HP Mini 311 on sale!

I have heard it all before. I'll believe it when I see it... So far I am not impressed with DX10 or DX11 hype. I run them because I have the GPU power available, but making a miracle out of existing hardware it does not... I am referring to my desktop, of course.

 

killing sounds helps about 3ish frames in wotlk

The issue is generating other players in game that kills frames...

 

Thanks for testing. I was hoping a little bit more boost in fps, but that's still better than nothing. That is still rather powerful little thing

 

I finally got around to playing around with one of the new HP Mini 311 they had out for display at the local stores. I noticed that there's 2 models, the Mini 311-1000NR has Ion for $399, and there's a Mini 311-1030 that doesn't have Ion for $50 less, but it also weighs like half a pound less.

I never really used a netbook before but it was pretty fast for what I was doing. I had like a few browsers open, music playing, and I was typing in Microsoft Work. However there was one thing I noticed, whenever you're dragging a window over another window, it leaves an after-image on the other window (maybe the Atom processor is just bad at page-flipping, double buffering, or updating the position of the window).

 

I think you mean the HP Mini 1030. All the 311s have the ION LE grpahics processor in them plus the HP Mini 311-1030 does not exist.

 

I think you may be right. They had the sign that it was in stock but not on display. However looking at the HP site:

http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Nav?...&h_cc=us&h_pagetype=s-017&h_lang=en〈=en&cc=us

There is a 311-1030TU.

 

I downloaded the demo for F.E.A.R. 2 and found it relatively playable. I was running it at native resolution, lowest settings and was getting around 20-25 frames per second on average. There were times where it would go down to 10 or so, but they were brief periods. I am not sure I would want to play the game through with those settings, or rather, I am not sure I would enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played, but that is the case for a lot of games on the lowest settings.

 

anybody try counter-strike:source?

 

I have been playing LOTRO on battery mode now for 1 hour and 35 minutes. During the course I also did some insatallations in the background. The battery has 50% power left.

I think I can safely say this will give a solid 3+ hours while gaming on battery. LOTRO is a good test... It has heavy wifi, + cpu + gpu + wireless mouse + sound + voice chat.

 

what stores are actually selling these?

 

So far I seen Office Depot and Fry's Electronics. I keep hoping Costco would carry these.

 

2 hours and 25 minutes with 22% battery life left. I was able to do the bounties no problem. I started those at 46% battery life left on this thing. FPS were around 20 for an average with 6 people + boss get the smacked down. So, I'd say it is tolerable and playable in those settings, but probably is more difficult. I could probably play my minstrel no problem in 6 man with it, but my captain might be a bit more difficult.

 

Battleforge only uses the dx 11 compute shaders right now

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650&p=2

The radeon 5850 (not the flagship 5870) with the compute shader ssao instead of pixel shader ssao found in dx 10 and 10.1 not only increases graphics

Going from the dx 10 verison to the dx 11 verison gives you 5 fps more. From 20fps to 25.5. The gtx 285 only gets 13.4 fps . Even the radeon hd 4870 gives you 16.5 fps because of dx 10.1

Yes the dx 11 verison give you less frames vs it off (34.2 off vs 25.5 on) but the quality is completely diffrent.

You can see that in this image. The left one has ssao off , the middle has it ad high and the right has it at very high




This is jsut using one feature. One of the coders for the game has said that using vertex shaders will increase performance another 20% but its not yet in the public release of the game.

Dx 11 is a big step foward . It has tesslation , compute shaders , improved multi threaded rendering and many other things that will increase performance over dx 10. You'll see some big thigns with lotro mostly speed increases over the dx 10 client.

Developing for dx 11 is a good move for developers. it lets them also increase performance in dx 10 and 10.1 at the same time and programing for it doesn't take very long. Thedirt 2 developers said it took 3 weeks to get dx 11 up and running for them..

here is what a battleforge dev has to say about dx 11

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1321684&postcount=7

here are good demos of dx 11 and what it can do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVo_5VCWIzM
http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=7640


anyway i don't want to talk to much about dx 11 and derail the thread. But trust me its going to come in a big way because its simply to do when supporting dx 10. Lotro will see big gains out of it esp if they use tesslation. I think they are going to start showin dx 11 path after the holiday.

 

I'd personaly wouldn't mind seeing even a 512 meg verison. Having 3 gigs in the system with 512 dedicated would leave you with 2.5gigs.

however I really would have liked to see a dual channel option , it would have given twice the bandwidth for the ion le and we would have seen lot better game performance.

 

Just want to give you guys a heads up. If you have a best buy employee as a friend , with thier discount this bad boy will be $310 bucks but only with the stock set up. Still thats a $90 savings. You can buy a 3 gig stick of ram and some other stuff for it.

 

The 311-1030TU was a model that wasnt released in the Phillipines. I'm at my terminal and when I put in that number it doesnt come up with any known model hence why i said it didnt exist. I didnt google it.


One other thing I noticed is when I checked out ordering a windows xp recovery flash drive there wasnt one like the other minis. Maybe something new is going on? Also, can I make one just using just 311?

 

I agree with everything you are saying - However, in times past the hardware TODAY is not sufficient for the DX path of TOMORROW. Take for instance the first DX10 hardware that came out - The 8800GTX for the high end. That card is not sufficient to enjoy any DX10 game out there today in all of its glory. It also is better for it to revert to the DX9 path, since you can't max out the quality in the first place, the DX9 path tends to run better.

What I am saying is this: By the time DX11 is mainstream, I won't have or be using the same netbook or desktop that I am using now. I will be using whatever is current when DX11 finally goes mainstream.

I tend to upgrade all my components on a yearly basis. Don't confuse that with me being rich either - I just don't pinch pennies out of hardware that is not supposed to be and I don't spend my money on many other things...

 

I upgrade some of my components every year and I'm not rich either. My first dx 9 card the radeon 9700pro played all dx 9 games just fine for the first 3 years of its life, it was only in the third year that i started having problems with the games I was playing .

Dx 11 is all about allowing what was done before , to be done faster. I think you will be very surprised by what happens in the next 6 months to a year with the dx 11 titles.

Lets also not forget that unlike dx 10 , this is on vista and windows 7. We already have 4 games this year coming out with dx 11 support . Its only going to take off from here and while i don't expect a laptop let alone a netbook to have dx 11 graphics in them , I think its an important advancement . I also think its laptops and them replacing desktops which has caused the slowing of gaming on the pc.

 

Thanks guys scored the only one here in town at a office depot. it was 399.99 out the door stock base model with the atom n270

runs pretty smooth for a atom with ddr3 ram built in
so far in the benckmarks they are coming out good scores for gpu for a netbook
funny thing in gpu-z ver 3.5 it says the ION video card ram is running at 2125mhz

strange

 

I was able to pick mine up from Fedex after work yesterday.

I have the N280 system, N Wireless + Bluetooth, 1GB RAM. There is a world of difference in performance between the 311 and the 700m I also own.

I've been installing some games -- wondering what games people have given a go other than the MMOs discussed earlier?

 

still waiting on some counter-strike:source fps numbers ... anyone try a dreamcast emulator (nulldc vs chankast)?

 

Can somone tell me if I'll be able to play street fighter 4 on it? Thanks

 

dc emulater will run like crap esp if it doesn't take advantage of the ion , the atoms are simply to slow to run them decently. The 1.6ghz atom is like a 1-1.2ghz athlon 64.

 

bought some ddr3 ram today. its a patriot ddr3 stick that runs at 1066 speed and has 7-7-7-20 timings which perfectly match the built in ram speed in the mini 311. so now it has 3 gigs which I think is perfect (running in dual channel mode truely now). it has enough ram to give to video card then 2.7gigs or more left over for os and system which is perfect for win7. still using xp on it for now.

my 3dmark03 score with dual ram is 4483 thats the best ive seen from a 11.6" 3+ pound netbook. the only other netbook that would give this one a run for its money is the new acer ferrari 11.6" netbook with amd and ati, probably beat the scores on this one but it has no HDMI output!

gonna install source games maybe 2night and give benchmark results later.

You know if they could put the nvidia ION or in future ION2 without the LE crap and a intel SU 7300 cpu or SU3500 cpu this future system would kick for a mini gaming netbook!

too bad intel wont let nvidia do it!

I hate the atom processor you can feel it drag compared to an acer AS1410 with an intel SU3500 cpu. the SU3500c pu scores a 900+ cpu mark in 3dmark06 this atom gets 419. The impressive part even though the cpu has no horsepower or torque, it still pushes the gpu enough to get good fps in benchmarks. Impressive indeed! and the 11.6" screen that is a LG PANEL seems bigger than the 11.6" screen on the acer AS1410 which is a AOC Panel. weird and the panel and pixels on the acer screen have that "DELL" glittery effect like from a side view the pixels look frozen. the LG panel in the hp mini 311 dont do that.. strange.. the acer screen super bright, the hp screen not as bright..

hard to choose what laptop since now i own both!

 

311 with non gimped full Ion coming with launch of Windows 7.

Features to become available with Windows 7:

• Full NVidia ION
• 80GB SSD
• 2GB / 3GB RAM
• 250GB HDD 5400rpm
• 320GB HDD 5400rpm
• Windows 7 Starter, Premium and Professional (all 32-bit) OSes

 

No FPS numbers here but there is video on Youtube of the 311 playing Counterstrike. It looks pretty good until the action gets hot and heavy.

 

found it, thanks ... that was 1 gb ram, wonder what the graphics settings were ... found a video of a netbook running nulldc but it was also 1 gb ram and 800x600 with underclock fpu option. seems like i just have to try it for myself ...

 

Hmmm, I guess I'll wait another week or so for the Windows 7 release and see how the prices come out.

EDIT: Reading through the product manual, the HP dm1 has options for: "
Intel Pentium® SU4100 1.3-GHz, 2048-KB
L2 cache, 800-MHz front-side bus (FSB)
�
Intel Mobil Celeron® SU2300 1.2-GHz,
1024-KB L2 cache, 800-MHz front-side
bus (FSB)"

But does not come with the ION GPU, it has the Intel GMA X4500 HD. The dm1 can support up to 5120 MB RAM (1024 + 4096, dual channel) on the system. A wireless 802.11a/b/g/n with and without Bluetooth is listed as supported for the 311 and dm1.

 

what does "Full NVidia ION" mean? Is this specific to this version of the machine or is unlocked (so to speak) with Windows7?

 

Full Ion supports Directx 10, LE doesn't.

 

Full Nvidia ion Means dx10 under windows 7 for gpu graphics if app or game support it

I was wondering for those of you still using windows xp stock install that came with the mini 311... did it have a 30 second delay when it gets to the welcome screen? mine gets going boots up fast gets to the welcome screen and sits there (after showing hp crappy boot wallpaper) then after 30 seconds goes into desktop? whats cuasing this?

 

http://www.i4u.com/article27516.html

I love how fast technology comes out on the market. I'll be playing the waiting game forever xD.

 

some reviews of the acer ferrari one are out ...
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/352111/acer-ferrari-one-200/benchmarks
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030092,49303769-2,00.htm
http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptops/review/2009/10/02/Acer-Ferrari-One---11-6in-Netbook/p5

... 3dmark06 of 1375 (?) compared to 1386 for the mini 311 ... battery life is an hour less ... ferrari one did 14 fps in crysis at 1024x768, low detail, while the mini 311 reportedly did 15-20 fps on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqZR1wKrblg

 

I wouldn't compare what is on youtube and whats in a review. We don't really know how the systems are set up and the first review really sucked. You can set the ram amounts for the hd 3200 to higher amounts vs the mini right now. It was also tested with 2gigs of memory. Its ddr 2 800 ram so its very dirt cheap , you could mostl ikely put 4-8 gigs in there for less than adding 3 gigs to the mini and since its a 64 bit cpu it can actually use that ram.

The new mini is interesting , i just wonder how much it will cost and if there is a better cpu option.

 

I'm sad there isn't a faster cpu. I would have liked to have seen the dual core atoms or even the 2ghz atom as an option.

I'm just wondering how much this is going ot cost. Its base at $400 on the site. Win 7 adds $50 to the cost to hp so thats $450 right off the start. The ion chipset is most likely no big deal, its most likely the same exact chip now with dx 10 support drivers. The 80gig ssd is going to most likely be a $100 upgrade. The ram will be another $50 upgrade.

You could be looking at $500 to pimp out the win 7 version.

 

as an update, the hp mini 311 was tested on 1 gb ram, the acer ferrari one is max 4 gb, and if it was tested on 2 gb then the 311 is more impressive. anyway, just looking for a preliminary report to see if i should go with the acer, because based on what you were saying earlier it sounded like the acer would blow away the 311 but it looks like the 311 edges the acer despite a ram disadvantage. and the 311 is cheaper and has 20% better battery life, which constitutes 90% of my use (internet, office apps, light coding; 10% cs:s), and the max i'm going to pay for that 10% use is $100. the other cpus won't be as battery-friendly, and i don't see much point of running winblows 7 on a netbook so i'm sticking with xp, which is also cheaper. so looks like a 311 for me.

 

I'm becoming more interested in the dm1 with the Intel Pentium SU4100 CPU or Intel Celeron SU2300 (but the cost + Windows 7 might not justify it for me, but hey they're both dual core).

 

Fixed the HUGE delay at the welcome screen when stock winxp sp3 comes up, it was roxios back on track oem edition, I made a full backup image of hard drive to a network share on my windows home server system then uninstalled roxio. that did the trick now hp mini311 boots up in 20-30 seconds!

NOTE: make sure you run roxio at least once before getting rid of it because its a free full version retails for 30 buxs and it has you register it so u get serial # online and can re download it!

 

Just to clarify, this means those of us who bought the XP version can't get the Full ION even with Win7 installed?

 

ION LE = MINI 311 with WINDOWSXP = if u were to play crysis in xp or win7 u can only use dx9

ION = MINI 311 with windows7 = if u were to play crysis in xp limited to dx9 mode and in win7 u can use dx10 mode in game

benefit = ion and atom to slow to utilize dx10 in windows 7 EXCEPT for aero interface might be smoother/less cpu load with ION and WIN7 in dx10 mode

if you use ION LE you could only use DX9 with aero in win7

 

So if dx 9 is limited to the ion le and the full ion has dx 10. Is there a hardware difference between the two chipsets or is it that they are exactly the same but with dx 10 disabled for ion le?

 

Blogeee

 

Seems strange they would release these two difference versions so close to each other when I'm sure many people would rather have the dx10 version.

 

All of these netbook makers are doing funny things. Acer released the 1410t which is single core netbook that is the best they got and then the ferrari model. overseas they release the dual core models. Now since windows 7 debuts soon, everyone is doing another whole new lineup with different configurations so windows 7 sticker can be put on it... All of this crazyness is due to microsoft and windows 7

although you can install windows 7 and it will run perfectly fine on the xp version of the mini 311..

 

omg an ion 2?...makes me want to return my laptop...but i dont know how long the wait is...

 

It'll be a while, though they said they want it out by the end of 2009. Especially with the issue between nVidia and Intel, its most likely going to be a Via Nano/Ion 2 combo.

 

A few things I have observed from most games is that the Atom is 'nearly' powerful enough to power the 9400M. If I had to estimate, I would say that it just needs about 25% more performance to push the 9400M properly. The reason I believe this to be the case is when even turning on 2X AA (AA is handled completely by the video card, no extra load on the CPU) will in most cases drop the frame rate. This means that the 9400M isn't as powerful as people think. Granted, it is more powerful than the 9200/9300GS variants, but it still isn't a power house.

A 2.2Ghz Atom would be a perfect match for this ION. Anymore wouldn't probably be of much benefit for most titles. But as always, there might be an oddball title out there which would still be CPU limited.

This is where ION 2, provided it does lauch, will really shine with a better CPU. If ION doubles the shader count, and makes use of dual channel 1333Mhz memory, it should perfect really darn close to the 9600M GT that we currently see in the DV5T, which wouldn't be half bad for an integrated GPU.

I finished up playing King's Bounty. Finally got it to work (damn DRM).

 

Yes but what are the memory amounts set at . We have a user here who said the ion le will only go up to 256 megs with 3 gigs of ram installed. The radeon 3200 will use up to 1.8 gigs. So my question is what amount of ram was allocated to the radeon 3200 ? 64? 128 ?256 ? 1.8 gigs ? What was the amount allocated to the mini on youtube ? These are all things we don't know. I'd wait on better reviews for the congo platform . Also no where does it state the res used on the mini

I'd also be interested in seeing games that have better multitthreaded render.

 

I hate technology so much, haha... I want to get this when Windows 7 comes out, but the Ion 2 coming out later this year and USB 3.0 next year make it so hard to not just wait...

 

The 730i MCP is capable of 384 megs of memory dedicated to it. So for whatever eason, HP decided not to allow 384, but instead limited to 256. However, 3DMark06 is perfectly multithreaded (or as perfect as one can get) and the CPU score skews the results. Thus, if anything, the AMD chip has a larger advantage in any 3DMark06 results. I would have liked to have seen the CPU score for those dual core 1.2Ghz AMD's.

Another thing, after going back and looking at benchmarks from 3200 versus 9400M, I notice that in most titles (tested at anandtech.com) the 9400M is more powerful than the HD3200. There were very few instances where the HD3200 came out ahead, if at all.

So, my guess is this.

AMD Neo = More powerful than Atom
AMD GPU = Less powerfull than Ion

Which means, depending on the situation, the AMD might lag behind, or the the nVidia solution might lag behind. But one thing is certain - ION has better battery life.

So... I guess I would consider this one a draw. Neither of these are going to be playing games comfortably. They will work, but it isn't going to be a smooth as butter result.