MSI X610: Supersizing the Netbook?

X610 Gaming and Graphics Performance

Since the MSI X610 includes a discrete GPU, discussing gaming performance is relevant. We will include the netbooks in the 3DMark results, but it should come as no surprise that even the fastest netbook is clearly outclassed for the time being. 3DMark also tends to put more of an emphasis on the GPU -- especially in some of the older versions -- so it's interesting to see how the HD 4330 compares against the HD 3200 in such testing. Unfortunately, actual gaming often depends a lot more on balancing CPU and GPU performance; as we will see, there are several instances where the AMD Neo MV-40 is simply unable to run certain games adequately, even at minimum detail settings. A faster dual-core chip would have gone a long way towards solving that problem.

Starting with the 3DMark results, the MSI X610 initially looks like a very promising gaming solution. It's over twice as fast as the NV52 in 3DMark03… but then it's 72% faster in 3DMark05, 48% faster in 3DMark06, and only 29% faster in 3DMark Vantage. That means that the newer the benchmark, the less the advantage for the X610. We all know that the 3DMark suites are not necessarily games, but they do correlate to gaming performance in some instances. The real question is whether a game matches 3DMark03, 05, 06, or Vantage in the way it approaches graphics (or perhaps something in between). Let's move to the actual gaming performance results and see what the MSI X610 can do.

We already stated that there would be instances where the single-core MV-40 processor was inadequate for modern games, and the above chart shows at least six titles (out of 12) where the X610 is not able to provide adequate performance, even at minimum detail settings and an 800x600 resolution. Moreover, if we average the results from all 12 titles, we find that the Gateway NV52 and the MSI X610 are essentially equal.

We know from 3DMark that the theoretical performance of the HD 4330 is substantially higher than the HD 3200, but quite a few titles have the HD 3200 with QL-64 in the lead. There are two reasons for the higher performance from the QL-64. First, it has a clock speed that's 31% higher than the MV-40. That could account for the lead in some of the games, but it's also obvious that the second CPU core is coming into play on some titles. For instance, Assassin's Creed and GRID run 70% faster on the NV52. Call of Duty: World at War, Dark Athena, and Far Cry 2 have the NV52 leading by 35%, 43%, and 37% respectively, so they also appear to benefit slightly from the second CPU core.

Other titles don't require nearly as much CPU power, with the X610 coming out on top. The X610 leads by 43% in Crysis, 61% in FEAR2, 51% in Fallout 3, and 13% in STALKER: Clear Sky. Performance in most of the remaining titles is within 10%, although the NV52 leads in each case. The net result is that gaming is possible on the X610, but there are definitely limitations imposed by the MV-40 CPU.

We also ran some quick test of casual games like the Sims 2/3 and Spore. None of these titles has any difficulty running on the X610, with frame rates typically hitting the 30 FPS cap. There are also many titles where you can crank up the resolution and/or detail settings on the HD 4330 without lowering performance. Medium quality settings at 1366x768 only reached playable levels in Fallout 3 (27 FPS), but low-quality 1366x768 worked in Crysis (27 FPS), Empire: Total War (37 FPS), Fallout 3 (34 FPS), Oblivion (29 FPS), and STALKER: Clear Sky (28 FPS). World of WarCraft should also run reasonably well, although with me not being a subscriber (or interested in becoming one!) it wasn't something I tested. Considering people have run WoW on netbooks, the X610 should easily be up to the task.