F3SA-A1 ATI Mobility HD2600 Game and Benchmark

Setup:

F3SA-A1
Vista Home Premium 32
T7500
2GB DDR2 667 (Factory installed is 1GB)
160G
ATI Mobility HD2600 512MB DDR2





There is no system information and it's known issue with ATI HD2600 according to Futuremark:

http://service.futuremark.com/support/search.jsp?cid=14&fid=1311

I had to use -nosysteminfo command line in order to run 3DMark06.



Medal of Honor Airborne Demo

Setup:
F3SA-A1
15" WXGA 1280X800
T7500
2GB DDR2 667 (factory install is 1GB)
160G 5400rpm sATA

















Sega Rally Revo




















Call of Duty 4























Unreal Tournament 3 Demo

sound track is great!
















Crysis demo DX10 mode:
F3SA-A1
T7500
2GB RAM
ATI HD2600 512MB DDR2 (Catalyst 7.10)

Game setup (same settings as G1S-A1 I tested a while ago)

 

What's the clock speeds of the memory and the core?

 

lower than expected.

 

It's the DDR2 version. It's supposed to perform up to par with DDR2 8600M GT. Which has more mature drivers than HD2600.

 

Yup, this is a very similar score to the DDR2 8600M-GT, considering the poor driver support for the HD2600.

 

Thats at 1280 x 800 and the ati cards are known to perform better in 3dmark which does not reflect its in game potential.

 

It's only 200-300 lower than a DDR2 8600M-GT at the same resolution, which could easily be rectified with better drivers.

 

According to ATI the Catalyst 7.9 should improve the performance especially BioShock, I am going to download the mod driver to see if the score will be better.

 

SM 2.0 score is very low compared to 8600M GT DDR2.
BTW I hope future drivers will perform better .

Someone please add some FRAPS screen shots

 

You guys should realize that the HD2600 was never meant to compete with the 8600M GT. After long development delays from ATI, they finally released it two months after the 8600M chip, and it performs somewhere between the 8600M GS and 8600M GT. So don't expect stellar performance out of it. It won't ever be as powerful as the 8600M GT.

I overclocked my 8600M GS with 256mb DDR2, to 650 Core, 550 Clock, using nTune and 163.44 modded drivers, and got the 3203 in 3DMark 06. So clearly it is very comparable in performance to the HD2600, when it is overclocked of course.

 

it's 500/400.

 

VX2S setup:
T7500
3GB RAM
Forceware 163.69
8600M GT 512MB DDR2 475/400 (default)



F3SA-A1 setup:
T7500
2GB RAM
Catalyst 7.9
HD2600 512MB DDR2 500/400 (default)

 

Wow.....

8600M GT is a looser..lol

 

Can we get some FRAPS and screenshots please?! Thanks Ken!

 

VX2S CPU Score is low.How come it happen?

Both have same CPU !!!

 

The geforce scores almost 200pt more in the SM3_0 test.

How come there is 200pt difference in the cpu?

My E4500 scores 1880 by the way

 

Keep in mind the atis usually always score more than the nvidias in 3dmark. They usually perform equal or worse in game. Still not bad.

Difference could be alot of things. THe motherboard, background applications, tweaks. Many many factors.

 

It makes no sense that the CPU score on the VX2S is lower than the F3Sa, since they use the same CPU, and the VX2 has more RAM.

 

I also found it hard to beleive that my E4500 scores higher XD

 

Thats not all that hard to believe, since the E4500 is a desktop processor.

 

same clock frequency and fsb, but the T7500 has more cache.

 

That's why I'm thinking it's strange.

The E4500 is a low end desktop cpu and the 7500 is almost a high end one.
I scored 2050 with gaming mode (2.2 @2.4)

 

I meant that the T7500 should be faster.

 

VX2S comes with Vista Ultimate 32 pre-installed, I don't know if that's the reason why it runs slower by I do feel the difference that the Ultimate does runs much slower.

 

I don't know. I have ultimate 32 on 2 computers and ultimate 64 on my c90s.

My desktop RAM usage is between 450-650 MB, my dad's laptop is about 600 and my c90s is about 850 right after the vista installation.

The other 2 even have NIS 2007 installed

 

Hmm? Are we looking at the same scores? It seems to me that the Geforce score almost 200 points less in SM3.0, but more in 2.0?

 

yeah you're right, I mis-saw the 2 images.

 

Ken,
is there a larger capacity battery available for the F3SA-A1?

 

No there is none , only the 6 cell battery just like all other F3S series.

 

How long does it last; 1 1/2 hours or so?

Also, wouldn't the S96S 9-Cell battery pack work?

 

Medal of Honor Airborne Demo

Setup:
F3SA-A1
15" WXGA 1280X800
ATI HD2600 512MB DDR2, Catalyst 7.9
T7500
2GB DDR2 667 (factory install is 1GB)
160G 5400rpm sATA

















Sega Rally Revo




















Call of Duty 4

 

Those graphics look really good!

 

Unreal Tournament 3 Demo

sound track is great!

 

Hmm, I don't know about the US but in Europe I'm pretty sure there is a 9 cell battery available for the F3s series,
sec, I'll try to get a link

EDIT: Got it, it's in German but u get the point
http://www.newvisions.de/product_info.php?info=p24434_Asus-AKKU-F--F3-SERIE-9-CELL-7200MA.html

 

Ken with the ATI card because its on a smaller processing fabrication it should be running cooler than the Nvidia cards. Have you noticed this?

Also from my experience with cpu's every time they do a die shrink on a cpu not only does it run cooler it overclocks better/higher.

So if this holds true for video cards, the hd2600 while maybe very close to the 8600 nvidia card stock may have a large advantage over it to the performance enthusisast that like to overclock.

One more inportant detail is that with the desktop cards, the technology the ATI card uses with its super scaler scales better with higher clock speeds than the nvidia card does. So if you were able to achieve a 25% overclock on the ati card it would gain more performance than the nvidia card with the same overclock.

Those two factors together have me very intrested in how this card performs obviously mostly in the c90

 

Ken,

So all those games have very playable FPS with those high settings? Thanks!

 

@GenTechPC

Catalyst 7.10 is supposed to give a decent boost in some games. Have you had a chance to test it out?

 

@ tootall4wsu

Just look at the FPS in the corner of those screen shots to give a ruff idea of play ability, I personally don't play any games that give me lower then 50 FPS.

 

Yeah, I don't see why the 9 cell would not work. This section of the Asus line all share the same base system.

Thanks!


Wonder where Ken is?

 

I tried to overclock it with ATItool and RivaTuner but it wouldn't allow me, I was using Catalyst 7.9, maybe I should try some the Omega drivers.

 

omg... I play WiC at 12, U3 at 20 and Oblvion at 25. Are you on 60hz? Because the max FPS you can actually detect at 60hz is 30 >-<

 

Actually the max frame rate displayable on a 60Hz screen would be 60fps.

 

Yes, but I'm talking about what you can detect. TVs run at 24FPS

 

You can "detect" a lot higher than 60fps, it's just that the screen won't display any higher than 60fps. This discussion has been had way too many times on this forum, please do a search. Film runs at 24fps, yes, what's your point?

 

despite of all the problem with the c90s i might considering gettin rid of my c90s and gettin the Asus F3SA-A1 , bad move? what do you guys think? from ken's ss of the games its pretty decent, i think i will be happy with those numbers (fps)

 

anychance of someone taking out the 2600 from their laptop? or does someone have a link to some pictures of one? I am wonder about its size/dimensions, I am tempted to attemt grafting one into my w3j

 

well, even if it fits (which is not likely), it's not gonna work. Your Motherboard bios doesn't support the HD2600.

 

You can, that also means switching back from 1680x1050 to 1280x800 , that might be hard

It's definetely a good laptop

 

Finally got Crysis to work on F3SA, stock drivers didn't work (black screen), Catalyst 7.09 didn't work (crashed).

Step 1:
download Catqalyst 7.10 (downloaded it last week but can't install, found out the driver I download was corrupted, re-download and it worked)

Step 2:
Download mobility modder to modify the driver:
http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/

It also support X1600 so W3J, S96J and Z96J owners should download 7.10 if you want to play Crysis.

Crysis demo DX10 mode:
F3SA-A1
T7500
2GB RAM
ATI HD2600 512MB DDR2

Game setup (same settings as G1S-A1 I tested a while ago)

 

That's pretty impressive Ken! Have you been able to overclock or test with 3gb Ram?

EDIT: Did the new driver increase 3DMark06 score?