ACER 3820TG vs M11X, my little review

Purchased my 3820tg a week ago and I really like it. I own a m11x as well and this thing really does a number on the m11x.

I got the 3820tg-7360 which has the i3-370M and 5650 graphics, such a great little unit.

With my m11x overclocked i get a score of 6650 in 3dmark06, thats overclocked cpu + gpu to the max.

With my 3820tg i get a score of 7450 at stock speed in 3dmark06. When I overclock the gpu to 760/1075 i get a score of 9400, quite an amazing increase. If I overclock the 370m using setfsb to 2.88ghz as well then I score 9840.. I think I can break the 10k mark if I overclock to 3.06ghz but sometimes windows freezes at 3.06ghz.

Im very happy with my purchase and now im going to sell the m11x . I have to admit though the m11x is a very nice looking notebook, here are my findings after using both systems for a week side by side.

m11x strengths.

1. Better quality screen, better colors and contrast with sharper images because its the same resolution on a smaller screen but the differences is not a world of difference, you can only really tell when you have them side by side. The 3820tg screen will actualy look a lot nicer with some tweaking, i find I have to set the saturation to 200% because with stock settings the colors and very washed out. One of the main reasons I purchased the 3820 is for the 13.3" screen, thinking it was going to look a lot better then the m11x screen but I was wrong but I can live with it.

2. Build quality on the m11x is unreal, its so good there is no flex anywhere at all and it feels like the sturidiest laptop i've ever handled. the 3820tg is actualy pretty sturdy for an acer but it does not compair to the m11x here. The backlit keyboard on the m11x is so sexy, it really makes the 3820tg look dull when they are side by side. Im thinking of doing the backlit keyboard install on the 3820tg but even then it will not look nearly as nice as the m11x keyboard.

3.The ports on the m11x are put in much more appropriate locations. It has the power connection at the back instead of the right side like the 3820tg. The hdmi and vga out are on the left side of the laptop which makes sense but on the 3820tg they are on the right side which can get in the way of your mouse if you choose to use one.

Now its time for the 3820 strengths.

1. weight, it is very light for a 13.3" notebook with the capabilities that it has. Its less then 1" thick and weighs about 3.9lbs, where there m11x is bulky at about 1.5" thick and weighing more then the acer ay 4.4lbs. Height wise the m11x is the same as the acer, but width wise the acer is about 1.5" wider.... so the acer is a little wider but same height, a lot skinnier and ways half a pound less and outperforms the m11x by a decent margin!

2. I find the battery life to actualy be better on the acer when using the good graphics card. when using intel graphics I find they both get about 7-8 hours. The m11x processor uses 10W and the i3 core on the acer uses 35W so its quite impressive how it has the same battery life potential but the acer is much faster .

3. Cooling. I would say the acer does a better job of coolings itself over the m11x. The acer uses two fans where the m11x uses one. The heat that comes out of the exhaust ports on the acer is hotter then the heat coming out of the m11x but I find the acer is much cooler to the touch then the m11x. I think the m11x uses more of passive cooling, which makes the case hot.


So there you have it, i've owned the m11x since it was first released and I really do like it, i've grown to really like it but the fact is if you actualy purchased one of these laptops to game the acer kills the m11x hands down.


I've actualy got a few questions if anybody has any insight

I find when I overclock my cpu from 2.4 ghz to 2.88ghz it has no benificial gains in fps when playing video games, but if you are say zipping a file it will help a lot.. Do all icore proccessors act this way when overclocked?

I was also thinking of maybe upgrading the proccessor to the 620M like kindan did. I've heard negative things about icore proccessors with turbo boost so I dont know if its worth it. will the 620m actualy give me 3.33ghz of proccessing power while playings games? because with the 370m its only 2.4ghz and jumping to 3.33ghz would yeild some very nice gains in heavy cpu dependant games.

What does the 620M score on 3dmark06 cpu score on the 3820tg?

 

I would like to add a pro for the 3820tg is the PRICE. M11x costs much more for much less performance.

I hope Dell takes acer's tech into consideration for M11x R3, as we can get great battery life with standard CPU's. No need for the UM processors.

 

Thanks for the review! May we see some pictures as well, it'd be nice to see them side by side.

If You were to upgrade the CPU, You should opt for the 560M or 580M as 620/640M dosen't seem to OC too well.

I play GTA IV, it's considered a CPU intensive game, my 430M seems to squeeze everything out of the HD5650, the 430M shows a top load of 85%, and an avarege load of 60-70% when playing GTA IV, so I don't think a faster CPU would run games "that" better.

 

I took a few pictures but they are bad quality, ill have to take some more later.

I actualy found the 620m on ebay for $175, i think the cheapest I could find the 580m for was $250+. Overclocking these cpu's doesn't seem to help, but more like hinder gaming fps so I dont think ill be doing much cpu overclocking thats why I want the fastest processor available.

I find most games are very cpu dependant although I never tried any of the GTA games. I like to just run games at the lowest resolution with fraps to see if its a cpu dependant type of game

 

OCing with SetFSB does not help your FPS rate in 3D games. It is odd becuase you see the effect in 3DM06 scores. We have not been able to figure this out yet but the bottom line is that, for gaming the dual core I7's are boss.

Bronsky

 

dinsum, can you please test your i3-370m with some demanding games and tell us the temperatures it reaches?

Thank you

 

Odd about the game thing but you have to take into consideration the type of game. MMORPG's require better prorcessor's yet no one tests them. You might find the increase in frames more in mmorpg's then your standard game because mmorpg's use netcoding that utilize the cpu.

Great post! Very interesting comparison for sure! Everything was spot on!

 

oh i forgot to mention my m11x is the R1 SU7300 but after researching the R2 its not really any better then the R1

I think the reason we see a better score in 3dmark is because of the cpu tests it does... looks like it could be rendered in software mode or something and all of the cpu score is determined just by the two cpu tests.

I have tried in 5 different games with fraps, standing in certain spots on the map and checking the fps, then overclocking and checking the fps at the same spot. In every case if the fps isn't the same, its actualy lower then at stock speeds.

Ill check temperatures later but so far im pretty sure I haven't seen it past 65 degrees after playing crysis for 20 minutes, then cools down to 35 degrees very fast after exiting the game

Thanks !

 

UM processors are cheaper considering they are soldered so Dell gets to pocket a larger margin.

 

I wondering why there still isn't a real competitor to the 3820TG after so long. If Acer can do it at such an attractive price then every other brand can do so too. Now, if the 3820TG gets SB, updated GPU and a better screen there is really zero reason to recommend any other laptop.

Best laptop of 2010 by far IMO.

 

Acer doesn't have the brand...other vendors sell branding.