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Review: MSI's CR610 AMD Tigris notebook benchmarked.

by Tarinder Sandhu on 29 October 2009, 10:51

Tags: CR610 Tigris, AMD (NYSE:AMD), MSI

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaung

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System setup and notes

Laptop MSI CR610 Tigris MSI X-Slim X600 Acer Timeline 3810T
Processor AMD Athlon II M320 (2.10GHz, 1MB L2 cache, dual-core) Intel Pentium U9600 (1.60GHz, 3MB L2 cache, dual-core) Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 (1.40GHz, 3MB L2 cache, dual-core)
Motherboard MSI 785GX (MS-1684) MSI GS45 (MS-1691) Acer GS45
Memory 4GB DDR2 4GB DDR2 2GB DDR3
Memory timings and speed 5-5-5-18-2T @ 667MHz 5-5-5-18-2T @ 800MHz 6-6-6-15-2T @ 800MHz
Graphics card(s) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 IGP ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 512MB Intel X4500MHD IGP
Screen size and native res 15.6in - 1366x768 15.6in - 1366x768 13.3in - 1,366x768
Wireless 1T1R 802.11b/g/n Intel WiFi 5100 802.11a/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0 Intel WiFi 5100 802.11a/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0
Disk drive(s) WD 320GB Scorpio Blue, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache WD 500GB BEVT, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache Hitachi 500GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache
Optical drive(s) Optiarc DVD Re-Writer None, external DVD ReWriter supplied None
Graphics driver Catalyst 8.670.0.0 Catalyst Intel 7.15.10.1666
Operating System Windows 7 Ultimate, 32-bit (demonstration purposes) Windows 7 Ultimate, 32-bit (demonstration purposes) Windows Vista Home Premium SP2, 32-bit 
Weight, inc. battery 2,480g 2,135g 1,665g
Current price £450 (as tested) £799 (as tested) £550 (as tested)

 

Benchmarks 7-zip (7z4.65, 32-bit) - internal benchmark
HEXUS.PiFast - calculation to 10m places
CINEBENCH - multi-CPU render
VLC 1.0.2 playback of Terminator Salvation 480p and 720p
YouTube HD playback of Earth clip

Quake 4 v1.30 - 800x600 LQ and 1,366x768 HQ
Far Cry 2 v1.0.3 - 800x600 LQ and 1,366x78 HQ
Battery test -Terminator Salvation 480p movie (VLC) looping

Notes

We're comparing performance of the MSI Tigris laptop to a couple of CULV-based laptop in the form of the Acer Timeline 3810T, that uses Intel X4500MHD integrated graphics, and MSI's own X-Slim X600.

In terms of benchmarks, 7-zip is a compression program that's multi-threaded for optimum performance, and we're running the built-in benchmark.

HEXUS.PiFast tests single-core performance and CINEBENCH stresses as many cores as are available.

The video-playback tests take in two resolutions of the Terminator Salvation trailer, as found here. We use VLC player to play a one-minute section - from minutes one to two - on the 480p and 720p clips. An average CPU utilisation is then derived from the Resource Monitor.

Omnipotent Flash is then tested by running the high-definition clip of the Earth trailer on YouTube.

A nod towards gaming, venerable Quake 4 and Far Cry 2 are fired up and run at 800x600, ensuring all laptops can run the test, and the machine's native resolution of 1,366x768. A script sets the game to low quality at the lower resolution and high quality at 1,366x768, with the DX10 path for Far Cry 2.