The best Netbook for gaming.

Lenovo Ion S12 "netbook" launched.

More Info and pics.

 

Question will be if Ion is more powerful, than dedicated 9300m GS.

If 9300m GS has dedicated Ram will that give it a boost versus Ion's shared system memory?



And it's a 12'' system? hmmm.

 

Question is if the 9400M and 9300M GS are hitting the same bottleneck from the Atom why waste the extra power draw on a dedicated GPU.


But yeah the 12" chassis is trash.

 

Waiting on an 11" with ION or comparable, dual core Atom or comparable dual core (performance and power consumption) and a full laptop keyboard...

 

Dual Atom seems to give no performance increase at all. It's supposedly very dissapointing.


The problem seems to be with Core 2 Duo processors is that they eat the battery! And that's not very nice for a on-the-road netbook I think.



I wonder why they don't just up the speed of Atom. put it stock up to 2.5 ghz(with OC to 3,0 ghz), and let people who want a bit more power, pay a bit more.

 

Dual Core Atom is crap due to the fact that it is two single core Atom's stuck together (like a Pentium D). Once the next generation of Atom comes out this fall, there will probably be native dual core Atom's, and hopefully some will make it into netbooks.

 

Not really into those Thinkpads anymore, so I might need a netbook with great battery uni this summer; an alright GPU would be useful. So I can link it to external display.

Until then, M1730 does just fine for me.

 

But two atoms = better performance than one?


Does it have something to do, with lack of windows and programs being optimized to take advantage of dual atom?

 

Dual core may be twice the Atom but it's also twice the power draw and twice the heat. They're more suited for nettops where the extra power draw, heat, and lack of a decent chipset IGP isn't an issue.

IMO CULV/Neo > Dual Core Atom and the single core CULVs should replace the Atoms in ultra-portables which unfortunately makes the S12 a little late to the game.

Dell's 11" CULV for example is rumored to start at $499 with Intel GMA 4500 chipset.

 

How good is CULV in games performance?

 

Less bottleneck than an Atom, but like the Atom you don't buy these things exclusively to game on.

Review of the MSI X-Slim 340 with a GMA4500

 

I hate to say it, but that Lenovo looks slick. Additionally, that Lenovo U350 contains the ION which is even better than that stinky 4500MHD. I have the U330, wish I could have waited to get the U350 instead, but needed this for school, so whatever.

As much as I would like to see AMD own this market, Intel pulls out another win IMHO with the CULV.

Also, I hate to say it, but I see nettops and larger netbooks (like the 12" Lenovo or MSI) gaining popularity in the business environment. The only thing most are lacking is a DVD drive, but it should be included in most 12" ones. The cost is quite attractive too. No longer do you have to manage those huge bulky cases and laptops. Plus most businesses just need their employees to run Office apps, internet, and possibly basic photo and audio manipulation.

 

U350 is using the GMA 4500 but still looks damn sexy.
http://gizmodo.com/5268846/lenovo-u350-is-pretty-thin-pretty-light-and-pretty-cheap

I wish it would use the 9400M....and I also wish Neo used the HD3200 chipset.

 

Oh sorry, the S12 is ION based, not the U350.

 

Lenovo needs to make an Ideapad U150.

 

Asus considering Ion netbooks

 

That looks to be some amazing news. Hopefully AMD will come out with their own Ion type setup now that Ion seems to be getting more accepted. Would love to see dedicated 'gaming netbooks' to go along with the normal ones!

 

AMD had the Congo platform in the works. Dual Core Neo with M780G chipset (HD 3200 IGP)

 

Nvidia demos Ion systems @ Computex

 

Why Computex > E3:

 

Nvidia Tegra netbooks running Windows CE

 

Would love to get a netbook or a subnotebook with something like that. Though it's a shame they're not using a 3450/3470 or something like a 4530.

 

Link

HP Congo DV2 coming really soon

 

Can't wait to see the new DV2. Though hopefully they'll use a dedicated graphics solution instead of the on board, but it'll definitely be worth a look.

Actually, a thought just hit me, I wonder if they'll be combining the 3200 with a 3470 to make use of hybrid crossfire...

 

Dell and HP Ion netbooks coming?

 

OCZ Neutrino DIY netbook goes ION.

Uses the nettop 230 Atom.

 

I love how there's always a new reason to bump this thread.

AMD to come out with Atom competitor.

 

I know the Samsung N510 is supposed to come out this month in France at least.


It's supposed to have the Atom N280 and Ion. I wonder how those two will work together, and how much they can be OC'ed. With discrete 9400m will Ion then be more powerful than Asus N10 with it's 9300m?

N10 has the advantage of a real graphics card with its own VRAM, but the Ion doesnt have to rely on the old 950 chipset... less bottlenecks?

 

If you're looking for battery life this Asus at Best Buy ($699.99 - a little pricey), has nearly 6 hrs claimed battery life with:

Core 2 Solo 1.4GHz
nVidia 105m
500GB HDD
4GB DDR2
15" 1366x768 16:9 screen
Vista Home Premium

That being said, I am SOOOO glad that Asus tried to pioneer netbooks. It was kind of annoying that you had to spend $1500 to get a small notebook (i.e. 12" or smaller).

 

Yeah.


I wonder if the upcoming N10 will be any significant improvement: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220571

512 MB Geforce 105 vs Geforce 9300m GS 256 MB

N280 vs N270



Or Atom + Ion netbook...?

 

Samsung N510:


"Samsung are preparing to launch a new, 11.6-inch netbook, the N510, and rather than Intel’s Atom Z5xx series of processors they’ve picked the 1.66GHz N280. The N510 will also use NVIDIA’s Ion graphics chipset, paired with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard-drive.

Samsung ION notebook sg 480x390

The presence of Ion will make the N510 capable of high-definition video playback, which should make the WXGA 1,366 x 768 more usable. Rival machines such as the Acer Aspire One 751, which have similarly-sized displays but use Atom Z5xx series processors and standard netbook graphics, have proved woefully underpowered for HD content.

Other Samsung N510 specs include WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth and wired ethernet, together with an integrated webcam and microphone, multi-format memory card reader, 6-cell Li-Ion battery and Windows XP Home. It’ll apparently be priced at around €570 ($799), which is mighty-expensive for an Atom-based netbook."








Looks like this has HDMI.

But what kind of HD playback?

Could HD Youtube be possible(finally)? or Hulu?

Or 1080p wmvs?


And what battery life are we talking with the 9400m?

 

No, it won't be possible until youtube gets hardware acceleration (in Windows). 1080p will play fine as long as you use a media player that uses the Ion for playback

 

if someone were to do a benchmark test against the two models it would be handy to compare. the only thing holding back the laptop is the cpu so the higher fsb and .66ghz might make a difference. but then you can overclock the n270 to 2.1ghz in the n10.

someone needs to do an extensive review comparison.

 

Only way I'd spring for a new N10 type netbook (and I *LOVE* the 10" form factor of the N10) is with a higher resolution screen and improved Flash playback. 1024x600 causes compatability issues for gaming with the odd resolution. Hulu and YouTube are marginally viewable. I doubt you'll see much improvement with the N280 and 105m. Maybe 5-10% FPS improvement tops. I just wonder how well the N280 overclocks compared with the N270. The N270 easily reaches 2.0GHz.

 

But do you think the n280 Atom + Ion will give a better performance than the Asus N10(current or the upcoming)?

 

i highly doubt it....
what holding N10J back is only the cpu!!

upgrading the gpu really wouldn't help much...
also...
ION is hardly an performance upgrade when compare to the 9300mGS 256mb


the ideal setting for me... is...
atom that run at 2.4ghz ( dual core or single core )
9300mgs or similar on a pci-E 4x or faster slot..
on a chipset that can take 4gb memory.

nothing more

 

I'm with you furyagain... CPU is holding back the N10J.

 

What I really want to see is a dual core Atom in a netbook paired with ION in a 10" package. I'm fine with 2GB of RAM.
I guess I could sacrifice the dual core for a single core depending on its impact on battery life.

 

Single core is fine, really, just needs to be faster, and optimized for Flash. Overclocking N270 to 2.0GHz makes YouTube and Hulu almost bearable. Probably need a native Atom architecture CPU of 2.4GHz minimum to be reasonable. If they somehow optimized for Flash, the existing chips would be fine.

 

Single Core CULV > Dual Core Atom

Just need to get a notebook manufacturer to put one in a chassis (with an Ion) that's 11 .1" or smaller.


Neo with the new Hd4200 chipset works too.

 

dv2z is probably the best option for netbook gaming right now, with it's dual core AMD cpu and HD3410 graphics for under $600.

 

I heard this machine have some significant problems though that keeps it from being good.

 

Like what?

 

I don't know where you get these ideas...

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2008/11/12/dual-core-atom-330-benchmarked/

 

Netbooks have a lot of incoming upgrades in the near future, it wont be long until some gaming is possible (and being able to handle simple flash)

For flash there is also that hd acceleration chip that goes in a PCI-E slot that may make it mainstream as well.

Also if you think 11/12" is a netbook I think there is supposed to be some new Acer Timeline models in that size range in the near future. Me personally consider 10" and under to be a netbook. Anything larger is a small notebook.

 

The N330 is just two N230's stuck together, its like a Pentium D and not a "true" dual core.

 

Has anyone argued that?

-----------------------------------

Nice move on Adobe part.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39658857,00.htm

 

Hmm. It doesn't make sense.

I understand that most computers in the world don't have dedicated GPUs, but it doesn't make sense when software is not optimized to take advantage of it.

I heard this is a thing that Adobe is changing with Photoshop for example. To make it more dependant on graphics card to even out the CPU/GPU usage.


I recall hearing something about some company working on some kind of Flash accelerator or something that could take the load of the CPU and put it on the GPU.. But it was supposedly a long time away.


I think the flash thing is a big deal as well.

 

well from what I could read here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-dv2.14620.0.html

It seemed like there is some real issues with it. But I haven't tried it, so I wouldn't know. I saw it in real life in a store though and it's quite small. but the gap in power is quite significant compared now to the high end 13''. So is 1'' smaller worth that much reduced power?

 

No, but I was just saying that the upgrade from a single core to dual core Atom brings lots of heat, but little extra performance.