Performance

We ran the benchmarks with the notebook’s preinstalled operating system – Microsoft Windows XP Professional with the DirectX 9.0a. The network services, audio subsystem, power-saving services, antivirus software, screensavers and error messages were all disabled before the tests.

The tests were run in two modes created by changing the power source settings. In the first case we ran the tests with the AC/DC power source, i.e. the notebook was powered constantly, which provided the maximum performance and guaranteed shortest battery run-down time. In the second case the notebook was powered only from the battery, with battery saving mode activated. In this case we got maximum battery life.

We used the following tests:

1. Performance benchmarks: synthetic (SiSoftware Sandra 2004, PCMark 2004), office and multimedia benchmarks (Business Winstone 2004, Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004), games (3DMark 2003 3.40, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament 2003);
2. Battery life tests (Battery Eater Pro 2.30).

Since Acer TravelMate 3201XCi is the first laptop with a fully-fledged ATI RADEON Mobility 9700 graphics controller, which we managed to get for review, we think it would be most interesting to compare its performance with that of a notebook featuring similar architecture, but equipped with an ATI RADEON Mobility 9600 graphics controller. The most suitable solution for this comparison appears ASUS W1B00Na notebook, which we have already introduced to you in our article called First ASUS Notebook with a Built-In TV-Tuner: ASUS W1B00Na Family. Both these solutions feature similar configuration (Intel Pentium M 715 CPU working at 1.5GHz clock frequency, 512MB of RAM, 60GB HDDs). However, they are based around different chipsets (Intel 855GME in the first case and Intel 855PM in the second), support various HDD spindle rotation speed (4,200rpm by Acer, and 5,400rpm by ASUS), and are equipped with different graphics controllers (ATI RADEON Mobility 9700 by Acer and ATI RADEON Mobility 9600 by ASUS respectively).

In the synthetic SiSoftware Sandra 2004 and PCMark 2004, which results are given in the table below, Acer TravelMate 3201XCi and ASUS W1B00Na performed more or less evenly. Note that when we tested them in battery mode, they both run almost twice as slow as they would run in case of AC/DC power, since both systems automatically switch to power-saving mode.

As you can see, in CPU Arithmetic benchmark, CPU Multimedia Benchmark and Memory Benchmark the results are almost identical (the difference lies within the acceptable measuring error). In fact this is pretty expected as these notebooks boast similar configurations. And as far as the disk subsystem results are concerned, the difference is pretty evident: Acer appears about 13%-15% slower than ASUS. The reason is very simple: the hard disk drive in Acer TravelMate 3201XCi features slower spindle rotation speed than the HDD of ASUS W1B00Na: 4,200rpm against 5,400rpm.