Windows Experience Ratings for Netbook CPU’s

[Chris]

Yugatech put together a list of the Windows Experience ratings for various netbook CPU's into a nice image listed above. The results are pretty much in line with what I expected with Intel Atom processors being the slowest performing and Intel CULV processors being among the highest performing processors; however, this does give you a [...]

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[ThisIsNot]

This doesn't change my perception of the Atom processor. After all, I have been staring at a rating of 2.4 (which is essentially the same as 2.3, you can't look at small differences as if they are a big deal) since October when I installed Windows 7.

However, I think that this, along with different battery tests for different configurations, could help the general public decide what is right for them. Ultra portable notebooks have drastically come down in cost to compete with netbooks. Toshiba is offering a model that gets over 6 hours of battery life on a single charge, has a single-core AMD Neo (1.6GHz) processor, an ATI HD 3200 graphics card, 11.6" 1366X768 screen, 2GB of RAM (capable of 4GB of RAM), 64-bit edition of Windows 7 Home Premium, and a 250GB hard drive all for $440 ($500 if you want a 320GB hard drive and a dual-core AMD Neo 1.5 GHz processor). The $440 price is about $40-$90 more than the average netbook cost while the $500 mark is $150-$100 more. The $440 is actually $10 less than the average cost for a high end netbook and the $500 price is only $50 more. Seems like a small price to pay if you are already looking at spending $400+ on a high end/"luxury" netbook especially considering the 6+ hour battery life, huge performance boost, and a graphics card that would run circles around the Nvidia ION (while providing HD video playback).

I'm currently using a MacBook with a gaming experience rating of 3.1. That's the lowest of the five ratings otherwise I have 5.9 for disk, memory and processor. I also have a higher cost investment in the MB, a little more weight and less battery life. None of the charted CPU ratings match what I already have in the MB.

The point, for me, is I know what the MB can do with editing software and business applications. The ports and the software have to be considered before the hardware ratings even come into it.

I don't think I would buy any of the netbooks as a MB replacement so the ratings don't factor for me. The software and computing tasks come first. CPU speed is not an issue for me or I wouldn't even own a netbook. The ION and HD movie playing don't factor for me in business or school either. The larger sized notebook doesn't factor for me.

I like my smaller sized, longer battery, cheaper netbook for a lot of personal and net tasks. A wide variety of netbook usage appeals to me. A chart with a dozen hardware bars is not why I use a netbook.

[ericinboston]

I am not a believer AT ALL in the Microsoft Experience Rating...I think it's a sham to get you (the average consumer) to go buy a new pc.

I've run this utility on several friend's machines that are blazing fast and somewhat fast and yet the MER finds some major issue(s) and gives the pcs mediocre scores.

The average user out there (probably 80% of consumers) are going to use their pc for the same 13 tasks as everyone else...which are not super CPU intensive or graphics instensive (games)...they can easily use machines that are fairly powerful and better. The rest of the 20% probably know what they are looking for (memory speeds/amounts, motherboard chipsets, graphics cards, hard drive configurations) if they truly NEED something that runs at top performance for their dollar.

I find actual reviews far better...real world feedback about not only the physical characteristics (hugely important for reviewing portable computers) but performance too.

[ThisIsNot]

Just to show you how messed up the ratings system is, Windows Vista gave my desktop (which has 8 cores) a score of 3. something simply because each core clocks in at a little over 2GHz. Windows 7 gave everything in my desktop a top rating except for my hard drive data transfer rate. It apparently doesn't like my 10,000 RPM drives and would prefer a series of more expensive SSD drives. I don't know how a 10,000 RPM hard drive can get a score of 6 despite it having faster transfer speeds than most SSD drives (except the ones that are $500+ but that is about 1/3rd the cost of what it took me to build my system). Just goes to show you that the Windows experience ratings should be taken with a grain of salt. They might be informative on some shallow level but other specs and user opinions should be more important.