MSI X610: Supersizing the Netbook?
by Jarred Walton on October 6, 2009 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Battery Life Comparison
We run many scenarios for our battery life tests. Since most netbooks don't include optical drives, we previously ripped our standard test DVD to a hard drive and copied those files over. Ultimately, performance was similar to what we found with playing back HD DivX files, so we have instead chosen to focus on DivX HD, x264 HD, Internet, and idle battery life.
Video playback is one area where the HD 4330 is definitely a nice bonus, since it has no difficulty accelerating decoding on x264 and other codecs. Then again, the HD 3200 provides similar functionality and consumes less power; battery life likely would have been improved quite a bit by using an integrated solution instead of the 4330. What's truly ironic is that the X610 chipset actually includes integrated graphics, but they are disabled. An option to switch between integrated/discrete graphics in order to improve battery life would have been great.
Battery life on the X610 is another mixed bag. Despite having a dramatically slower CPU compared to the NV52 and NV58 along with a slightly higher capacity battery, it only matches the NV58 in Internet and x264 playback. It does manage to beat the NV52 (except in idle battery life where the HD 4330 consumes more power than an IGP), but realistically we're still talking about 2.5 to 3 hours of battery life in most cases. Remember at the beginning where we discussed how the X610 is part MacBook Air? Sadly, one part of the MacBook Air where MSI completely missed the boat is battery life. When you consider that you can get a Core 2 Duo processor in the MacBook Air that substantially faster than the MV-40, battery life and general performance definitely aren't reasons to get the MSI X610.
Power Requirements
As a corollary to the battery life tests, we also performed measurements of power requirements using the AC adapters and a Kill-A-Watt device. These numbers are only accurate to the nearest Watt, so a difference of 1W (i.e. from rounding) could obscure up to a 12% actual difference in power requirements. Also note that power requirements change when you switch to DC power, and power supply (power brick) efficiency comes into play when using the AC adapter, so the battery life tests are a better indication of true power requirements.
If you thought that perhaps the Neo MV-40 CPU wasn't doing a good job at saving power, at least relative to the QL-64 it clearly has a lower worst-case power requirement. It's all of the other equipment in the MSI X610 that consumes power, with idle power draw of 22W easily eclipsing the NV52's 14W. Place a significant load on just the CPU, however, and the X610 only increases its power draw by 11W whereas the NV52 jumps up 21W. Yes, the single-core AMD CPU is capable of using relatively little power. Unfortunately, it appears that the HD 4330 graphics chip is using at least 10W when idle, and 15~20W under load. The result is that the less power hungry CPU combined with a discrete GPU isn't a great low-power solution.
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stmok - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
It looks like the X610 is based on the elements of AMD's ultra thin notebook platform. (The first generation is codenamed: "Yukon".)The 2nd generation is "Congo". AMD's PR has a look at the prototype of Congo...Its actually an MSI X-series!
=> http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/09/09/congo-...">http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/0...eneratio...
This newer generation does feature the 780G chipset with Radeon HD 3200 IGP and dual-core CPU (also at 1.6Ghz).
The PR rep reckons you'll gain an hour or so with the 2nd generation "Congo".
Think I'll hold out for that...
ckistner - Thursday, October 8, 2009 - link
LG P300/310 is a great little machine as well.13.3 LED
Dualcore T8100 2.1 GHz
4 gig ram
Nvidia 8600m GS
external dvd rom
3-4 hrs battery life
Its price is a bit higher than the x610 but worth it imo.
JimmyJimmington - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Dell Studio 14z is the better choice.Higher res screen.
Nvidia 9400M
A real processor
Same weight, still relatively thin.
Seriously what is the appeal of a super thin computer? Weight is absolutely important when you wanna carry your laptop around, but thinness just means more heat, or a crap CPU to keep the laptop from getting hot.
AznBoi36 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Considering the Radeon card has 512MB vram, couldn't you have set the quality settings to medium perhaps?JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
As mentioned at the bottom of the page, I tested most of the games at medium details as well (at least, the games where the CPU wasn't such a huge bottleneck that the game wasn't playable at minimum detail). Many of the playable games remained playable at 1366x768, and a couple could handle medium quality as well. Actually, Fallout 3 (27 FPS) and Empire TW (21 FPS) are the only games playable at medium 1366x768 - everything else is under 20FPS. Empire would also be a problem at 21, except mouse input isn't tied to the rendering rate (just like Maxis does with Sims and Spore), so lower frame rates are still okay.Totally - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
the X610 is in dire need of a stronger CPU. As-is it doesn't have an argument against the nv58/nv52.Abhilash - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
recent launched 45nm dual core neo on the X610 would have been greatqwertymac93 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
why are dual core neos so rare? if this thing had a dual core neo instead of that dumb 4330, it would actually make sense. why is the 780g chipset so rare as well? these companies act like using a dual core neo and 780g in the same computer would rip a whole in the space/time continuum!togaman5000 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
I've got the x600, and despite the lower number, I've gotten five or more hours of battery life and better performance out of it.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Yeah, that's what I've heard. I actually requested the X600 for review and they accidentally sent the X610 instead. I figured it would be interesting to see what the AMD Neo had to offer, but it's really difficult to say when we've got Neo + HD 4330. If the X600 offers two hours more battery life and the only difference is the CPU/chipset, that's not a good sign for the Yukon platform. Still, it's tough to draw any firm conclusions with just one sample.