HP Mini 311 — Graphics and Gaming
Normally, we wouldn't even worry much about gaming/graphics performance, but with the ION LE we figured it would be worthwhile to run some gaming tests. We'll start with the ubiquitous 3DMark runs. Note that we tested 3DMark06 at 1280x768 instead of 1280x1024 because of the native LCD resolution. We couldn't run 3DMark Vantage because ION LE lacks DX10 support (unlike the full ION).
The picture with 3DMark already sets the stage: yes, the ION LE (i.e. GeForce 9400M for Atom) platform is going to beat the pants off of GMA 950 solutions, but as we shift to newer versions of 3DMark we see the more powerful CPU on the NV52 (with slower graphics based on performance of the Dell Studio 14z) move past the Mini 311. Shift to real games and the 3DMark results become meaningless.
We ran a few games at 800x600 and minimum detail. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 averaged 17 FPS (and 16 FPS at 1366x768), which is hardly playable. Batman Arkham Asylum (without PhysX) averaged 17 FPS as well, with lows of 1 FPS. Even Unreal Tournament 3 couldn't surpass 18 FPS (which is odd since we managed to get 30 FPS on the N10JC last year — perhaps it's a driver update issue, or maybe the shared system RAM is a bottleneck). About the best showing for the Mini 311 was in Plants vs. Zombies, which averaged 26 FPS during an intense survival level; the GMA 950 falls into the low teens and even single digits in similar testing.
Are there games where the ION LE provides acceptable performance? Absolutely. From the 3D gaming genre, though, you'll want to stick to very undemanding games in terms of CPU requirements — mostly stuff from 5+ years back. Deus Ex or Doom 3 should work fine if you have a copy floating around…. (Note: If you have a particular game request you'd like to have me test, leave a note in the comments and I'll see what I can do.)
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takbal - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - link
I turned the net upside down to find some comparisons in gaming with Acer AS1410 vs ION. None found, although there are plenty of videos on youtube about the ION-powered Samsung N510, showing games which look perfectly playable, while there are barely any for the 1410 or the 1810.And then came the surprise: the only comparable benchmarks I found were for Doom 3, where the N510 is said to have around 28 FPS while the 1810 had about 12 FPS, although it was with the SU3500 CPU. N510 costs £380 here while the Acer 1810TZ costs £430. Twice the performance is pretty good for less the price, isn't?
So whatever the specs on paper, probably the reality is that GPU-limited games are perfectly playable on ION, and having a CPU 2x-2.5x stronger usually counts less than having a stronger GPU. It would be nice to see clear and I hope you will do a fair heads-on comparison on games in that upcoming article.
And exactly what does the 2x more powerful CPU helps? Video encoding is something I never do on the move. If I really-really need to, I can just simply remote into my quad i7, and I do it quicker than anything here. Actually, the review at http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=1923">http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=1923 says about the 1410:
"When officially benchmarked, the Core Solo SU3500 is about 20 percent faster than an Atom N270 at 1.6GHz, but ‘real world’ it felt about the same."
If I add to this that N510 has bluetooth, matte screen and a much better keyboard imho, until somebody shows strong arguments against, my vote is currently for the ION.
takbal - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - link
Some more found with 3DMark03. Sources:http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu_skqaPDFo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu_skqaPDFo
Acer 1410 SU3500: 1529
Acer 1810T SU7300: 1543
and the dual-cores seem to perform worse as they are lower clocked.
Compare it the N510's result which is 3470, more than 2x better.
You may hate Atom, but looks like that for gaming ION wins hands-down over current CULV platforms. For other purposes, I am fine until Atom can play all videos, run a text editor, office apps and remote desktop, which it does. Oh, and add decent Linux support, too.
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 3, 2009 - link
3DMark is NOT a game. At all. Sorry. I include is mostly because the earlier versions in particular are great "theoretical gaming" benchmarks -- they show what the GPU can do when CPU performance isn't much of a factor.The reality is that many games do a lot of work on the CPU. There are games that don't run acceptably on a 1.3GHz dual-core CPU (Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Call of Duty World at War...) and that CPU is still more than twice as fast as Atom. As you can imagine, that makes Atom very questionable on all but the least demanding games, even when paired with ION.
CZroe - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
"The HP Mini 311 is one of the first netbooks to ship with NVIDIA's ION platform. The question everyone's... "???
"The question everone's [asking]" is, where is the question? ;)
This is gettting ridiculous. Anandtech has had truncated opening statements for as long as I can remember with no continuation inside the article. If you can't fix it, stop typing up opening statements that don't fit!
JarredWalton - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
You'd need to look at the "Mobile" tab to get the full abstract. Here it is:The HP Mini 311 is one of the first netbooks to ship with NVIDIA's ION platform. The question everyone's asking is: does ION improve the netbook experience? The answer is yes, but there are other questions we still need to address.
rwrentf - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
I don't know why the review sites seem to be ignoring this (I can't find a decent review anywhere), but what about the HP Pavilion dm3z? The specs I've been able to find specify a 4-5 hour battery life, 13.3" display, Radeon 4330 graphics (on the high end, but low end is still Radeon HD 3200), 7200rpm hard drive options, and a dual core AMD Athlon X2 Neo processor. There's a sweet system for $650 AR at the egg (just search for dm3 - 4GB, 320GB 7200rpm, and Radeon 3200 graphics). If you're already talking about close to $500 for this HP netbook, it's not a lot more, and it sounds like it would be enough for me to retire my real notebook. Please review it if possible.rwrentf - Friday, November 27, 2009 - link
If you go to Amazon you can get just about the same machine (with Windows 7 home) for $550noquarter - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - link
I'm curious to how well these Ion netbooks handle popular MMO's, specifically World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, any chance to test those and maybe Eve?zxc367 - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - link
i want gigabit ethernet too! 100bit fails!Roy2001 - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - link
And what's the point to watch HD movies on a netbook? 18fps with 800x600 and lowest quaility for game, that's a joke. 18fps == 0fps.