Toshiba A665-3DV: 3D or Not 3D?
by Jarred Walton on October 6, 2010 12:05 AM ESTThe Rest of the Story: Application Performance Compared
Besides all the 3D stuff, we ran our usual suite of benchmarks. The i7-740QM is a newer CPU with slightly higher clocks than the 720QM it replaces. In fact, other than a slightly lower maximum Turbo speed and 6MB rather than 8MB L3 cache, it's about the same as the i7-820QM (which has since been superseded by the i7-840QM). Overall application performance is thus plenty fast, and if you happen to have a multi-threaded application that you run regularly, quad-core Intel CPUs are the fastest mobile option right now—by a large margin. Here are the results of our application testing.
PCMark ends up being a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other in terms of which laptop is fastest. Higher-clocked dual-core processors can compete with the i7-740QM, but all it really takes to bring in an extreme score is the addition of a good SSD. The Toshiba ekes out a victory, with the ASUS N82Jv coming in just a fraction behind in our "midrange" notebook comparison, but it falls slightly behind the Gateway ID49C and Dell Studio 17 in PCMark05 (which is very long in the tooth these days). Peacekeeper also has the 3DV "tied" for the lead, and as a single-threaded benchmark that's something worth noting. Incidentally, we're looking to retire Peacekeeper and replace it with a more relevant benchmark, so if anyone has a recommendation, sound off in the comments!
Moving to the more strenuous CPU tests, the i7-740QM comes into its own in Cinebench and x264 encoding, scoring clear victories in both. As expected, second place in these tests goes to the other quad-core Intel CPU, the i7-720QM, with the heavily threaded Cinebench SMP and 2nd pass x264 outpacing even the faster dual-core parts by 30-40%. If you're looking for a notebook that can do heavy multimedia work—power requirements notwithstanding—the Clarksfield processors are the clear choice. Or at least they are until Sandy Bridge shows up later this year/early next year.
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Stuka87 - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
What a horrible resolution. 1366x768 on a 15.6" display!? This res is almost usable on a 12-13" display (And thats pushing it), but on a 15.6"?? Is this machine tailored towards old people with vision issues or something?Ok, back to reading. Had to vent :)
Spivonious - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
I agree that 768 vertical pixels is not very much to work with, but the screen here is still 100dpi, which is slightly better than the standard 96.nubie - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
I for one think it is the correct choice.How is the video card to push more pixels than that anyway?
Buy a different laptop, or upgrade the panel yourself if it bugs you.
blackshard - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
Thanks a lot for the hwmonitor readings! :)It's really interesting to see expected temperatures and real battery capacity in such notebooks!
Michaelsm - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
Yes, Thanks a lot for the hwMonitor readings. As I commented the other day, my Toshiba (M645 with a 6 cell) had an initial wear of 36%!!! 3 cycles later it is down to 7%.cknobman - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
until the industry gives up on the freaking 3D gimmick.nubie - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
Have you tried it?I have made several 3D setups myself and favor passive glasses and dual monitors or projectors (1 per eye).
In many situations the 3D is stunningly immersive. Racing games for example have a fantastic feeling of speed as the depth of objects hurtle toward you.
Watching the apex of a corner approach and searching the distance for your braking point feel good. As does overtaking a slower car.
Even if you personally feel it is a gimmick, how is the industry or how are you personally caused any harm?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
If you missed it in the text, we're looking to replace Peacekeeper with something that feels more relevant. Does anyone have a good "Internet benchmark" they want us to start using? Something that captures the speed of page loads, transitions, etc.?Stuka87 - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
I have looked around a bit for my own reasons, and outside of the ones made by the browser makers (which are all pretty biased one way or another), there isn't much to choose from.I think I pretty much came up with just needing to write one from scratch using the browsers API with FireFox or the like.
alphadog - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
I'm getting pretty tired of the lack of properly-sized LCDs on laptops. I know the LCD is one of the more costly components in margin-thin laptops, but really? 768 vert?!?