Benchmarking II
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Now I thought what would happen if someone wanted to use the Commell as an
occasional gaming rig, how would they get on? I tried the Commell out in Quake
3 Arena 1.32 which is going to be a major test for any on-board graphics.
I tested out the board with some timedemo's to give it a big test and I used very intense demo's
where lots happens and here are the results:
The overall performance of the Commell is quite impressive for the size of the board. I was pleasantly surprised at the Quake 3 results as it was more than playable at all the resolutions tested. The Commell could easily be used as a gaming rig for example without real problems. If you wanted greater 3D performance you can always add a PCI graphics card such as ATI's 9000 solution which will be much more powerful than the onboard Intel graphics. Pricing This where the Commell really falls down. At the moment it is being sold at around £163 including VAT in the UK and this puts it at price well over that of most motherboards. If you look into the cost a bit more its £50 more than the EPIA-M10000 Mini-ITX motherboard which is a well spec'd but very slow motherboard/cpu combo so you have to pay another £50 and you don't get a CPU included as with the EPIA. Worst still, you can get the case and a similiar motherboard as part of a barebones unit for around £195. Which all leaves the Commell in a sticky predicament really. |
