Benchmark Comparison and Question on Sager NP9750

My new Sager NP9750 arrived one week ago yesterday. Since then I have been learning as much about it as possible in the little time I have to spend with it each day. I am also trying to learn about benchmarks. Over the weekend I ran PCMark05 on the unit, and also PCPitstop's Full Test. I suspect the PCMark tests are more reputable. Also, they provide a point of comparison against the results Albsterama obtained in his excellent review of the 9750 elsewhere in this forum, which was a key factor in my decision to purchase this fine computer. And herein lie my concerns and questions. Many of the benchmark results I'm getting are significantly lower than those recorded by Albsterama; in some cases, 50% lower. Here's a rundown of the comparable tests in his run of PCMark04 and my run of PCMark05 (I haven't done gaming tests yet):

His unit: Athlon 64 x2 4800, GeForce Go 7800 GTX 256MB, 1 HDD 100GB 7200rpm PATA, 1 HDD 100GB 5400rpm PATA, 2GB RAM

My unit: Athlon 64 x2 4200, GeForce Go 7800 GTX 256MB, 1 HDD 80GB 5400rpm SATA

For each test, Albsterama's result is the figure left of the slash mark, mine is the figure to the right.

Super Pi 1m 26s / 1m 33s
Physics, 3D 214.91 / 128.16 FPS
Graphics Memory 1778.1 / 1523.8 FPS
Web Page Rendering 5.71 / 2.49 pages/s
File Decryption 74.29 / 34.59 MB/s
File Encryption 74.13 / 34.59 MB/s
File Compression 6.7 / 6.86 MB/s
Virus Scan 5091.12 / 22.09 MB/s
Image Processing 29.23 / 24.41 MPix/s
Audio Compression 3184.69 / 2178.31 KB/s

For what it's worth, the PCPitstop tests showed that my 2200 CPU is running at 1000, and the overall memory speed score was 3752 (memory scores of comparable configs were in the 8000s).

I'm new to benchmarking so don't know exactly how to read these figures and attribute their causes. But I know statistical analysis generally, and these are some diffences of notable magnitude. Any ideas about what might be going on with my system are much welcome. Any reasons to be especially concerned?

 

rob, there should not be a huge difference.

Also a few things:
1. I suggest you go into the Control Panel->Power Options and then set it to "Always On". This will ensure that your X2 4200+ is running at max speed.

In my benchmarks, i did find that the benchmarks are slightly slower if the X2 is not at max speed (time for it the ramp up). For instance, you can try this as well, Super Pi is like 2 to 3 sec difference between the "laptop/portable" and "always on" mode.

2. Ensure you have the latest video driver to at least 84.20 (laptopvideo2go is my recommendation). This is key to the 3d benchmarks such as 3dmark05 and 3dmark06. My 3dmark05 for the 84.12 is around 7072, best run after 5 runs.

3. Perhaps the diff between the 5K80 HDD and the 7K100 plays another minor role in terms of data writes and access times that some of these benchmark requires.

4. Another hint is to always turn off the virus scanner/firewalll if you're trying to get the max benchmarks. Less processes running, the better it gets and do a defrag of the HDD as well. You want max results so everything helps.

5. I've not run the PCMark05 but by comparing the PCMark04 to PCMark05 *may* not be a true apples-to-apples. Run the PCMark04 on your machine and lets see the results then. The expected results should be a little under from what myself and Chaz (Aurora FX60) have gotten due to the lower spec X2 and the lower HDD.

Hope this helps...and congratz on your 9750 !

 

Albsterama knows what he's talking about.

A limiting factor of your notebook is the slower 5400RPM hard drive, that's one of the reasons you will have a lower overall score in PCMark. 1GB vs. 2GB doesn't make much of a difference in PCMark.

Here's a great tune-up guide we have, it has helped me numerous times:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=5787

Chaz

 

Thats a great guide. Bookmarked it. Thanks Chaz !

 

One can always count on you two --Albs and ChazMan -- to provide quick, helpful answers. Do they pay you enough for this?!

I will try updating GeForce drivers from laptopvideo2go, but will admit to being apprehensive about it. Chances are, nothing will go wrong, but if it does, what's one to do then?

I'll check the power mode to confirm it is set to "always on." I had seen the tuneup guide that ChazMan refers to just a while before he posted that reply. It's a great guide, and I will incorporate those tweaks. Then I will download the video drivers and make sure everything is running as it should after that. A defrag will be next. I'll disable McAffee security, then run PCMark04 (intead of 05) a few times to see what the tweaked system maxes to. Can't do anything about the 5400 rpm HDD for now, but will plan that to be the first key upgrade in a few months (still have the secondary HDD slot available and will put a 7200rpm'er in it--maybe a nice end-of-summer treat).

Thanks again, guys. Report to follow soon.

BTW, other than these first sets of benchmarks and some Wi-Fi glitches yet to be resolved, the 9750 is AMAZING!

 

Hehe, we don't get paid at all.

If something goes wrong, it's not the end of your computer - you just have to remove the drivers through Add/Remove programs, or if that doesn't work, reinstalling them should.

I would go to the wireless card manufacturers website (what kind of card do you have in there? Right-click My Computer > Properties > Hardware tab > Device Manager > expand Network Adapters to see what you have) and download updated drivers. That is usually a good fix.

Glad you like the 9750.

Chaz

 

Don't forget the myriad of unecessary services that XP loads by default - some of them are real resource hogs and can be turned off to give better performance and faster boot times.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

As for experimenting with drivers - just make a system restore point first so you can revert back if anything goes wrong. By the way, system restore is one of the services you can turn off, so make sure you leave it on for this!

 

if i recall correctly, with gpu issue - you can hold down the SHIFT key if there are boot issues with it or better still...hit F8 after the splash screen appears and keep hitting F8 until you get the choice to select the "Safe Boot"..then use it to Add/Remove the driver.

Its a cinch rob, don't sweat it...PM me if you have any Qs since i've updated the drivers too many times...those darn 3dmark05 numbers !

 

Well, it's taken a few days to get around to it, but I finally got those tweaks done (or most of them, anyway) and updated the drivers (to v. 84.21) to the GeForce GO 7800 GTX. The update was, in fact, a cinch, Albsterama--thanks for the advice and encouragement (u 2, ChazMan). I just ran a basic 3DMark05 on the system and reached 6958. Last night, before doing the tweaks and updating the graphics drivers, 3DM was 6698. Not a huge increase after all the work, but palatable! And the new score is not terribly far from Albsterama's 3DM score of 7072 on his np9750. So, although a few more tweaks to the system can be made prior to more benchmarking (including PCMark04), this might be pretty close to as good as it gets with one 80GB HDD at 5400rpm. But we'll try some more.....

 

sounds great rob...