The best Netbook for gaming.

Don't expect much from the Neo as far as smaller form factor.

There's a lot more than just the Atom in the N10J - it has 2.5" HDD, DDR2 So-DIMM slot, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n, HDMI, LAN, audio, microphone, USB, ExpressCard, 9300m GS with dedicated RAM, but most importantly, a usable sized keyboard. I'll sacrifice a little bit of size for a larger keyboard any day. I say that coming from an Eee 701, to an Eee 900, to an Eee 1000h, to the N10J (finally).

The N10J is also almost identical size to my Eee 1000h which is comparable to most other 10" netbooks. The bezel may fit a larger panel, which I'd like to see as well (actually larger res), but if you look at the guts, that extra real estate is covered with tons of other wires and electronics.

I'm sure with time, there will be another iteration (by someone, who knows?) that will be smaller and possibly more powerful. But I see the N10J being the champ for at least another year.

Screenshot of N10J screen (borrowed from n10user.com):



edit: oh yeah, probably when OLED becomes affordable. Sony has the 11" OLED HDTV now for $2500! Fit that in your netbook and chew on it! LOL!

 

The Nvidia Ion platform isn't a discrete video card it's a chipset....the NVIDIA MCP79MX chipset that's in the MacBook Air, Dell Studio XPS 13, and Toshiba Qosmio X305. The 9400M graphics controller is part of the MCP79MX chipset just like the GMA950 is part of the 945GSE Northbridge chipset.

Since the Nvidia Ion platform is designed to take over all the duties of the Atom chipset there is good reason to be concerned that 9400M will not be able to take over for the GMA950 when the Northbridge gets moved onto the Pineview CPU.

As for the possibility that the graphics would be switchable, Hybrid SLi is designed to work with a discrete graphics card and and integrated chipset graphics controller not two integrated chipset graphics controllers.

CPUs and GPUs stealing duties from each other has been a major point of contention between Nvidia and Intel for awhile now and it's my understanding that Nvidia has already backed out on making their own desktop chipsets for the Intel Core I7, instead offering the n200 as an option to go along with Intel's X58 chipset.

The Pineview may very well be Intel trying to keep Nvidia out of the Atom netbook market. Going to have to wait and see what happens when Pineview finally comes out.

 

right now its just the DV2


I am very interested in seeing where this platform will go.

 

I wonder if it is possible to find a normal laptop with more gaming power for the price of the Asus N10J?

 

That's very easy to do... fill out the What Notebook should I buy FAQ and make a topic in the "Why notebook should I buy" section...

 

Well, yes. If you're willing to sacrifice size and weight for performance, there's lots of options. Anything with a 8400m GS or better paired with a Core 2 Duo (any kind) will definitely outperform the N10J. The N10J is greatly restricted by the 1.6GHz Atom (or consider it 2.0GHz with o/c) and the PCIe 1x bus.

But you can't find anything that small that can even compare. In fact, your closest rival would probably be a 12" notebook that most likely will cost twice as much.

 

Yes of course you can find a "normal" laptop for that price that performs better, but like htwingnut said the only bottleneck for the N10J is the current Atom CPU,hopefully ASUS will come out with a other option for this great little system.
On a side note I have seen a video of someone playing CRYSIS Warhead on it at native resolution,everything of course was set at the minimum specs, but was still playable.
I wouldn't want to play the whole game( in small doses it's fine when stuck at the airport or when you are on the road) it just shows you what this little netbook is capable of.
Hopefully ASUS while have a re-fresh of the system soon and offer a better CPU(I'm not saying the Atom in it is bad but it could use a little more power).
I hope we see a refresh of this system with the new Pineview Atom or even better a Dual core ATOM but from what I have read the Dual Core Atom is going to be just for nettops...bummer

 

the integrated 9400 may not be the most powerful graphics chip out there but its performance gain over intels crappy gma is so huge im not surprised they are running scared. netbooks are on a steady incline and 99% of them have gma. thats alot of lost money if they all switch to nvidia. i am hoping that all this will some day affect 12 inch notebooks so they have good graphics with decent cpus able to run proper game resolutions. the jump from 12 to 13 matters alot just like 14 to 15 inches. I want to see the 12 inch notebook pushed to its limits. it has more portability then 13,14,15,16,and 17 inch notebooks and it still not to small so it can run games at thier native resolutions.

 

Yeah 12 1nch notebooks are nice but for anything to come close to the performance of the N10J were talking of spending thousands of dollars

 

I am quite surprised at how much I use my N10J, even at home. It's so small, I just throw it in the kitchen drawer, and when time permits (kids asleep, wife gone, etc) I can whip it out for quick web surfing, email, or even a game.

It plays games perfectly fine too, if you're not expecting a gaming marathon, or to play the top end of the top games like Crysis. The one saving grace is its meager 1024x600 resolution, which is like only 60% number of pixels compared with 1280x800.

I play BF2 fairly regularly on it too, overclock to 2.1GHz, and run with med to low settings it runs great.

 

I've been keeping my eyes on a Netbook myself, I heard Dual Core CPU versions are around the corner. I basically want to pick one up just to mess around with.

 

Dual core is available in nettops. The dual core version of the Atom (330) uses 8w vs. 2.5W (only 0.6W avg Pwr) for the single core (N270), so there will be a considerable decrease in battery life, and with no real speed increase benefit, except for multi-threaded apps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Atom_microprocessors

 

My ideal setup would be a nice large desktop replacement laptop and some sort of netbook. I assumed that the netbooks had no power until I saw this thread. Now I have to rethink everything. It would be nice if they could get the N10J a little cheaper.

 

How about for old games like Diablo2, The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, Sacred, stuff like that -- most netbooks would be fine, no?

Wondering if a Dell mini would run games like that.

 

Since every netbook aside from the Asus N10J has the same specs, a Dell Mini 9 would run it just as well as the other netbooks. They have GMA950 which would be sufficient to run the older games you mentioned.

 

For GMA950 games visit www.gameeer.com

Guess I better get busy updating the site since there seems to be a lot of questions about gaming on the netbooks. Yikes, no time, but will have to make time.

 

Yeah the 330 were not inline for Netbooks but some other lower power similar CPU design in Q2 09 I read or sometime in 09. If anything it should drop prices down a little bit on older models.

I agree on the N10J, the price will fall on it though probably soon.

They'll play just fine, a big reason I want one is for Diablo 2.

 

We'll see the N280+GN40 combination with the integrated GMA 4000 very soon in Netbooks like Asus EEE PC 1000HE. They seem to want to segment the Netbook line into "high-end" netbook and "mainstream" netbook and N280+GN40 will end up on the "high-end".

For Pineview I doubt the graphics used will be GMA 950 with higher clock speed since the IGP is integrated with the CPU, and unless they want two different dies the IGP will be tightly integrated with the CPU for power efficiency(which is important on Moorestown).

There's two versions of Atom CPUs that's single core.

Atom 230: 4W, aimed at Nettops
Atom N270: 2.5W, aimed at Netbooks

Atom 330 is simply a dual core version of the Atom 230.

 

Yeah the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE will probably drop in late Feb or early March or at least I hope so. Specs look great with the new cpu/chipset and amazing battery life 9.5hours!? This is why I didn't buy a netbook right away.

Well I bit the bullet and pre-ordered one for $340 free shipping, can't wait to check it out!

 

It's as if you just reached into my pocket, pulled out $400, and spent it.

Hey give a shot at eyeballing battery life on a Dell mini 9 playing D2. You and anyone else here who knows this genre.

 

Lol yeah, I'd seriously consider the Asus 1000HE now that it's in pre order...amazing battery life 8-9 hours using 6 cell and the price is great.

The Dell Mini 9 I believe gets about 3 hours to 4 hours roughly depending on usage. It uses a 4 cell battery so that's why it gets the time that it does, personally I'm not too fond of 4 cells...It just doesn't seem long enough to me.

Regardless on what netbook you buy, they'll run older games just fine. Diablo 2 is at the top of the list at least for me on netbook games.

 

That is my setup and it works very well. I can stick both in my bag and there is no difference in wieght from just the 17in vs 17in + netbook. As for multithreaded the 270 atom is a multithreaded CPU so you will do just fine for the multitasking you will do on a netbook.

As of right now I have several RDPs open, VS2008, several internet explorers(dont have firefox yet), a dos prompt or two, aim pro with a few sessions going, file explorers and streaming broadband music all at once on my acer aspire one and no slow downs at all. In fact Im actually quite happy with the pep it has despite having so much open. But to be honest Im really just testing the limits of the rig to see what it can take, as I dont plan much more then vs2008 IM and internet for everyday use where I cant bring or use my 17in.

 

The 1000HE looks great with the new Atom CPU, but the important thing is it uses the GN40 chipset which would be a big boost in the graphics( HD videos + gaming)
The only thing is I have read some reports saying it still has the old 950GMA GPU but others say it will use the better intergrated GPU????
Most retailers just list the chipset as mobile graphics with no specs, whats the deal? What exactly are you getting with the 1000HE?
If it is actually the newer GPU, would anybody know how it would compare against the N10 J? Ion?( If it ever comes out for netbooks?)
The choices are making my head hurt

 

Jayayess1190 found some important info about the N280 and the ASUS EEE 1000HE.

The initial release of the ASUS EEE 1000HE will be using the same 945GSE/GMA950 chipset that's used with the N270.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=348893&page=5

 

That's a bummer.
I hope the 10 inch ACER will have the newer GN40 chipset, guess I'm going to have to wait for the final specs, but I really want to get a netbook really soon!
"sigh" guess I could wait another month, then again the N10J is looking real good.....decisions....decisions

 

If you want to play games, I highly recommend the N10J. It doesn't look like the 9400 will be any more powerful for games.

But if you're looking for long battery life, well, then, I'd wait to see what shakes out with the ION. But I get 4-4.5 hrs on my N10J for wireless web browsing, 2-2.5 hrs overclocked playing games. That's with XP. Apparently it's an hour longer yet with Vista.

 

Here are some Nvidia Ion Benchmarks.

Even though the current Ion reference nettop uses a dual-core Atom 330 the benchmarks were ran with only one core active so the results should be close to what a netbook would produce.

3dMark06 score of 1195 and almost 26 FPS on CoD4 at low settings.

 

lol
1195 ?
in 3dmark 2006?
you must be kidding me

my N10J when run at 2.0ghz and have the 9300GS 's memory to 520mhz
i get around 2000 point
even without overclocking. n10J can still get around 1400-1600 point

i really don't think the 9400 chipset ( with intergreted video ) will even come close to the stand alone 9300M gs
but ofcause i will love to see a version of N10J with dual core atom.!!!!!
at that time i will sell my current N10J for cheap and get that !!!!!!!

 

1200...HAHAA! wow i was certain this would have got around 1600-1800 then again that was only and an N270 so we'll have to wait it out.

The AMD Neo with the 4530/70(when its ready) series is gonna eat this for breakfast

But im not gonna count out the ion platform, that wouldn't be right lets wait and see when this is paired with a N280 then we'll see if this can do anything extra.

 

pair with N280 is just a 0.06ghz ( 60mhz different in cpu speed..)
it is not going to be "big" different at alll

 

You're not going to see an AMD Neo in what could officially be classed as a netbook. The 65-nm Neo consumes too much power with a TDP of 35W over the standard Atom platform's 8W or the Nvidia Ion's claimed 9W. That extra juice is going to mean that Neo requires better active cooling thereby restricting how small of a chassis it can be placed in.

That 35W is also just for the Neo CPU+X1250 chipset and doesn't include the power consumption of a discrete video card like the 4350/70. A netbook manufacturer could conceivably add a discrete 9200M card on top of the Ion platform and produce what Nvidia refers to as a 9500M through GeForce Boost (see: Dell Studio XPS 13).

I haven't seen 3dMarks for the X1250 with the single core Neo but this review shows that the X1250 is scoring up to 550 3dMarks with a dual-core 1.8Ghz Intel CPU. That's just under half of what the Nvidia Ion is scoring with the lesser single-core Atom.


AMD doesn't have a netbook processor yet...they've got a processor designed for the ultra-slim category that the MacBook Air created.

And on the opposite side of the field Intel doesn't have an ultra-slim processor yet...they've got a MID processor that PC manufacturers are using instead.

When AMD gets a netbook processor or when Intel puts out it's CULV answer to the Neo for ultra-slims then we'll have a race.

 

My N10J gets a 3DMark06 of about 1500 running at 2.1GHz, and about 1200 at stock 1.6GHz, this is with the default resolution of 1280x1024 running on an external monitor. Not sure why they used 1024x768. Considering their ION ran at a lower res and got the same score I'd say the 9300m GS wins here.

For native screen resolution of 1024x600 I get 1500 @ 1.6GHz, and 1900 @ 2.1GHz.

I don't know if disabling a single core is really a good comparison.

The new netbook Atom to supercede the N270 is the N280. It runs at 2.0W vs. 2.5W and is 1.666GHz vs. 1.600GHz.

 

i was actually talking about the Neo + 3410 combo not the one with the X1250

 

The benchmarks were run at 1024x768 to compare the Ion chipset to the standard Atom chipset platform. Most netbooks are stuck at 1024x600 resolution so the Ion running at 1024x768 actually puts it at a disadvantage.

Comparing the Nvidia Ion to having a discrete card in a netbook is meaningless. The Ion is a chipset replacement it's not a replacement for a discrete card. A manufacturer can still make a netbook with a discrete card on top of the Nvidia Ion. The Ion makes it even better to do so because of the extra performance you can get from GeForce Boost.

There's nothing stopping ASUS from refreshing the N10J with an Nvidia Ion and a 9200M discrete card to end up with a netbook that has the performance of a 9500M and uses only slightly more power.

The Nvidia Ion is better than the 945GSE or GN40 as just a chipset for graphics and video playback/editing or when used with a discrete card.

 

I realized that but the 3410 is a discrete card it's not the integrated graphics on the chipset. The chipset graphics for the Neo is the X1250 and if anything that's what could be compared to the Ion.

But again that would only be a fair comparison if the Neo and Atom were in the same category of CPU.

 

I agree with you Phinagle.

But my point has been if you're thinking (and some do) the ION will offer an improvement over the N10J, it won't. You can't beat the N10J for a "gaming" netbook for the time being, even with Ion as your integrated GPU. Yes, Asus and/or someone else will probably offer netbooks with a dedicated GPU, and that will only improve performance.

So again, if you need a "gaming" netbook today, the N10J is your only solution. If you are willing to wait six or more months, then the ION will offer some decent configurations with discrete cards.

 

How about this the new N10 J with ION, but also a other 9400 GS for netbook SLI.....YES!!!!HAHAHAHAHA
sorry got carried away there for a second
but I did hear the ION platform would be SLI capable

 

The best gaming netbook doesn't exist.

 

Thanks for the input mobius1aic!

 

There is always a best among the current crop of selections, a best and worst but it can be subjective. For now among the current netbooks, to me at least, it looks to be the Asus N10J, although some may or may not call it a netbook due to its larger size and price.

 

Best is a relative term. No current netbook beats the N10J's performance in gaming.

Asus calls it a notebook themselves, but it is really a netbook because it uses all the same hardware except for adding the dedicated GPU. (Atom N270, GMA950, 1024x600 resolution).

It is no larger than the other 10" netbooks out there, so I don't think size is really an issue calling it a netbook. I have an Eee 1000h that is nearly identical in size. Price may be of consideration, but the Asus S series netbooks run similar price-wise. I agree it's a middle ground between netbook and ultraportable notebook.

 

Acer Ion netbook coming

 

Okay okay, I'm sorry, but I'm sure that one Asus netbook with the 9300 is probably the best, but I hear the Intel Atom is so weak it just holds back the system as a whole.

 

well what do you expect ? lol they could but a quad core but there goes the netbook status lol its all difficult to put good parts on low power and small size and low cooling

but i agree the asus

 

There are simple improvements they can make to the Atom without going multiple cores.

The FSB bump on the N280 is one example.

Out of Order Execution like the Via Nano would be another.

 

The Intel Atom is definitely weak when compared with the Core 2 Duo's we're all so used to. However, a slight bump in speed to 2.0 or 2.1GHz which most Atom's can do, can feed the 9300m quite nicely, however the Atom still is the bottleneck for gaming. For every other task, it's perfectly fine.

I was hoping the next rev Atom (N280) would be a 2.0GHz, not just 1.666 from 1.600. Although the FSB speed from 533 to 667 will help, but not as much as a CPU speed increase.

I think the ION is a good thing since it will definitely boost the bottom end netbook to a level that is reasonable for light gaming.

One thing I hope, is that developers support the odd 1024x600 resolution. I'm completely bummed that I can't play games like Sins of a Solar Empire on the go since it requires 1024x768 and Stardock refuses to even look at a workaround or anything to support the 1024x600.

 

Ion earns Microsoft love and is coming in Q2

 

I'll definitely be grabbing some Ion nettops in Q2...one for each TV in my home.

The only bad is that when they add on a blu-ray drive it will end up doubling the cost and the size of the unit.

 

I dunno. Considering you can buy a USB BR player on eBay now for $50, you know actual cost is less than half that. So it may add $30-40 but not double

 

Via Ion coming too

Ion to have good battery life