Posts tagged culv
CULV gaming: when will we finally see a capable thin and light?
Dec 14th
As I watch my RSS feeds spitting out news of all these sleek, new thin and light machines from companies like Dell, LG, and MSI, I’m left wondering how long we’re going to be stuck with middling Intel graphics.
I’d love to pick up a 13″ CULV-powered system like the LG X30, but I don’t especially want to be held back by the lack of graphics processing kung fu. An added kick in the nuts is the fact that AMD/ATI thin and lights are available, but their benchmarks have been terrible so far – and battery life even worse.
We’re left waiting, then, for someone to put out an Ion-powered system or for AMD and Intel to get their acts together. Just because batter life and portability are the top priorities when it comes to CULV systems doesn’t mean the graphics have to wind up at the very bottom of the priority pile.
Here’s hoping something coming in 2010 will change things for the better. Ion 2? Pine View? Maybe that new Via chipset will open up some possibilities…
Ion, Dual Core Atom with Ion, and CULV go head-to-head
Dec 11th
Over at Liliputing, my good friend Brad Linder has posted some nice benchmarks he compiled using an HP Mini 311, Asus UL20A, and Asrock Ion 330 nettop. The results are definitely interesting, especially when you consider that the Asrock is using similar innards to what the Asus 1201N is packing.
As expected, the Ion excels at 3D tasks – and it’s also a champ at running encoding tasks where the application is smart enough to leverage NVidia’s CUDA technology. Near the end of his post, Brad charts the difference CUDA makes on MediaCoder results – the task completed more than four times faster on the HP Mini 311.
Brad’s results also illustrate what we already knew about the Atom: a single-core version is just not able to provide anywhere near the processing muscle of Intel’s other CPUs.
While the HP was demolished in CPU tests, its solid 3D scores show that it’s still a solid choice for netbook gaming. Head over to Liliputing to see the full results!