MSI X610: Supersizing the Netbook?
by Jarred Walton on October 6, 2009 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
X610 Application Performance
You can read about our testing setup and the other laptops used in our previous GIGABYTE M1022 review. As an amalgamation of netbook and notebook designs, the MSI X610 straddles the fence between those two markets. Considering the suggested price of €500, the X610 is going to compete more against entry-level notebooks (i.e. Gateway's NV52/NV58 models) than it will against netbooks, although certainly there are users that will be interested in a multimedia netbook that doesn't weigh a lot and the X610 fits that niche nicely.
We will start our performance comparison with general application testing, including PCMark, CINEBENCH, and video encoding tests. Since MSI ships the X610 with Windows Vista (32-bit), we are also able to run PCMark Vantage this time around. As we have discussed elsewhere, PCMark05 has some odd results under XP in some of the tests that skew the overall score. We will include detailed PCMark05/PCMark Vantage results where applicable so you can see the individual test scores.
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The general application performance results establish a trend that we will see repeated in many areas. Compared to netbooks, the MSI X610 is faster than any current Intel Atom offering. That's not likely to change until Pineview/Pine Trail at the very earliest, and even that isn't a guarantee that Intel Atom will surpass a reasonably fast single-core Athlon (or Core 2) processor. On the other hand, the Gateway NV52 with its QL-64 processor easily beats the X610, and the NV58 is anywhere from 2-3.5X as fast. You might say that's not a fair comparison, but keep in mind that the Gateway NV58 is a $600 laptop, the NV52 is a $500 laptop, and X610 is currently targeting a €500 price tag. It weighs less, but it's also substantially slower.
Turning to the detailed PCMark results, outside of a few tests that clearly favor Windows Vista, the general pattern remains the same. The two Gateway laptops are usually first and second place in the MSI is third, followed by the various netbooks. There are individual cases where that doesn't hold true, but most of the time that's related to hard drive performance. Only two tests have the MSI X610 clearly in the lead, and it should come as no surprise that both tests involve graphics. In PCMark05, the 3D Pixel Shaders and 2D 64 Line Redraw tests have the X610 leading by 200% and 50%, respectively. It's also interesting to note that PCMark Vantage Gaming suite still has the X610 trailing the Gateway laptops by a significant margin.
All of the above tests focus primarily on CPU performance, and they take advantage of multi-core processors. That definitely puts the Neo MV-40 at a disadvantage, and we will see if the discrete graphics can turn the tables in other benchmarks. It looks as though the HD 4330 GPU in the X610 potentially offers three times the performance of the HD 3200 in the NV52. However, games also require CPU performance at times, so depending on the game engine we may or may not see the HD 4330 flex its muscles.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Yeah, but often the prices are about the same in Euros and USD because of taxes and such... at least, that's been my experience. Anyway, without the product in the US it's pretty much a moot point, but I'd like to see it at $500 or less.samspqr - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
you can't use the exchange rate to convert hardware priceshere in europe we have higher direct taxes (around 18% por this kind of goods), and some other legislation that makes this stuff more expensive (like a mandatory 2 years warranty by the seller), plus quite often we just get ripped off
the X600 is selling for $800 in amazon.com and 720eur in amazon.de, so for the X610 those 500eur should mean something like $560
samspqr - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
(sorry, I meant indirect taxes)max347 - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
With such a low speed cpu, I wouldnt really see the point in a dedicated card. I would rather have either- stronger cpu/dedicated, or igp/better battery life.Mint - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
At a given pricepoint, I would have the ability to play somes games with AA, AF, and full shaders than have a strong CPU with a weak GPU that can play all games at 640x480.A 1.3 GHz C2D isn't going to be that much faster for games, but it's the best you can get in a reasonably priced lightweight notebook. I would totally go for this notebook if they engineered the power saving properly and got 5+ hours of battery life, and a Neo X2 option would be icing on the cake. Instead I'm pleading for the substantially more expensive 3810TG to eventually arrive in NA.
LarsAlereon - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
It needed a discrete GPU because the IGP (X1250) isn't good enough for basic usage. Ideally you'd use an IGP in value systems, and only use a discrete GPU if you want gaming capabilties. In this case they were forced to use a discrete GPU, but the unit wasn't positioned somewhere that needed gaming performance. Is there a reason they couldn't have used the RS780E (HD 3300) instead? I look forward to seeing an IGP based on the R5000-series architecture at some point.Mint - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
15.6 inches in a 4.5 lb chassis for that price is fantastic, especially when you get better-than-atom performance and HD 4330 graphics. Too bad battery life is so mediocre. You'd think that ATI's hybrid power technology would be able to shut down the discrete graphics when idling.Still, have you considered reviewing Acer's Timeline 3810TG? That can be equipped with a Core 2 Duo (albeit low clock speed), 4330 graphics that can be shut off, and claims to have 7-9 hours of battery life. Unfortunately, this particular Timeline is also unavailable in the US...
bjacobson - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
I think I'm going to start defining netbook by weight and battery life nothing else.IMO it needs to be at or below ~3lbs and have a 7-8 hour charge.
Size never mattered to me, it was all about weight and battery life.
At 7h I can safely consistently leave the charger at home if I have a full charge. Needs vary but I haven't had to worry about it once this semester, and that's with 8 hour days of classes and I still usually have 15-20% battery life left.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Yeah, unfortunately the part of the netbook this laptop used was the "low performance CPU". It's rather disappointing to me that a CPU that's only ~50% faster than Atom can use 3X as much power. They also took the MacBook Air part that consisted of "thin" without worrying about providing great battery life and reasonable performance.JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
I've been trying to get any Timeline for review... hopefully some day soon Acer will send me one. I'm still a little confused as to why the X610 has an IGP and discrete graphics with no apparent way to use the IGP (unless I'm just totally missing it).