By now we’re fully aware that the Fusion platform comprising AMD Ontario/Zacate CPU and Radeon 6250 can turn in some impressive 3D performance. With HD video decoding on board too it’s a double-punch to Intel platforms with the Atom CPU but with the high-end E-series requiring power that most mobile computers can’t deliver it’s only the C-series (C-30 single-core and C-50 dual core) that we’re concerned with here and in day-to-day usage mobile computing usage, where the CPU is all-important, we need to find out how it’s going to compare with dual-core Atom CPUs

I have a personal interest in getting as much CPU power as possible in my netbook but all I want to do here is highlight some reports that are coming in via the C-50-based Toshiba NB550D. Overall, it looks like the high-end Atom N550 is still the best performing mobile CPU. Here are the test results we’ve seen so far.

Passmark, a company that collects 3rd-party reports via its own software now has a few reports in from the C-50. The first benchmark was received just a few days ago so be aware that there are only 2 data points so far. The C-50 is clocking in with an average CPU mark of 480. It’s a better score than the older N470 (score:355) but the Atom N550 is averaging a score of 559 – 16% more.

Eprice have had reports of the NB550d before but on the 25th Jan a new report was posted that included PCMark05 scores. Unfortunately the device used is an engineering test sample with a single-core C-30 APU inside so bear that in mind. The report does links to a Cinebench mark of 1271 for the C-50 CPU, however. For the Atom N550 CPU i’ve found cinebench scores of 1504 and 1461 and 1444 – An average 15% more.

Netbooknews are currently testing an NB550D and has delivered a full suite of test results and a video.

It’s an interesting Crystal Mark score. The total is about the same as I’ve seen on two Atom N550 based devices but the CPU score is down, especial for the ALU tests. Below is a result I took from an Acer D255. (Atom N550.) I saw similar results on a Samsung N350.

Overall then, were seeing the C-50 CPU score lower than the Atom N550 .

It’s not the complete picture of course (Graphics and video decoding on the C-50 APU is in another performance bracket altogether!) but for those wanting to number-crunch on a netbook, these results should help you decide.

With my requirements firmly in the ‘office’ space with a view to some low-end video editing, I’d choose the dual-core Atom-based devices. What about you?

I’ve had the Vaio P for a few weeks now and it’s time to look at the performance of the unit. You may recall that this is the top-end model: 1.86GHz Atom CPU, 128GB SSD, 2GB of RAM, and running Windows Vista (see more detailed information on the Portal page). This particular configuration is only available in Japan at the moment, but can be bought from places like Dynamism.

The Vaio P runs Vista, which most people recognize to be quite the resource hog, and feel that it isn’t optimal for mobile computers because of limited resources. Luckily the Vaio P’s lightning fast SSD, 2GB of RAM, and 1.86GHz CPU, handle Vista pretty well. The OS itself is responsive and doesn’t show any signs of hanging. Even Windows Media Center, which runs a graphically complex GUI, runs acceptably on the VAIO P, even if it doesn have some slight issues with the VAIO P’s super-wide screen (more on that in the upcoming full software impressions section).

Video Playback

It amazes me how much more video content we see online these days, than compared to a few years ago. Back in the day, usually only small videos would be uploaded to the web, and playing them back often required downloading them then watching them. With many different Flash players out there today, we see lots and lots of video content, and video playback through Flash players is a big deal now, as it is often a frequent web activity. So let’s see how well the VAIO P can play back Flash video. Using an SD quality video from Gametrailers.com (which uses a pretty efficient Flash player), I saw full framerate playback with no issues. Below you can see the CPU usage while the video was playing:

Unfortunately, the VAIO P can’t handle the same video in 720p HD through Flash playback. The image below represents the CPU usage during Flash HD playback of the video. One thing to note is how the CPU graph on the left (representing the virtual second CPU from Hyperthreading) is a bit higher than the right. While the CPU isn’t being maxed out, the video playback was very choppy, to the point that I would call it unwatchable.
Flash HD playback might not work to well, but 720p, h.264 encoded WMV, and similar formats play back without much issue in Windows Media Player. For some reason or another, videos were a bit choppy, and showed some horizontal tearing when using my preferred video player of choice, VLC. I would imagine this has something to do with VLC’s implementation in Vista, as I’m used to using the XP counterpart. The image below shows a 720p h.264 encoded video playing through Windows Media Player, and the resulting CPU usage.

HD playback performance is particularly important on the VAIO P because the screen can actually display the content. In most cases, we test HD video playback on netbooks simply for performance’s sake, however when you really think about it, it doesn’t always make sense to watch a 720p (1280×720) video on your netbook which only has a resolution of 1024×600. However, in the case of the VAIO P, the high res screen can really display full 720p content with 1:1 pixel mapping and even has room to spare. The VAIO P’s screen has a resoultion of 1600×768, which is even wider than the widescreen HD standard of 16:9. For comparison’s sake, 16:9 (standard widescreen format) breaks down to 1.78:1, while the VAIO P’s screen has an aspect ratio of 2.08:1, meaning that the screen is slightly more than twice as wide as the height.

(continue reading on page 2…)

I was able to get XP on the Mini 1000 [Portal page][review] and I did a quick Crystal Mark benchmark. This is a fully updated SP3 machine. Here are the results:

The HDD score is disappointing. The HP Mini 1000 that I have has a 16GB SSD, and that should be at least as fast as a standard 1.8” HDD, but it scores pretty below that level. Not too bad otherwise considering the price of the hardware, and the build quality of the unit, but it is still kind of sad that my UX180 scores slightly better than this, is much smaller, and gets about the same amount of battery life. Sure, the UX180 was really expensive when it came out several years ago, but today you can buy one for a similar price as the HP Mini 1000.

The Mini 1000 is definitely targeted as a secondary computer. I find that it works well as an around-the-house computer for staying connected through social networks and doing light web browsing.