Reviews - MSI Wind 12 U230: AMD Congo takes the fight to Intel CULV

[HEXUS]

AMD's second-gen, ultra-mobile platform goes up against Intel's CULV and the ubiquitous Atom.

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[strengthofmind]

For fairness the comparison system should have been the similarly priced and sized acer timeline 1810tz, with an inferior processor to the 3810tz. This article just makes the AMD processor look unfairly bad: the SU9400 is only in premium ultra-portables that sell for far more, such as the Dell E4200, XT2 and Toshiba R600

[MSIC]

Agreed, you really should be more aiming to compare things of a similar price.
That said, thanks for the review, good to be aware of systems like this.

[MonkeyPaw]

Can you provide more info on the CPU? I'm curious what process its using, along with the p-states and voltages. I would assume it's griffin based?

Thanks!

[Champman99]

As mentioned above, the closest competitor on the Intel side is the Acer 1810 - and as an AMD fan it saddens me to say the Acer system would seem to be far superior.

To be competitive I think Congo needs to hit £350, then it comes off positively to the Atom, rather than negatively to Pentium ULV

[man_bash]

As mentioned above, the closest competitor on the Intel side is the Acer 1810 - and as an AMD fan it saddens me to say the Acer system would seem to be far superior.

To be competitive I think Congo needs to hit £350, then it comes off positively to the Atom, rather than negatively to Pentium ULV

Interesting opinion, BUT at 400 GBP it is 100 quid more expensive than the Atom system, and 200 less than the CULV system. How can you then say that it (Vision system) competes with a (CULV) product 1.5 times its price? It still delivers some punches, yeah, it falls short, but you can at least play a semi-decent game on it.

[strengthofmind]

The Acer 1810TZ goes for £420 (http://bit.ly/5O261v) so with the MSI at £399, it is in direct competition, not 1.5 times the price as previously stated.

I guess I may have come across as unappreciative, I'm glad for the review, I just thought the reference systems were poorly chosen. I hope the AMD does compete with the low end CULV.

[MSIC]

The Acer 1810TZ goes for £420 (http://bit.ly/5O261v) so with the MSI at £399, it is in direct competition, not 1.5 times the price as previously stated.

I guess I may have come across as unappreciative, I'm glad for the review, I just thought the reference systems were poorly chosen. I hope the AMD does compete with the low end CULV.

+1
these were exactly my views too.

[jimbo90210us]

Just to muddy the water a bit. The test compared the wind to the 3810T with a SU9400 @ 1.4GHz. The 1810 uses a SU4100 @ 1.3GHz, which may have other differences as well as the speed. The results are probably still an Intel win in terms of speed but not as flattering and there is the better graphics.
Anyway next week something different will come out and change the game again, just when I think I have decided on a perfect laptop.

[scaryjim]

Just to muddy the water a bit. The test compared the wind to the 3810T with a SU9400 @ 1.4GHz. The 1810 uses a SU4100 @ 1.3GHz, which may have other differences as well as the speed.

Also has only 2MB L3 cache, rather than 3MB. However, I doubt those differences would amount to much more than about 10% performance deficit, which would still put a SU4100 marginally ahead of an Athlon Neo.

At the end of the day, you have to decide whether the much better graphical capabilities outweigh the average battery life (because let's be honest, over 3 hours of continuous use *isn't* that bad), or whether battery life is the optimal concern. I'd be hard pushed to name a time when I have to use my laptop unplugged for more than three hours, whereas I do frequently use my laptops for casual gaming, so for my usage pattern the Congo platform looks pretty solid - small and light enough for portability, "reasonable" battery life if I can't get to a power socket, and decent performance + good graphics when I can plug in.

[MadduckUK]

because let's be honest, over 3 hours of continuous use *isn't* that bad

its only recently that 3hrs wasn't "pretty good".. amd need to get it jacked up sharpish tbh

[wiak]

lol buy a External BD-ROM and you can play Blu-Ray Disc on the AMD Congo easy

HD 3200 has FullHD 1080p Blu-Ray decode it far superior to GMA950

btw @ hexus did you guys test with Flash 10.1 and Catalyst 9.11? it will do hardware flash decoding on the HD 3200

btw who the heck uses their laptop with wireless off?

[strengthofmind]

The Acer uses GS45 with 4500MHD, not 94X with GMA950, which isn't quite so good as the HD3200 afaik, but is still Blu Ray 1080p capable.

[man_bash]

So, allowing for a 10% penalty you get for purchasing a 1810 instead of 3810, the performance scores inch in a lot closer, with intel having the same wins but by a halved margin. So,
MSI VS 1810T VS 3810T
PI.Fast10m would be 79 VS 67 VS 60 sec,
7Zip benchmark would be 2489 VS 2410 VS 2650 (So MSI system is better here vs the hypothetical 1810T, albeit by a small margin)
Cinebench would be 2456 VS 2642 VS 2906

It's kinda useless comparing something to a system that's yet to hit the shops though.

[strengthofmind]

There are some benchmarks for the 1810TZ (1410TZ in the US) here:
http://www.azuricate.com/?p=59
http://www.laptop-review.eu/Reviews/...on/page-7.html

[Aerows]

I want one. I've been waiting until January for an ultraportable/netbook form factor, and it's because of Congo.

I can't buy an ultraportable, get attached to it, and then find out I can't even play old games on it - I already bought an Acer 1410 and discovered that the first 30 minutes that I had it. If it can't even play KOTOR II, since that is pretty old, it's not for me. I love a long battery life, but not as much as I love being able to get the longest mile out of it - you can't OC a CULV or the abysmal graphics chip that comes with it.

I know that I sacrifice battery life when I OC an AMD combo, but that's my choice, and I can also underclock and undervolt for longer battery life. That flexibility is simply not available in any Intel platform. Intel locks up their hardware unless you are willing to spend top dollar, and even then, you are on your own.

Graphics. ATI and Nvidia both outstrip Intel by at least 5 years in GPU performance. Intel might have decent hardware now with the GMA 4500, but we don't know whether they do or not, since they can't write a graphics driver to save their souls. I want an ultraportable with the capability I expect from a laptop, yet with diminished capability. I can get that with Ion and the Congo platform. I tried an Acer 1410 with the 4500mhd and couldn't even run 5 year old games, couldn't do 720p, and forget anything you might want to do that involves graphics.

I eagerly await the U230 and the x100e. Whichever comes first, is the one I'm buying.