12. 32 Bit Performance Test v6 On Windows XP Pro X32 On AMD ML-42 And Windows XP Pro X32 Intel Pentium M 760

Finally, we want to know how 32 bit PTv6 performance compares running on the ML-42 with XP Pro X32 installed on the Turion ML-42 and under XP Pro X32 in a notebook with a 32 bit processor configured similarly to the MSI MS-1029. This will tell us if there's any advantage to buying a 64 bit notebook like the MS-1029 now or going with a similar notebook with a 32 bit processor.

Ideally, we should be using a notebook with a 32 bit AMD processor in the 2.4 GHz range (512 MB L2 cache with 512 MB of DDR-333 RAM and an ATI Mobile Radeon X700 GPU with 128 MB VRAM. Such a notebook was not readily available at the time I ran these tests. So, I rummaged through my stash of computers that are awaiting testing and found the very cool Acer Aspire 9500. I'll hold the juicy details for the review, suffice it to say for this test the 9500 had an Intel Pentium M 760 32 bit CPU running at 2 GHz (2 MB L2-cache, FSB 533 MHz), 1 GB of DDR2-533 MHz RAM and an ATI Radeon X700 GPU with 256 MB of VRAM. The HDD on the 9500 is a Seagate 120 GB, 5400 RPM, 8 MB cache, 12.5 ms access time SATA-150 drive (ST9120821AS) that is likely to show a little better performance than the Samsung 80 GB, P/ATA, 5400 RPM, 8 MB cache, 12 ms drive in the MS-1029.

This is not a perfect match. Each of the two notebooks has its advantages for the PTv6 benchmarks, but hold any conclusions until you see the PTv6 test results.

The chart below shows the results from running the 32 bit version of PTv6 on the Intel Pentium M 760 based Acer Aspire 9500 notebook with Windows XP Pro X32 installed and then with XP Pro X32 installed on the MSI ML-1029 with its 64 bit AMD ML-42 processor. I'll discuss the results after you've looked at the chart.