Gateway NV52 (AMD) - Futuremark
Since we were already installing the various operating systems and running battery life tests, we thought it might be interesting to run some of the Futuremark benchmarks (while waiting for the battery to recharge...). Windows XP can't run the latest Vantage versions of PCMark and 3DMark, but we included 3DMark03/05/06 and PCMark05. Here are the results.
The results in the 3DMark tests are very close, with the largest gap coming in 3DMark03. XP leads Vista by 3% in that test, which is hardly noticeable, and the results in the other 3DMark suites are within 1%. PCMark shows a much larger difference, with PCMark05 putting Vista in the lead by 7% over XP and 8% over Windows 7. We'll take a closer look at those results below, as the composite score is very deceiving. PCMark Vantage goes the other way, with Windows 7 beating Windows Vista by almost 20%. Let's look at the individual test results in both PCMark benchmarks to get a better idea of what's going on, beginning with PCMark05.
| Gateway NV52 PCMark05 Breakdown | |||
| XP SP3 | Vista SP2 | Win7 RTM | |
| PCMark05 Score | 3590 | 3875 | 3623 |
| HDD XP Startup (MB/s) | 6.664 | 5.948 | 6.168 |
| Physics and 3D (FPS) | 111.1 | 97.4 | 103.7 |
| 2D Transparency (Windows/s) | 214 | 2730 | 478 |
| 3D Pixel Shaders (FPS) | 55.02 | 54.81 | 52.86 |
| Web Page Rendering (Pages/s) | 2.450 | 1.644 | 1.962 |
| File Decryption (MB/s) | 35.91 | 34.02 | 36.05 |
| 2D 64 Line Redraw (FPS) | 331.8 | 362.7 | 392.1 |
| HDD General Usage (MB/s) | 4.233 | 4.038 | 3.941 |
| Multitasking 1 | 1000 | 930 | 948 |
| Audio Compression (KB/s) | 1936 | 1313 | 1163 |
| Video Encoding (KB/s) | 310.4 | 366.8 | 402.2 |
| Multitasking 2 | 1000 | 889 | 934 |
| Text Editing (Pages/s) | 113.0 | 88.4 | 100.7 |
| Image Decompression (MPixels/s) | 23.64 | 23.54 | 23.09 |
| Multitasking 3 | 1000 | 956 | 1047 |
| File Compression (MB/s) | 4.224 | 3.86 | 3.283 |
| File Encryption (MB/s) | 21.04 | 20.72 | 29.27 |
| HDD Virus Scan (MB/s) | 68.37 | 59.38 | 52.88 |
| Memory Latency (MAccesses/s) | 6.73 | 7.103 | 8.382 |
When you look at the composite score, Windows Vista looks very attractive in PCMark05. The individual results tell a completely different story! (Note that we calculated results for the multitasking tests relative to the XP score, which is why it scores 1000 on all three tests.) The high composite score of Vista is a result of the 2D Transparency test, where it is nearly 13 times as fast as XP and almost 6 times as fast as Windows 7. Exactly how important is 2D transparency? It probably helps in Vista when you're using Aero Glass, but it shouldn't matter much at all in Windows XP.
Obviously 2D transparency is a weak point of XP - or at least the XP drivers - so we went through and calculated the relative performance in the PCMark05 tests with and without 2D Transparency. We used the XP result as the baseline metric. Including 2D Transparency, Vista's average performance is 200% of XP and Windows 7 is 108%. Remove that one result and XP ends up being 8.6% faster than Vista and 3.5% faster than Windows 7. The composite PCMark score is weighted, and we don't have exact details on their formula. It's clear that 2D Transparency does not have the same weight as the other tests, but it's still enough to skew the results.
| Gateway NV52 PCMark Vantage Breakdown | ||
| Vista SP2 | Win7 RTM | |
| PCMark Vantage | 2566 | 3055 |
| Memory | 1467 | 1529 |
| TV and Movies | 1541 | 1835 |
| Gaming | 2121 | 2126 |
| Music | 2170 | 3347 |
| Communications | 2971 | 3652 |
| Productivity | 2499 | 2558 |
| HDD Test | 2445 | 2372 |
The results for the individual test suites in PCMark Vantage are a lot closer than the 2D Transparency result from PCMark05, and Windows 7 leads in most of the tests. Gaming performance is essentially a tie, Vista leads by 3% in the HDD test suite, but everything else favors Windows 7 - sometimes by a large margin. We don't know exactly why Windows 7 scores so much higher in the TV and Movies, Music, and Communications test suites. It could be that driver differences play a part, or it may be that Windows 7 is simply better optimized for some of these tests. We do know that most users think Windows 7 performs better than Windows Vista, and the PCMark Vantage results clearly support that impression.
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aahjnnot - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I can't see what software was installed on the laptops. Real-world system performance is affected adversely by the installation of everyday software, and it seems highly probable that this would also affect battery life, startup times and suspend / resume / hibernate performance.It would be very interesting to see a real-world test to understand whether different operating systems are more or less affected by the cruft of daily computing. I'd suggest including anti-virus, an internet security suite, an office suite, Skype, Windows Messenger, a couple of games, itunes or equivalent, some printer drivers, some backup software and a camera management application.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
The installs were all "vanilla", though I updated DirectX and installed the tested Futuremark suites on the Windows setups. In all cases, there were no Firewalls or AV software enabled. I disable automatic updates, firewall, Defender, indexing, screen savers, and set a static swap file size of 4GB. I do not try to disable any extra services, but I try to avoid any extra apps loading at start up (i.e. system tray icons that serve no real use).For Ubuntu, I just did the basic install and then tried to make it work. Easier said than done for a few areas. LOL. I manually added package repositories for Firefox 3.5, some drivers, and the necessary things to get DVD playback working. Far from a trim and speedy install, I know, but it's what Ubuntu uses by default, which means it's what most Ubuntu users will use.
aahjnnot - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I can understand why you chose a vanilla installation, but it means that your results are hardly representative of the real world. All Windows laptop users will need anti-virus; most will have a raft of additional software; and few will disable system tray entries.I run both XP and Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop and on a couple of boxes at home. In all cases Ubuntu starts up significantly faster than Windows, and that's because cruft seems to affect Windows more than it does Linux - on my machines, a vanilla Windows installation is fast but unusable as it's insecure and has no applications.
stmok - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Which guide did you follow?JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
This was the guide I found for the ATI platform:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowt...">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowt...
If their own BinaryDriver guide doesn't work, I don't have much hope for other alternatives!
stmok - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Hmmm...I see. Looking through the link you've provided leads to...Fix Ubuntu 9.04 ATI Driver Issue
http://tan-com.com/posts/technology/fix-ubuntu-904...
(This isn't a fix...Its merely being accommodating to the closed driver's deficiencies.)
Essentially, you want to stay away from ATI hardware until the open source community completes their work on the open driver for ATI solutions. ie: Waiting for xf86-video-ati driver to support your video solution. (Which will take quite a while! They're making slow progress.)
Generally, I research/pick my hardware BEFORE I install Linux. Sticking to Intel and Nvidia based solutions work best. Although, certain Intel IGPs like the GMA 500 is poorly supported. (Intel only provided a closed source driver for that particular solution).
Of course, one also has to understand that Linux is undergoing a major graphics stack re-write. (They are replacing three old components with one)...The initiative is being led by a few Intel employees and Xorg developers. This will affect recent Intel IGPs like the GMA 3xxx, GMA X3xxx and X4xxx series.
So I guess something like the Intel GMA900/950 IGPs or Nvidia supported solution are the ones to go for.
gstrickler - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Here are the conclusions I draw from this article:1. Anand/AnandTech will admit when their testing procedures are inadequate. Always a sign of a good researcher. Thanks, looking forward to updates when you find a more repeatable set of for "internet battery life"
2. Win 7 drivers may still need tuning for performance and/or battery life.
3. Win 7 battery life improvements are not likely to be the 30%+ that some vendors are claiming. You might get that much best case, but typical results will be much lower.
4. Vista sucks. Use XP or Win 7 instead.
5. Flash sucks. Ok, Flash is actually cool and useful, but it's implementation sucks. Adobe has never been known for small, fast, or efficient code.
6. Currently, Intel beats AMD in power usage/battery life.
We already knew #4-#6, and suspected #1-#3. The good news is this confirms what we already knew or suspected. The bad news it that it doesn't give us much new information.
andrewaggb - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Well I found a couple things interesting, power profiles matter but not necessarily as much as you'd think.And it had never occurred to me that disabling flash would give way better battery life. It makes total sense, but without the article I wouldn't have thought of it.
Otherwise, I agree with your analysis of 1-6
I think the actual numbers are pretty questionable, but the author admits that there is a wide variance.
Otherwise I found the linux results amusing, as well as the comments. We can only hope that people who work for canonical actually read these reviews and work to improve the usability of their products.
maveric7911 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Of All linux distributions to use, ubuntu has so much bloat its no wonder its eating battery like that. Please use other distributions out there rather then giving the same old ubuntu bloatware benches.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
"The minimum processor state is set to 5% and the maximum processor state is 100%; we don't know how this specifically affects CPU clock speeds"It's actually pretty simple, and the feature only works with CPUs that have Powernow or Speedstep. The "Maximum Processor state" is how fast the CPU is allowed to run when the system experiences high-cpu load (which would normally increase CPU speed). For example, if you have the maximum set to 50% and you have a CPU that runs at 2.0ghz, Windows will limit the clock speed scaling to what ever multi gets it closest to 1.0ghz. I have my Toshiba notebook limit my 2.1ghz Turion X2 to 50% (1.0ghz) while unplugged to conserve battery power. Note that these percentages are not an exact science, as it's all dependent on the predefined power states (available multi's) of the CPU you're using. It is, however, a way to improve battery life if you don't mind slowing the system down a little. Personally, I don't need that much power while unplugged, but in the rare occasions that I did, I could always change power plans from the battery icon in the taskbar.