page-7 | MSI X340. Decent performance in a beautiful design | Laptops

MSI X340. Decent performance in a beautiful design - Benchmark continued

Saturday, 01 August 2009 08:34 Allan Hansen

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Article Index
MSI X340. Decent performance in a beautiful design
Specifications
Package contents
Physical aspects
Physical aspects continued
Benchmark
Benchmark continued
Conclusion
All Pages

Page 7 of 8

The processor:

SuperPi:

Super Pi calculates the number Pi with 1 million decimals. The result is a time in seconds, meaning that the lower the number, the better. This can be used for direct comparison with other laptops that have run the same test.

Here you can see that the processor in the X340 computes the number twice as fast as the one in the Acer. That’s quite a large difference.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic:

SiSoft Sandra’s Whetstone and Drystone benchmark tests the processor’s ability to do pure number crunching, which occurs during gaming or different forms of picture editing. The measure is in Mflops (Millions Floating Point Operations Per Second) – the higher, the better.

The SuperPi result is echoed in this test. The processor in the X340 performs much better and crunches those numbers much faster. It’s a vast improvement that you’re almost sure to notice.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Multimedia:

The multimedia test in SiSoft Sandra is calculated on a 2D figure. The output (it/s) is Mandelbrot iterations per second, i.e. the bigger the better.

This result is a bit ambiguous as they come out even. In any case neither can claim multimedia as their strongest suit, but the results are decent nevertheless.

RAM - SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth:

Sisoft Sandra’s Memory Bandwidth benchmark is used to measure the speed of the RAM – the higher the value, the better.

Here you can see the RAM performing a good deal better in the X340. You do get twice as much as well, so you’ll definitely notice a difference when loading up programs and such. This also allows the X340 to run Vista rather than XP.

Hard drive performance - SiSoft Sandra Hard Drive Read:

Sisoft Sandra’s hard drive test module is used to measure the performance of the hard drive. Sisoft Sandra runs a number of tests on the surface of the hard drive and calculates the average reading speed.

Both hard drives read fast enough, no complaints. The X340 is slightly better, but you probably won’t notice it outside of benchmarks.

GPU performance - 3Dmark:

The 3Dmark tests show the performance in DirectX 9, and paint a picture of the performance in newer games and applications. 3DMark 2005 and 2006 are based on DirectX 9 and show the performance under contemporary games and 3D applications. No tests have been run in DirectX 10.1 (which both cards support).

Graphical performance is definitely not the forte of this particular segment, but the results still show you get more for your money in the X340. MSI have spent a little more in this area, which in my opinion gives a better all-round product. You’re sure to notice the difference in certain areas.

Overall performance:

The PCMark 05 results can be compared directly with other laptops that have run the same PCMark version. The program produces a score from a test that includes the performance of the processor, RAM, hard drive, GPU, etc.

The Acer netbook does not have a large enough resolution to run this benchmark. The X340 does though, which is why I opted to include the graph. That says enough about the resolution of the display, a huge plus.