[FSC Esprimo Mobile U9200] What upgrade should I go for?

Hello everyone.

The hardware is a Fujitsu-Siemens Esprimo Mobile U9200 [pdf] with a T5450 CPU, 4 GiBs of RAM, stock 120GB HDD, intel4965 WLAN and recetly-removed GTM382 WWAN.
Various recent events have bugged me about my lapwarmer's performance, most prominently difficulties playing back 1080p video (the hardware barely manages animated 1080p H.264 with coreAVC, though VC-1 with ffmpeg-mt poses no problem even with a movie like 300.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a new one, but seeing as few manufacturers could care less about my requirements and most would rather shove {Windows|16:9 LCD|crippled expandability} down my throat
I recently got my hands on a smartphone which I intend to use for WWAN connectivity and in return free up the second mini-PCIe slot (the PCI part works, tried WLAN in it) so one way of bringing 1080p to the laptop is to get one of the CrystalHD cards This has some pros and cons:

• + cheap
• + low power usage compared to sufficiently powerful CPU decoding the movie
• - Adobe sucks and given the choice of several video decoding acceleration APIs, they stick their heads in the sand give us the shaft.
• - Not really useful beyond movies, IF that (who knows what unsupported/bizarre encoding profiles I'll run into on the 'net)

And in this corner, there's the option to boost the CPU performance - the T5450 is better than a Celeron or bog-standard Pentium, but not much beyond that. The highest model which seems compatible is the T9500 (originally sold with it, so should definitely work) -> is this a good choice? I haven't looked at other C2D models so please recommend one with highest bang/buck (oh yeah - I don't reside in US so intl. shipping is a must!). Pros/cons I see with this approach:

• + raw power useful beyond movies - my BOINC account would likely get catapulted above 40000 where I'm stuck now, flash will get some boost as will any codec and CPU-bound app
• + Intel VT for faster virtualization (not present on the T5450)
• - at ~250$, the T9500 seems expensive
• - probably higher power usage than a dedicated decoder/DSP

Thoughts/recommendations/experiences?

 

My old R60, which had a T2300e, had no trouble playing 1080p Blu-ray rips. CPU usage was around 40%.

If you like 16:10 screens something like the X201 might be worth a look or if you don't mind last years model, the X200 might work as well. You can probably get cheaper. I'd suggest eBay where you're more likely to find someone willing to ship overseas. I'd also look for one with IWS.

 

Well you could go for a faster processor;

T7500, T8100, T8300 are good choices for ~100-120

Not much else you can do to increase HD performance (biggest cap is your IGP vs dedicated video card)

 

That's just odd. ATI graphics? What codec were you using? 40% overall or 40% of a single core? Were those rips re-encodes or straight dumps from the disc?

Thanks, but no thanks. The X200 is too marginal of an upgrade for the price and the 201 is a bit too pricey. They are also Thinkpads, which AFAICT means mini-PCIe expandability is somewhat crippled to what one can get past their 1802 banhammer. Thanks, but no thanks.

 

Thanks, looks like I have to do more research into the CPU options.

WRT crap 965GM - wasn't there an old Atom n270 netbook which could play 1080p with crystalHD? I'm sure it wasn't Ion.

 

A 800Mhz FSB CPU such as a T8100, T8300 or T9300 will improve decoding and give faster X3100 response, yet the 45nm tech will run cool and improve battery life. If keen, could mod your PLL to run at 266Mhz, which would boost it along again. See U9200 example in http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...verclocking-methods-examples.html#post4998927 .

Other option is a DIY ViDock via the expresscard slot to improve graphics to an external LCD. The same setup can be used in any future system upgrades you may consider such as a Lenovo X201.

 

lol I owned a netbook, it can't even play standard definition Youtube video without choppiness. I had a ASUS 900HA, N270, 2 GB RAM, GMA 950. And yes I removed all the ASUS bloatware. Thank god I sold it, netbooks are so useless.

 

I had a Crystal HD in my nettop/HTPC (Revo1600, single core Atom @ 1.6GHz). It handled every 1080P mkv (played thru XBMC) I threw at it with about 30% CPU utilization. And its cheap too, I snagged mine of Ebay for about $20, I later sold it for about $50 since XBMC went to DXVA and my Ion could handle that. I would probably opt for a T9300, not a whole lot more than the Crystal HD and you get a boost of performance across the board.

 

It had an Intel GPU. They were re-encoded. It was 40% overall.

A P8600 CPU should be significantly better if you're pushing the CPU, which it seems you are.

 

Adobe's flash player sucks. Film at 11.

Thanks but doesn't the Revo 1600 use nvidia's Ion?
I think I will go for the CPU, the T9300 seems to fit within the 150€ budget. I will always look at the CrystalHD solution as a "geekier" and "cooler" (in both senses) but it honestly doesn't make much sense outside low-power/non-upgradeable devices like nettops/netbooks and since I don't own one...

Interesting, good to know that intel graphics have no problem displaying 1080p video once it's decoded. I still find it almost incredible that you could decode any reasonable 1080p rip with less than a single core of T2300. Perhaps I'm missing something here, I'd greatly appreciate if you could provide more detail (codec, player/video output, etc).n

Edit: By "video output" I don't mean DVI or VGA (duh!) but rather xv, gl, xvmc on *nix or DIrect3D, DirectX Rendering on Windows.

Yes, that's my point - I can get a CPU with similar performance for (less than) half the price of a used X200, without the downside of Thinkpad (1802 error) or "new laptop" (different keyboard layout), so what was the reason for getting another laptop?

 

Yes but XBMC implimented HD acceleration for the CrystalHD several months before DXVA (via the ION) on the Windows version. But back OT I believe the T9300 makes more sense has an all round upgrade, enjoy your "new" laptop.

 

True, but that wasn't my point. Tsunade's post (or as I understood it) seems to imply that 965GM makes fullHD video very difficult to achieve being an IGP. I'm not sure to what extent this is true - I've seen the effect of going from intel 815 to GeForce FX5200 with Pentium III-800 on a DVD which went from fast slideshow to watchable movie (encrypted DVD, mind you). Doesn't convince me an IGP as recent as GM965 would be unable to render 1080p though - in fact, I've seen that it is indeed possible, even with my current T5450 and a VC-1 encoded video, it's just that H.264 codecs I've tried suck and don't cut it. Even CoreAVC struggled and barely managed to play a rip of the original 1995 GitS. MT capabilities of mplayer-mt seem to work only outside H.264, unless I'm missing something.

 

Oh I understand, but I think you are missing the point, while the CrystalHD doesnt "output" the video, it does all the "heavy lifting" of the decoding (think of it has a dedicated CPU for supported video accelerated tasks). As long as the IGP is capable of displaying the resolution and refresh rate you want and your Media App/Codec supports the CrystalHD API you shouldnt have any problems. I would assume you would/will have no problem displaying 1080P content with the 965GM IGP if it was coupled to a fast enough processor to handle the decoding, now be that a upgraded CPU or a standalone unit (CrystalHD) it wont make any difference.

 

I'm aware of that, but there's more to playing video than just decoding it: colorspace conversions, scaling and compositing is always done on the video card I believe.

 

Well, I'm happy to report the upgrade went well and [insert appropriate over 9000 joke reference]

Code:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 23
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T9300  @ 2.50GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 800.000
cache size      : 6144 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips        : 4987.46
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: