HEXUS.photofix, HEXUS.squeeze, HEXUS.gaming, HEXUS.power
| HEXUS.photofix - Adobe Photoshop Album SE - 25 images | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS Eee Top ET1602 | HP Pavilion TX2520 | Novatech Centrino 2 X20mv Pro | MSI Wind U100 |
| 758 | 404 | 201 | 772 |
Auto-fixing a batch of 25 images using Adobe software clearly shows the distinct performance gap between Intel's low-power Atom processor and a Core 2 Duo-based alternative. Whilst a 1.6GHz single-core Atom chip will get the job done, it'll take a whole lot longer than existing Core 2 Duo systems.
| HEXUS.squeeze - WinRAR 3.71 - 205MB files | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS Eee Top ET1602 | HP Pavilion TX2520 | Novatech Centrino 2 X20mv Pro | MSI Wind U100 |
| 193 | 115 | 85 | 200 |
As expected, it's a similar story when running the multi-core-threaded WinRAR engine. When compressing 205MB of files, ASUS' Eee Top is notably CPU-bound and takes over three minutes.
| HEXUS.gaming - Quake 4 v1.30 netdemo - 1,024x600/768 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS Eee Top ET1602 | HP Pavilion TX2520 | Novatech Centrino 2 X20mv Pro | MSI Wind U100 |
| 10.28 | 35.39 | 22.55 | 7.65 |
We already know it to be true, but just to reconfirm; both netbooks and nettops aren't suited to 3D gaming. Minesweeper's where it's at.
| HEXUS.power - under-load reading | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS Eee Top ET1602 | HP Pavilion TX2520 | Novatech Centrino 2 X20mv Pro | MSI Wind U100 |
| 36 | 50 | 46 | 20 |
It's all looking a bit gloomy, but there's always one area in which Atom-based systems can shine; power usage. Despite powering a 15.6in monitor, we find the Eee Top's power draw averages around 36W whilst running Quake 4.
Performance summary
ASUS' Eee Top clearly struggles when pushed by mildly-demanding applications, but if your sole intention is to carry out simple tasks such as web-browsing or sending/receiving e-mails, you're likely to have few complaints.
Booting to Windows XP in around one minute, the system is quickly accessible and we experienced no notable slowdowns whilst browsing the Internet using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Similarly, watching Flash-based media on services such as BBC iPlayer or YouTube is well within the system's limits. Begin to multitask by opening multiple browser windows, however, and the system's single-core processor will start to struggle.
It's a familiar Atom-based story, then. ASUS' Eee Top is acceptable for certain tasks, but it's very much so a limited-functionality machine.
