System setup and notes

Hardware and Software

Test Platforms

System	Rock Pegasus DDO	ASUS W1 Carbon laptop	ASUS A6JA laptop
Processor(s)	Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB - single-core) @ 1.94GHz	Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB - single-core)	Intel Centrino Duo T2500 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB, dual-core
Mainboard	Intel i915PM Sonoma	Intel i915PM Sonoma	Intel i945PM Napa
Memory	512MByte (2x256MB) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs	1GByte (2x512MB) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs	2GBytes (2x1024MB) Samsung PC4200 DDR2 SODIMMs
Memory timings	4-4-4-12 @ DDR2-533	4-4-4-12 @ DDR2-533	4-4-4-12 @ DDR2-667
Graphics Cards	ATI Mobility RADEON X700 128MB	ATI Mobility RADEON X700 128MB	ATI Mobility RADEON X1600 256MB
Graphics Card driver	ATI 8.183.4-050212a-021287C	ATI 8.183.4-050212a-021287C	ATI 8.183.4-051031a-027919C
Disk drive(s)	Hitachi 80GB 5,400RPM	Fujitsu 100GB 4,200RPM	Hitachi 100GB 5,400RPM
Screen	15.4-inch WSXGA (1600x1050)	15.4-inch WSXGA (1600x1050)	15.4-inch WXGA (1280x800)
Operating system	Windows XP Home SP2	Windows XP Pro SP2	Windows XP Pro SP2
Price	£997.58 inc. VAT	£1299 inc. VAT	£1399 inc. VAT

Benchmark Software

HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
ScienceMark 2.0 (21st March 2005)
DivX 6.1 encoding benchmark
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
KribiBench v1.1
Simpli Software's HDTach 3.0.1

Futuremark 3DMark05 b1.2.0
Far Cry - HEXUS custom benchmark

Notes

We'll be looking at comparative performance against two ASUS notebooks. The W1V Carbon uses an identical CPU (non-overclocked, though) and graphics card. The newer A6Ja showcases Intel's dual-core Yonah CPU and ATI's Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB graphics card. Both are more expensive than the rockdirect version, so please bear that in mind when comparing the benchmarks on the following pages.