Product Listing

The Ion Arrives - Acer AspireRevo

By Vincent Chang - 28 Apr 2009

Test Setup & HD Video Playback

Test Setup

Similar to our recent review of the Intel D945GCLF2, the test configuration and benchmarks were reused, though the specifications were slightly different. While the reference Ion system we tested before and the Acer AspireRevo basically have a single core Atom running at 1.6GHz (the reference Ion had a dual-core Atom which had one core disabled), the Intel D945GCLF2 came with a proper dual-core Atom 330 processor.

Hence, this would affect its performance positively. This would make the reference Ion the closest in terms of system specifications to the Acer AspireRevo. However, even then there are differences, mainly with the AspireRevo using a 5400RPM hard drive compared to the 7200RPM versions used by the other systems compared. The amount of memory also varied from each system, though one would be hard pressed to find a significant difference between DDR2 and DDR3 in this case.

Comparing the Acer AspireRevo
Specifications/ System Acer AspireRevo NVIDIA Ion Prototype Intel D945GCLF2
Processor Intel Atom 230 (1.6GHz) with 512KB L2 cache Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz) with 1MB L2 cache running a single core Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz) with 1MB L2 cache
Chipset NVIDIA Ion NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Intel 945GC
FSB 800MHz 1066MHz 533MHz
Memory 2GB DDR2 2GB DDR3 1GB DDR2
Video NVIDIA Ion (GeForce 9400M GPU 256MB) NVIDIA GeForce 9400M GPU (256MB) Intel GMA950 (128MB)
HDD Hitachi 5400RPM SATA Seagate Momentus 7200.2 SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA

Besides the three main setups listed in our table above, we also threw in a typical mini-notebook, the Gigabyte M912, which had the standard configuration for its class for some of the benchmarks.

Finally, all the systems were installed with Windows Vista SP1, with HyperThreading turned on when applicable. The latest Intel chipset and graphics drivers were installed for the Intel D945GCLF2 motherboard kit and ForceWare 179.24 for the NVIDIA Ion. The Acer AspireRevo came pre-installed with newer chipset and graphics drivers (ForceWare 185.45), which may mean better performance in some benchmarks.

Benchmarks

  • PCMark05 (ver. 120)
  • PCMark Vantage
  • 3DMark06 (ver. 110)
  • Unreal Tournament 3 (version 1.1)
  • CyberLink PowerDVD 9.0 (for Blu-ray playback testing)
  • Windows Media Classic Homecinema (for HD video playback)

Blu-ray Playback

Do note that the Acer AspireRevo doesn't have any optical drives and thus we plugged in an external Blu-ray reader for this test. Since the direct competitive comparison as noted in the table above for the Acer machine have never been tested with Blu-ray disc playback, we pulled up comparison numbers from the standard desktop IGP platforms (an ASUS GeForce 9300 mGPU board and an Intel G45 chipset board) running on a Core 2 Duo processor.

So did the Acer AspireRevo live up to its promise of proper HD playback? If we're just looking at the hardware performing as rated, then it's a yes. First, for Blu-ray playback in CyberLink PowerDVD 9.0, we have to give it the thumbs up. This system was definitely capable of playing all our Blu-ray discs, including some that had high bitrates.

Our toughest disc only saw the CPU utilization spike up to an average of 71%, which while not as low as we have seen from a PureVideo HD capable GPU, was fairly decent. In a more typical Blu-ray movie, Black Snake Moan, the average CPU usage was measured at 51.9% and users should not feel any lag. The Intel Atom processor however was working quite hard and we doubt much multi-tasking is possible. In fact if you factor in that the single-core CPU with Hyperthreading is registering more than 50% utilization only means that the main core is actually fully taxed.

Even in a scene that's devoid of action, the CPU utilization rate is around 55% for the AspireRevo. To the end-user, it's smooth and lag-free but beneath it, the Intel Atom processor is working quite hard to keep up.


Next, we move on to that of playing 1080p high definition video files using Windows Media Classic Homecinema. We picked up two trailers, one from Iron Man and another from the latest Indiana Jones movie and ran the AspireRevo through them. While the Iron Man video clip played smoothly enough, albeit with rather high CPU utilization, the Indiana Jones trailer, was plagued by dropped frames and a very high CPU utilization rate of 90% and higher.

Thinking that the media player was not using the GPU acceleration for HD videos properly, we checked the configuration on the software again that DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration) was enabled and while Homecinema recognized the NVIDIA Ion, it was however not able to play the video properly. Going through some of the tweaks that NVIDIA offered for making high-definition videos work with Homecinema did not yield any improvements.

Giving the same Indiana Jones clip another spin, but using CyberLink PowerDVD 9.0, we finally got it to run decently, but again, CPU utilization was extremely high. Reverting to the older CyberLink PowerDVD 8.0 however, we found that the CPU utilization fell to 20% or less, with the playback significantly smoother than anything we had tried before.

The conclusion from all this testing? The hardware is definitely working to accelerate the playback of these video clips but the onus lies on getting the software and drivers configured properly to utilize it. We'll be keeping a close watch on this situation, especially with the varying experience that we had between PowerDVD 8.0 and 9.0.

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