System setup and notes
System setup
| System name | Gateway MT6825B laptop | Shuttle X200 small form-factor PC | HEXUS AMD Athlon 64 3500+ desktop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo (mobile) T5200 - 1.60GHz, 2MiB L2 cache, 133MHz FSB, dual-core | Intel Core Duo (mobile) T2050 - 1.60GHz, 2MiB L2 cache, 133MHz FSB, dual-core | AMD Athlon 64 (desktop) 3500+ AM2 - 2.20GHz, 512KiB L2 cache, 200MHz FSB, single-core |
| Motherboard | Intel i945GM - Napa | Shuttle i945GM - Napa | ECS RS485-M-M (ATI RS485 + SB460) |
| Memory | 1GiB (2 x 512) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs | 512MiB (2 x 256) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs | 512MiB (2 x 256) Crucial PC4200 DDR2 |
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-11-2T @ 533MHz | 4-4-4-12-2T @ 533MHz | 4-4-4-12-1T @ 489MHz |
| Graphics card(s) | Intel GMA 950 onboard, 224MiB | Intel GMA 950 onboard, 128MiB | ATI Radeon (desktop) X1300 Pro 256MiB PCIe (594/792) |
| Graphics driver | Intel GMA driver 7.14.10.1147 | Intel GMA driver 6.14.10.4543 | ATI CATALYST 6.3 |
| Disk drive(s) | Western Digital WDC1000BEVS - 100GB, 5400RPM, SATA | Samsung HD300LJ - 300GB, 7200RPM, SATA | Seagate ST3160812AS - 160GB, 7200RPM SATAII |
| Screen | 15.4in WXGA - 1280x800 | None, optional extra. Dell 2405FPW used | None specified but Dell 2405FPW used |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows Vista Premium | Microsoft Windows XP MCE 2005 | Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 32-bit |
| Current cost | £499.47, excluding delivery | £848, excluding delivery | £300 ex. delivery |
Software
| Benchmarks |
CPU-Z v1.39 HEXUS Pifast LAME multi-threaded benchmark - 701.5MB file - encoded into 128kbps stereo. Cinebench 2003 R9.5 Quake 4 1.30 SMP Support Enabled - integrated graphics script (1024x768) - demo001 recorded by HEXUS 3DMark05 b1.3.0 SimpliSoft HDTach v3.0.1.0 |
|---|
Notes
In order to provide some comparative performance, we're taking a performance look at the Gateway laptop in relation to a Shuttle X200 multimedia-based SFF base unit that features an identically-clocked mobile processor from Intel. The difference, however, is that Gateway is using the Merom core and Shuttle the lesser, but also decent, Yonah architecture. Both systems feature Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics.We've also added in a HEXUS system that features a single-core AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and discrete Radeon X1300 Pro graphics card. This should, we hope, provide useful numbers from the kind of system that many of our readers may be running.
Our usual benchmarking suite has been abbreviated due to incompatibility with Microsoft Windows Vista operating system - a number of our regular benchmarks simply do not function correctly under Microsoft's latest OS, and we'll be taking a closer look at Vista compatibility in the near future.
On a related note, our gaming benchmarks have been curtailed due to the Intel GMA 950 not supporting Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which is part of our usual suite. Intel fully admits that Quake 4 performance is 'choppy' GMA 950, too.
