Voodoo Envy M:860 - AMD 64-bit at Widescreen
by Andrew Ku on August 13, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
The Test
Our last mobile benchmark suite for laptops included 2002 edition Winstones, and we have since upgraded to the 2004 editions. Because of this, we won't be scaling many of our old laptops for comparison with current and future notebooks that we look at. To bridge this gap, we have included scores for the Dell Inspiron 8600 (with GeForce FX Go5650) as somewhat of a marker.Desktop scores have been pulled straight from our Intel 925X & LGA-775 coverage.
| Windows XP Professional Test System | |||||||
| Voodoo Envy M:860 | Voodoo Envy M:855 | Dell Inspiron 8600 | IBM T41 | IBM R50 | |||
| CPU(s) | Athlon 64 DTR 3400+ | Athlon 64 DTR 3200+ | Pentium M 1.7GHz | Pentium M 1.7GHz | Pentium M 1.6GHz | ||
| Motherboard(s) | Voodoo K8T800 | Voodoo K8T800 | Dell 855PM | Dell 855PM | Dell 855PM | ||
| Memory | 1GB PC2700 | 1GB PC2700 | 512MB PC2700 | 1GB PC2700 | 512MB PC2100 | ||
| Hard Drive | 60GB 7200RPM | 60GB 7200RPM | 60GB 7200RPM | 60GB 7200RPM | 60GB 4200RPM | ||
| CDROM | DVD±RW | CD-RW/DVD | DVD+RW | CD-RW/DVD | CD-RW/DVD | ||
| Video Card(s) | ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB DDR | ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro 64MB DDR | NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650 128MB DDR | ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Pro 32MB DDR | ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Pro 32MB DDR | ||
| Ethernet | Onboard VIA 10/100 | Onboard VIA 10/100 | Onboard Intel Gigabit | Onboard Intel Gigabit | Onboard Intel Gigabit | ||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP1 | ||||||
| Video Drivers | ATI 7.963 (latest available for Voodoo) |
ATI 6.14.10.6378 (latest available for Voodoo) |
NVIDIA 44.82 (latest available for Dell) |
ATI 7.933 (latest available for IBM) |
ATI 7.933 (latest available for IBM) | ||
| Benchmarking Applications | ZDM Content Creation Winstone 2004 ZDM Business Winstone 2004 BAPCo Mobile Mark 2002 |
||||||
As mentioned earlier, our system came configured with 1GB of system memory (this is the default configuration for the M:860). This may have been a stretch before, but this is fairly standard now for high-end DTR systems and as such, we won't handicap the system by removing a stick, especially since since dual channel is one of the benefits in a DTR system. However, we should make it clear that this is not a dual channel system, but a lot of DTR systems are. Considering the "sweet spot" in terms of pricing and SODIMM memory availability for DTRs is at 1GB, we aren't going change this system's configuration. This should help keep everything even when we move on to other DTR systems that actually are dual channel.
Even though the M:860 uses a Mobility Radeon 9700, we won't be doing any graphic benchmarks, particularly since the gaming scores that we are getting with the M:860 are fairly in line with our Mobility Radeon 9700 review and because we need to rework our mobile graphic benchmark suite a bit. We should be updating the review with scores in the near future, once we settle the suite issue and get a larger array of shipping MR9700 and Go5700 notebooks against which to compare.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
17 Comments
View All Comments
gibhunter - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
In my case my notebook is a desktop replacement that I sometimes play games on. I didn't buy it specifically for gaming.Still, to have that capability, notebook manufacturers force you to buy the biggest, heaviest and most expensive notebooks.
Like I said, 14 or 15" 4/3 ratio screen, 6 pounds max weight is plenty enough for me. Unfortunately if I want that, I have to get an old generation video card with it. Kind of sad.
tfranzese - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Buying a notebook for gaming is a waste of money. The size of notebooks too is pathetic in many cases and I wouldn't call them mobile. But people keep buying them because they have no perspective of what is best.Lonyo - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Misread the benchmarks, I was looking at the top graph, not the bottom one, but the typo is still there.Lonyo - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
To #3, why a 4:3 screen and a 5:4 ratio of resulution? That would look messed up and out of scale.On page 7, the comment below the first graph is:
Battery life for the M:860 is about what we expected: a little over 2 hours, which makes it fairly comparable to other desktop replacement systems of its nature. We still have high praise for the M:855's 3-hour score, since it is really out of character in DTR notebooks.
Yes the graph shows a Voodoo M:8855 (typo) having a lower score than the M:860
The R50, T41 and 8600 are all higher than both Voodoo notebooks, and have >3hours, if the numbers are in minutes, while the M855 has a score of 131, vs 137 for the M:860.
gibhunter - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
These notebooks are getting larger by the minute. I have the Dell Inspiron 8200 at at just over 7 pounds it's just about too heavy and is definitely too large for a notebook.Personally, I'd like to see a notebook with a 14.1 4/3 ratio screen, with a 1280/1024 resolution, with Athlon 64 or Pentium M and Mobility 9800 with 256MB of ram and 1Gig of PC2700 DDR SDRAM with just one combo CD/DVD drive. At 14.1" screen size, it should weigh less than 6 pounds and be much smaller than the 8200 while having twice the gaming performance.
These new gaming notebooks just don't do anything to me on aesthetic levels.
animekenji - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
These machines are made by Arima who also supplies the emachines notebooks. The M6811, though not quite as powerful in some areas, is a heckuva lot cheaper and should be considered by anyone looking at one of these. In fact, if you put the photos of the M6811 side by side with this machine you will see nearly everything is identical.MAME - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
that's really cool