12. Benchmarks & Testing

Like we said, we got this notebook very quickly from IBM. We are still awaiting the arrival of additional Pentium 4m notebooks to test, and are a little disappointed by the speed of response of some vendors. This makes it difficult to compare the performance difference between the A31p and other notebooks in its class. We plan to do a P4m round up very shortly, though.

In the meantime, we choose to compare the IBM P4m to the Dell Inspiron 8100 in the same configuration that we used in our article on the ATi Mobility Radeon 7500. The numbers in the performance benchmarks should be viewed as a comparison between the Pentium IIIm and the Pentium 4m platforms. Both notebooks were using the same ATi Mobility Radeon 7500 driver, so we can consider the video equal. By looking at these numbers, we can gain some additional insight into the processor performance of the Pentium 4m and how much it will affect overall system performance. Look for a more complete test of the Pentium 4m using more of our standard benchmarks in our upcoming Pentium 4 notebook round up.

Quake 3

To this day, Quake III is still a good indicator of overall processor and video performance. Since we can consider the video equal, we are really getting a feel for the processor performance. With its score of 111.9 FPS, the A31p runs right past the Inspiron 8100. An increase of 45.9 is very good for the IBM A31p.

At the 1600x1200 resolution, which is the native resolution of the panel, the gap closes a little. The A31p was able to achieve 64.3 FPS which is still very good, but the Inspiron 8100 was still able to hang in there with a score of 55.5. The 8.8 FPS advantage for the A31p is narrower than we would have estimated.