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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JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
I don't think it works quite like that. If you set it to 0%, I believe that's the minimum CPU speed (i.e. 5.25 x 200MHz on the NV52 and 6 x 200MHz on the NV58), while the higher percentage may try to target a maximum speed. 100% would be the normal CPU speed, but would 50% be half-way between minimum and maximum?I'd have to investigate more, but I do remember testing with CPU-Z and seeing CPU clocks go well above the 50% mark. I think at best it's approximate, as you suggest, and how accurate it is likely varies greatly with the CPU - and even BIOS options.
trochevs - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Looking the starting times (startup and resume) I have the feeling that Ubuntu has some kind of problem on your hardware. I have quite bit experience with Dell and Lenovo and Ubuntu 9.04 is always faster to boot compare to any Windows. It is not only my experience, but I am doing test on one senior citizen and one teenager. They both agree with my observation. You should press Alt-F1 during the boot and check for any errors. Gateways could have some additional peace of hardware that does not work correctly under Ubuntu and the kernel has to wait to time-out.In regards out of the box experience you should get hold of the system that is optimized for Linux (Ubuntu) just like the Gateway is optimized for Windows. www.system76.com or Dell http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/u...">http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segt...s=19&... would be good start. Then you don't have to fool with drivers. I would love to see how much optimization has been done by System76 and Dell.
ekul - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
It's true; ubuntu 9.04 boots very quickly and 9.10 will be even better. On my netbook and my desktop 9.04 boots in a lot less then 30 seconds. I agree something isn't quite right with the boot procedure.The other thing to keep in mind for linux boot times is once the desktop is displayed the system is fully up. No background loading, no delayed startups. On Vista and 7 I find after the desktop appears it will take another 30-45 seconds before the HD is done reading and the system is responsive
oyabun - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
Thank you very much for an enlightening article. I am one of the people who indeed care for battery life!Regarding your testing methodology where you drain each battery over and over again, wouldn't it be more efficient to take the battery out of the equation (and physically remove it) completely? Just measure the Wh consumed by the power brick during 30 or 60 minute runs and extrapolate to the capacity of the battery. That would greatly reduce your testing times.
You should of course measure at the DC end of the transformer, otherwise you should factor in it's efficiency.
You could even calibrate the whole procedure with a single battery powered run. It certainly beats what you are currently subjecting yourself to! :-)
Keep up the good work!
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
My experience is that laptops typically switch to different power states on AC vs. DC power, even if you have all the settings the same. It's possible to estimate battery life, but I do like to do "real world" testing where possible. Anyway, it's not a bad idea and I may do a follow up article at some point looking at just the power numbers. Taking the power transformer efficiency out of the equation isn't something I'm equipped to do right now, unfortunately. I can measure power at the outlet... and that's it. And it's only accurate to ~1W there so I'd need a better device than my current Kill-A-Watt.BTW, have you ever stared at a small Kill-A-Watt display while running tests? Frankly, running battery tests where I can walk away and collect the results later is less painful all around! :)
oyabun - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Of course a Kill-A-Watt won't cut it! You need a datalogger on a separate PC and a power gauge, logging the total energy consumption over any period of time unattended. With such a setup you would be able to measure from the DC side by splicing the wires leading from the transformer to the notebook. And, naturally, a datalogger support more than one gauge, so you could measure in parallel.I understand what you mean when you say that power profiles behave differently under AC. It is possible though your (and mine) experience is based on Windows XP. Perhaps Windows 7 are more consistent.
oyabun - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
I didn't see the comments by Kibbles before. Our posts convey the smae message!And I concur, the power supply testing team appears to have the tools for the job.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
Yeah, IIRC they're also in Europe, while Jarred is in Seattle or somewhere out west.JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - link
There's more to it than that, but suffice it to say I don't have power testing equipment and it's not high on my list of priorities right now. Rough estimates are sufficient on the power side of the equation, since you get whatever power brick the laptop comes with. It's not like you can upgrade to a more efficient power brick with a Dell laptop.Kibbles - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link
"maybe borrow it from the powersupply setting team"I meant "powersupply testing team".
Also for the convenience of being able to walk away. As long as you get a voltmeter with logging capability, you can leave it to do it's thing and just pull up the logs.