The “Real” Mobile Sandy Bridge

Notebook vs Desktop

Throughout our next tests, from Blender 2.49b to Winzip 14.5, we compared this mobile platform of the Sandy Bridge with its desktop cousins. Scores from another Sandy Bridge notebook, the Acer Aspire 2950 (also powered by the Intel Core i7 2630QM processor) are also included. The Aspire notebook uses a discrete Radeon Graphics instead of the on-board IGP as employed by the Axioo Neon.

Blender 2.49b

Blender is an open-source 3D-modelling software. Performance is measured through the amount of time needed to render a 3D object. Lower figures represent better results.

Cinebench 11.5

Cinebench benchmark calculates hardware performance in rendering a 3D scene. The final results are measured in points. Higher points mean better performance.

Excel 2010 Montecarlo

Surely you are well familiar with this popular spreadsheet application from Microsoft. Here, we see how fast each processor could finish the “Monte Carlo Simulation Table” in Excel 2010. The final scores are measured in seconds. Smaller figures indicate better results.

FastStone Photo Resize

FastStone PhotoResizer is an image converter/ resize software capable of applying image manipulations such as resizing, cropping, rotating, and others on multiple files through batch operation. For the purpose of this test, we convert a collection of TIFF images (66 files; 527 MB total size) to JPEG format (quality level: 90). Each pictures is also resized to 600 pixels on the longest side. The entire process utilizes only one processor core (thread). Therefore, processors with high clockspeeds would have a slight advantage over slower CPUs. Results are measured in the amount of time needed to finish the resizing and converting process. Lower scores are better.

Photoshop CS5

Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the latest version of the world’s most famous image editing software. We carried out our test using an action that applies “Photo Merge” and several filters on three TIFF images. Results are measured in the amount of time needed to finish the process. Lower figures are better.

Winzip 14.5

WinZip is a well-known file compression software. The Zip files produced by this program can be password protected using the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption method. Some new processors are equipped with AES instruction to accelerate this encryption process. Results are measured in the amount of time needed to finish the test. Lower scores are better.