AMD C-50 CPU and 6250 GPU performance(Acer 522 review)

If you're getting the XT already I would just get a full SSD instead.

I prefer the Black.

 

Great, thanks Bearclaw!

Will go with the Black (netbook is for photo/movie storage whilst on-the-go, so need plenty of storage!).

 

A 7200rpm drive is wholly unnecessary in a netbook.

 

So is strapping a rocket to the sides of a lawnmower... your point?!

some people want the faster transfer speeds so that the cpu instead becomes the bottle neck

 

and what a bottleneck it is, lol. Here's a WEI scoresheet with the AO522

 

The Toshiba HDD in this netbook is not that bad. It's a low consumption one, among the best in the market in this regard (I've checked and compared the specs). So, it is well suited for a netbook: not the fastest, but low power, very silent and low temperature (never above 35°C for me). If you change to another HDD, you may well have a faster one, but at the same time one that is probably noisier, hotter and more power hungry. Watch out!

 

Has anyone had any luck getting this netbook to work with a USB TV Tuner, I've tried 3 of them and none work. When installed, it's either very chopping and then craps out or just hear sound and no video. Funny thing is, I used the same TV Tuner on my old 1st generation Acer One netbook and it works fine. I'm guessing this new C-50 is the culprit, anyone else out there?

 

Could this be a windows starter issue?

 

If you can try not to cross post.....


anyways There was a few threads back about this tv tuner issue... for somereason this laptop just does not like any tv tuners... this could be caused by the slow clocks on the cpu.... or it could be a codec/driver issue... no one is quite sure

 

I just reviewed a netbook with an AMD C-30 single core processor and the Radeon 6250 GPU. It's extremely slow for even menial tasks like Internet browsing - the 1GB of RAM is probably killing it. Machine is an Eee PC Seashell 1015b. 3DM06 came out around 1,800, which doesn't seem that bad.

 

Phew! Finally finished reading this whole thread this morning (then didn't have time to post anymore ), planning to buy this nifty little thing soon, pimp it with 4 GB and I'm hoping (if I have the money for it available then) a 120 GB intel SSD (from the 300 series).
Why intel? Well, it may not be as fast as a vertex 3 but I don't think you really notice that speed difference, especially on a system like this. The big speed difference you notice is the difference between the SSD and a HD, so as long as it's not one of those horrible first gen SSD's that choke if they get taxed too much, performance should be fine. Add that to their reliability figures and the fact that it's only about 10€ above the vertex 2 which is the most costeffective option available around here and they become my first choice.

I'm wondering though, to the people that are saying windows 7 X64 is slower than X86 (32 bit), do you have any solid sources to back that up? It didn't seem right to me so I've done some researching today and as far as I can determine there may be some truth to 32 bit applications running slower on a 64 bit system, but the difference is so small that noone is ever going to notice. As for them running in a sandbox, I'm not entirely sure, but you make it sound like windows 7 has to interpret them and convert to 64 bit or something? If that's what you mean, it's definately not true.
32 bit apps may be ever so slightly slower on windows 7 X64, but 64 bit versions of applications can most definately be quite a bit faster and you need X64 to be able to run them. Nowadays, more and more applications are available in 64 bit versions. It depends on what you use of course, but in general I'd say you're more likely to be faster with X64 than slower. Also, 32 bit applications can still only use 2 GB each. If you're using some application that could benefit from using more than 2 GB (by itself) and there is a 64 bit version of it then go with that.
I would however say to only use X64 if you actually have 4 GB or more (so 4 GB for the 522 since it's the max) since X64 does appear to be slightly more memory hungry and on lower memory configuration it does slow down compared to X86.

For reference, check these links I found...

Benchmarks:
32-bit vs. 64-bit: More Bit, More Performance? TuneUp Blog about Windows

Awesome detailed explanation about the differences between 64 and 32:
32 bit vs 64 bit Comparison - Windows 7 Forums

Oh I almost forgot, windows experience index is not a good way to demonstrate X64 being slower... It's some arbitrary number derived from, who knows? Something MS came up with to give people some idea of how fast their system is. It's not a reliable benchmark at all.

Edit: Doh! Still forgot something I wanted to say... That's what you get for reading an 87 page topic and then wanting to comment on it
Anyway, I believe someone said that 4 GB doesn't offer a performance increase if you see windows isn't actually using all your memory with 2GB? That's not entirely true. Windows 7 actually uses all the memory available to it for caching purposes (in a sense, it's slightly more complex but it's close enough).
If you open the resource monitor and go to the memory tab you get a nice graph of the use of your memory. You'll see 2 shades of blue, the lighter blue that is memory that at that time is actually not used, and the darker blue that does contain things but is also swapped out to disk. What this means is that if windows 7 needs that memory it can very quickly release that memory and use it for whatever process needs it, because the contents are already written to disk. If however you want to access this data, windows does not need to go to HD since it's already in memory. Vista introduced this but I believe in vista it looked like that memory was not available which is why everyone thought vista was such a memory hog when it really wasn't, it was just making good use of whatever memory you had.
So, even though you may not get heavy disk thrashing if you never run out of memory with 2 GB, with 4 GB windows still would have to access your hard drive less often and so it should be faster/snappier/more responsive. Of course, if you have an SSD this effect is lessened, but if you're going as far as putting in an SSD, just install 4 GB of ram and win 7 X64 as well then

 

me personally imo it would be kind of pointless putting x64 on this netbook unless you had a real reason to.. This is because the gpu uses 256ish mb of ram which leaves you with less then 4gb... I mean if your using this for x64 Photoshop or something then ya.. but otherwise i would just stick with x32

 

Well that was kind of my point, there are more reasons than only the amount of adressable memory.
But I guess it's just a different way of looking at it, you don't see the point of moving to 64 bit, I don't see the point of staying on 32 bit

 

W7x64 runs 32 bit apps in Windows on Windows (WoW). From that page, "The system isolates 32-bit applications from 64-bit applications....." A quibble, perhaps. Isolation is what is usually meant by the term "sandbox".

Generally I agree with your points.

Ever since the introduction of the first x64 CPU in 2003 pundits predicted the imminent demise of x32 operating systems. The timing is woefully off. The vast majority of applications are still optimized for x32 bit architecture. Death to x32 Windows may require Microsoft to deliver the next version of Windows in x64 architecture only, the way it has Server 2008 R2.

It may be performance gains experienced in x64 W7 are then lost to users who spend their time on threads such as this (myself included).

Harry

 

Which keyboards are compatible with this Acer? I need to find the cheapest US Keyboard.

is this one compatible?
http://cgi.ebay.ca/New-GENUINE-Acer..._Trackballs&hash=item27ba9da3eb#ht_1854wt_905

 

Yeah you're right, it's just that the term is often misunderstood which could make people think that it's like java where the program is actually not directly run on the CPU.
Ordered my 522 today btw, can't wait

 

For those of you still hesitating on this little netbook and living in Canada, Futureshop has a big sale on the Acer Aspire One 522: it retails now for 239.95$CDN [1]. That's a LOT of netbook for that price![2]

Hope it helps!


[1]: Acer 10.1" AMD C-50 Netbook (AO522-BZ499) - Black : 10" Netbooks and Larger - Future Shop

[2]: No, I don't work for them!

- Logozo

 

Damnit I got mine for $250.

I have a $50 coupon for Staples, you can price match that with futureshop and so 240-50 = $190 before tax.

EDIT: just found out I can price match to the new price and get the difference back! nice.

 

Don't complain cheapest price here is 300 euros which is about 425 us dollars... although that does include taxes already.

 

Hehe well I was going to complain but it looks like I'll be going to Staples tomorrow and getting the price protection difference back.

 

Anyone have an answer for this?

 

It should be since a 521 and 255 are the same model as ours. I think they havent updated the specs yet but looking at this site thaey are said to be compatible

New Acer Aspire One 521 522 533 D255 D255E D260 Keyboard

I think that someone in this thread has successfully installed one too

 

I actually just bought this one:
New Acer Aspire One 521 533 Keyboard US Black | eBay

 

I was just linking a site that says that they are compatible

Anyway be careful not to do any damage to your unit

Follow the youtube guide

 

I've already upgraded the RAM and the SSD so I think I'll be fine for a simple keyboard upgrade lol.

 

I just bought the Aspire 722. It looks exactly the same as yours and has the same cpu and gpu I believe. Is the 722 basically the same exact as the 522 with a different shell? I am trying to find info on 722+ubuntu but no louck because it is new.

EDIT: Also my screen is 11.6"

 

@bullet

Hmm I havent even heard about the 722...

 

guys I fudged up my netbook. I woke up one day and tried to fire up my netbook and for some reason the trackpad wasn't working. I tried restoring to earlier date and it didn't work. Then I tried to restore all the way to the beginning. While that was in progress I realized that I could try to fn and f6 to possibly enable my trackpad. Funnily enough this worked and my cursor was moving again. The worse part about this was that I was already in restoring to beginning mode. I got pissed off enough that I hard restarted my computer hoping that I would be able to boot into windows and not lose my data. Unfortunately now windows is fudged up as well and I cant boot to the login. I realize I have to do a reformat and reinstall windows. What is the best way to achieve this? Thanks for your help.

 

It happened to me recently as well although I didnt go to right to reformatting to resolve the problem.

You should have a external hard drive and a back up copy of Acer recover Disks

 

Love this netbook just got one today for £229 build quality is better than I expected. I'm going to put 2gb in it and a samsung ssd. Has anyone else tried the samsung thin ssd in these?

Also I hope some one finds a way to overclock these as I only got one as the zacate laptops are too much.

 

^

I have not heard an update from someone in this forum.

 

Since this thread seems to be found more through google and stays more active, just thought I should post here as well... In case anyone else gets their unit with a key that doesn't push down quite right and they can see a sort of metal rod under it, just apply some careful pressure and it should pop right back in.
See my original post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...lounge-amd-fusion-netbook-12.html#post7542281

 

Anyone have an SSD in this netbook? Does it perform as you expected? The m4 in my netbook seems to have low 4k read/write performance.

 

I'm using a samsung thin ssd in mine and it performs fine. Over all i'd recommend it over the hdd.

I'm impressed by the performance of the pc iv been running operation arrowhead on it and with limited numbers of ai it works fine. Native resolution too. I think it needs a gpu overclock to bring the best out of the graphics.

 

What model? Do you have benchmarks on it?

 

Sadly i'm st work at the moment so testing isn't possible i'll run some tests when I get home tomorrow.

 

alright thanks for testing.

 

These seem to be reasonable results to me?

 

Could you tell me the model of the SSD please? I would like to compare it to other benchmarks.

Thanks.

 

Its a Samsung PM810 Th 64gb. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/P186520/
what results do you get from your crucial?

 

I have these results:


But it's supposed to be around 20 mb/s read on the 4k and 40mb/s write on the 4k.

I just checked your benchmarks too, and you seem to have the same symptom. The 4k reads and writes are about half of what they're supposed to be.

 

Hello all! I registered for this forum specifically for this topic, and have spent the past few days reading through all 90 pages, tweaking settings as I've read through. Believe it or not, this is the first computer I've owned in seven years, and it seems to suit my needs perfectly. I use it for web browsing via Google Chrome, Streaming of web videos from various sources, and some gaming. Huge thanks to all who have contributed to this topic, your knowledge made this computer newbie much more informed on how to get the best out of the 522.

Here's a quick rundown of what I've done to my machine:

-Upgraded the RAM to a Patriot PSD34G13332S 4GB PC10600 DDR3 Laptop Memory - 1333MHz, 1x4096MB, Non-ECC, Unbuffered, CL9

-PAE patched Windows 7 Starter via the UNAWAVE 4GB RAM unlocking program. Was this risky? Perhaps. But I resent spending $90 CDN on upgrading to Home Premium and still have only 3.5 GB RAM available, as opposed to the 3.73 I have with the patch and Starter. If there is some kind of legal issues regarding the PAE patch, I will upgrade to Home Premium the next time I see it on sale for $20.

-Updated to Catalyst 11.5 and Flash 10.2, disabled Google Chrome flash and left the other Flash Enabled

-Cleaned up the bloatware with PCdecrapifier

-Downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials

-Downloaded VLC and the CCCP codec pack, considering Media Player Classic after reading about the forums thoughts on it

-Installed Steam and bought Counter-strike 1.6 (I love this game)

ISSUES:

Only one I can think of offhand, relating to youtube 1080p videos, particulary this one:

YouTube - ‪Tim Thomas drills Henrik Sedin 6/6/11 1080p HD‬‏

When I watch it in 720p its buttery-smooth. In 1080p it gets weird lines around the players here and there. If you folks could watch it and let me know how it shows for you I'd appreciate it. I watched Big buck bunny in 1080p and it was smooth as silk.

I'm quite excited about the gaming success you folks are having with this. I'm anxious to try out starcraft 2 as I've never played an RTS before. There's a few games you've mentioned I'm eager to buy.

Any comments or thoughts are greatly appreciated! All the best!

 

The PAE patch won't really do anything for you.
If you are using a 32bit (x86) version of Windows 7, it won't be able to see or use more than around 3.5GB RAM.
Maximum amount of RAM you can fit onto a x86 OS is 4GB, of which around 3.5GB will be vissible/usable, but never full 4GB (for that you will have to use x64 OS, and Starter to my knowledge doesn't come in that flavor).

If you paid however for Home Premium, you can easily install x64 version of it using the existing key you used to activate the x86 version of Home Premium.

Other aspects you did in order to improve performance were well done.

I checked the youtube video at 1080p you posted a link to, and I also have lines showing around players here and there (though playback was smooth).
I think it might be the standard thing for the video at that resolution (might be attributed to the native resolution of the screen showing a higher res video - although I cannot be certain - or it might be due to something else).

 

Deks, thanks for the input and for checking the video for me. Glad to know it wasn't my comp or settings. I took the advice of a previous poster to pause a youtube video in 1080p before it plays, increase to full screen, then play. This eliminates any stuttering in the good quality 1080p videos for me.

As for the Windows 7 situation, I may have been a bit unclear. I didn't get Home Premium yet, so in order to get more than 2 GB usable RAM I did the PAE patch on my Windows 7 Starter, which as you know only supports 2 GB RAM max.

 

Hey guys, been using my 522 for a while, and it's great.

However I have an issue! VLC used to play HD content great, but I haven't used it in a while. I tried to watch some hd .mkv files today (720 and 1080p), and it won't play. The audio plays normally, as does subtitles, but the video is stuck on the first frame and stutters back and forth between the first 1-2 ms of the video.

Help is appreciated.
Running windows 7 64bit, latest version of VLC, have GPU accelerator on.

 

Friends How does this unit compare to HP's newish DM1Z ?

Also, in that vein, some criticize the DM1Z for running hot, despite hp/amd claims to the contrary. How's the heat buildup with the '522 ?

 

Anyone try running fallout new vegas? I'm considering grabbing oblivion, fallout 3, or new vegas, but am not sure which will work and which wont.

Running Win 7 32 bit, 4 GB RAM.

Thanks!

 

Tbh the c-50 can handle most things if you tune the graphics down.

 

under load it can get to low 90's

 

Which tool is being used to monitor cpu usage in the top right corner?