14. Benchmarks

We wanted to use our Dell test unit in a one-on-one showdown between the NVIDIA GeForce4 Go and the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. With Dell's continued use of the mobile graphics subsystem, and being the optimists that we are, we attempted to install the ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 into our test unit. However, due to some compatibility issues, we were not able to present you with what would have been a better look at the two current mobile graphics technologies. With the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 installed in our test system, although we could get into Windows XP, once the drivers were loaded, no matter which version we used, we could not get the Mobility Radeon working in our test unit. We believe that this was due to a BIOS/Video BIOS compatibility issue. (So, those of you already wondering if you are going to be able to get the GeForce4 Go 64 MB working in your Dell Inspiron 8100 or Dell Latitude C810, that answer is, we would doubt it!) Hopefully, we will get the chance to pit these two titans on an equal platform in the future.

In the meantime, we planned to have a look at the performance scores of both the IBM's A31p and Dell's Inspiron 8100 in relation to our test unit. We think that this will give you a good look at the performance difference between the three units.

To give you additional insight into PowerMizer's impact on system performance, we ran most of the tests in all three PowerMizer modes. This should give you some additional help in determining the overall impact of using PowerMizer. From the numbers, we found that PowerMizer can be useful in many situations. Again, we should note that Dell is not planning to support or offer PowerMizer at this time.

It is worth pointing out that at this point there are some very good deals to be had on the older Pentium IIIm technology, and many have asked us if we think there is still value in purchasing these systems. I guess that our best answer would be that, "Yes, depending on what you use the system for, you might be able to get by just fine with the purchase of the current Pentium IIIm systems." Not everyone needs to have the latest in technology and the flexibility of a more robust mobile graphics subsystem, so we would encourage you to also explore some of the other Pentium 4m notebooks that are going to be released shortly with both the ATI Mobility Radeon and the NVIDIA Geforce2Go graphics options. A good example of this is the Winbook n4, which is based on the Pentium 4m, but uses the less expensive GeForce2Go solution, leading to a lower overall cost. As an example, the Winbook n4 will sell for close to what you can purchase the Dell Latitude C810, Dell Inspiron 8100, and the Gateway Solo 9550 series for; of course, this will depend on the configuration. Comparison shopping is always your key to getting the best overall deal, but if you are an avid reader of THG, you already know that.

As we have explained in our past notebook articles, platform differences do affect overall performance. These performance benchmarks should be viewed not as a direct performance comparison between the three notebook platforms, but as a performance comparison of processing power of both CPU and GPU more than anything else. Although some conclusions can be drawn by looking at the numbers, by no means does everything become clear, that is for sure.

Since the unit provided to us was a Final Engineering Sample, we don't expect the numbers to be that different from the final shipping product. We do plan to run all of the tests again on either the Dell Latitude C840 or Inspiron 8200 when one of those units is made availiable to us. Once again, because our test unit is a hybrid and uses technology from both what will be the C840 and the 8200, no direct comparison to these units is possible because this unit doesn't fully match either configuration availiable to the consumer.