find very interesting, however, was that the Intel graphics chip was able to complete all of the 3DMark benchmarks without any noticeable problems -- beyond the expected "seconds per frame" results in some of the more complex tests. There's still a lot of work to do on Intel's side of things with regards to drivers, however, and it appears that 3DMark06 is one of the few applications where SM3.0 support is working.
While graphics performance is obviously at the bottom of the Core 2 Duo pack, it is at least somewhat interesting to note that the GMA X3100 appears to be able to outperform the AMD Radeon Xpress 1150. Then again, considering the Radeon Xpress 1150 is slightly slower than a X300 SE discrete graphics card, the performance level we're talking about isn't much. 3DMark06 does require SM3.0 for a couple of the tests, and since the Radeon 1150 doesn't support that feature it is further penalized. Still, the ability for the X3100 to complete all of the 3DMark benchmarks give us some small measure of hope when it came to actually playing games....
We don't place a lot of stock with the performance results generated by Futuremark's 3DMark applications, and really the HP laptop isn't designed with gaming in mind -- at least not if you go with the GMA X3100 integrated graphics. What we did find very interesting, however, was that the Intel graphics chip was able to complete all of the 3DMark benchmarks without any noticeable problems -- beyond the expected "seconds per frame" results in some of the more complex tests. There's still a lot of work to do on Intel's side of things with regards to drivers, however, and it appears that 3DMark06 is one of the few applications where SM3.0 support is working.
While graphics performance is obviously at the bottom of the Core 2 Duo pack, it is at least somewhat interesting to note that the GMA X3100 appears to be able to outperform the AMD Radeon Xpress 1150. Then again, considering the Radeon Xpress 1150 is slightly slower than a X300 SE discrete graphics card, the performance level we're talking about isn't much. 3DMark06 does require SM3.0 for a couple of the tests, and since the Radeon 1150 doesn't support that feature it is further penalized. Still, the ability for the X3100 to complete all of the 3DMark benchmarks give us some small measure of hope when it came to actually playing games....
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - link
Funny you should mention the E-155-C.... :DFant - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
Seems HP shipped you a badly specced machine. They should have used a 5400rpm drive and the nvidia graphics chip as well as the extended 6-cell. All three would have improved your benchmarks. Out of curiousity, did you use a clean vista build or the out of the box vista build that hp supplies with loads of extras installed?JarredWalton - Saturday, June 23, 2007 - link
HP's install, minus a bunch of software that I didn't want running. Although, when I ran SYSmark 2007, I ahd to do a clean install first. (Now you know why the lack of GbE was annoying - image a HDD over 100 Mbit and I averaged 3 MB/s instead of 12 MB/s with GbE. Not sure why, but Acronis only manages to use about 25% of the Ethernet bandwidth.) Anyway, I like to make the testing close to "real world", and most people don't buy an HP, Dell, Gateway, etc. notebook only to install their own operating system. (Businesses are different story, but let's not go there.)I actually don't think that the configuration they sent was all that bad. It may not perform as well in benchmarks, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people get way too hung up on benchmark results. Do you want a faster hard drive, or do you prefer having a bit more storage? There is no right answer, although personally I would generally go with one of the 120-160GB 7200 RPM laptop drives if possible. As for the battery, they did send me the 12-cell for testing, and the only thing I really would like to know is the capacity of the extended 6-cell. The basic 6-cell is a 47 WHr, so if they extended capacity is 65 WHr it would increase battery life by about 35-40%. I'm trying to get an answer from HP about the capacity of the other 6-cell offering.
Fant - Saturday, June 23, 2007 - link
I have a dv6500t with the extended 6-cell. I havent done any formal testing but I probably get just under 3 hours with the HP Recommended / Balanced Power Plan in Vista and a bit over 3 hours when using the Power Saver Plan. I did notice that the cpu seems to stay at the lower speed with the Power Saver Plan but seems to stay at the higher speeds with the HP Recommended / Balanced Power Plan even when I am not doing much cpu intensive tasks.JarredWalton - Saturday, June 23, 2007 - link
Can you check the battery and see what the rating is? Usually it will say something like "10.8V ~= xx WHr". I want to know the Watt-Hour rating. I'm not sure why, but the notebook I have almost never runs at minimum CPU speed. Weird.hubajube - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
I was waiting to read on how this laptop performed when watching HD DVD's. I'm interested in buying this for my wife for her to use as a work laptop but at the same time I'd like to use it as a HTPC. Oh well guess I'll have to spend the money to find out. :(JarredWalton - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
Yeah, they didn't send the HD-DVD version. I'm not sure if the 8400M GS is required for that or not - maybe X3100 can do enough to handle it (but I doubt it). Anyway, we've tested 8600 cards with HD-DVD, and I don't see why the 8400M wouldn't handle it fine. Problem is, the display is still pretty poor, especially when you consider that video overlay can have a color correction profile applied.shady3005 - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
I was gonna consider this laptop but was turned off by the lack of gigabit ethernet. Dint know about the horrible display at that time. So i was waiting for an upgrade to this laptop but sadly none came.Then I set my eyes on the new Macbook pro. Just 500$ higher that top dv6500t config but worth every extra penny. Amazing display , much lighter , thinner , sexier and CPU (2.2Ghz) and Graphics (8600GT M) upgrade with much better battery life.
Please review the new MacBooks with Santa Rosa ..... I would like to hear how awesome they are ..
crimson117 - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
I lol'd pretty good at this one :)
BPB - Friday, June 22, 2007 - link
Maybe I missed it, if so please excuse me, but I think you simply used the ABG wireless setup. I was wondering how well the N wireless works, and how well it talks to other N devices such as my Belkin N1. My wife's HP works quite well with the Belkin N PCMCIA and router, but for our next notebook I'd like to have the N built-in.