Performance Test
Unfortunately we haven’t had any Core 2 Duo ultra-low voltage based laptops on our test bench lately. We do, however, have several interesting laptops that will provide a good all-around comparison. The MSI Wind U230 will be a particularly interesting comparison, as it is an AMD based ultra-portable that debuted before Nile. The dual-core Athlon processor at the U230’s heart is clocked only 100 MHz higher than the dual-core Turion II Neo in the Toshiba T235.

First, let’s deal with the processor benchmarks. The first benchmark is the Processor Arithmetic benchmark – the second is the Processor Multimedia benchmark.

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 26

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 27
 

Now let’s take a look at the memory benchmarks. The benchmarks measure Memory Bandwidth, Memory Latency and Cache Memory performance respectively.

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 28

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 29

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 30


 

The SiSoft Benchmarks were impressive overall. The Nile platform didn’t gain any ground over the older Athlon-powered MSI Wind U230 in the Processor Arithmetic benchmark, but Nile trounced it in the Processor Multimedia benchmark. Nile also made huge headway in the memory benchmarks.

Now let’s take a look at the Toshiba T235 and Nile using some of the most popular benchmarks around – Futuremark’s PCMark Vantage, 3Dmark Vantage and 3Dmark 06.

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 31

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 32

Toshiba T235-S1345 AMD Turion II Notebook Review - Entering the Nile - Mobile 33



I think the picture here is clear. The Nile-powered Toshiba T235 is overwhelmingly better than the MSI Wind U230 in every way, which indicates that AMD has made some major improvements. 3D graphics performance is nearly double and major leads are found across the board in PCMark Vantage.

However, this is still undoubtedly an ultraportable platform, so don’t set your expectations too high. The Toshiba T235 struggled to run 3DMark 06 and could only run 3DMark Vantage with the Entry level settings turned on – the standard settings completely choked it. The T235 can easily handle any video you throw at it, but modern 3D games will still be a problem.

Subjectively, I found the performance of the T235 to be more than adequate in all normal situations. Programs open quickly, online video plays smoothly, and even image editing in GIMP was reasonably smooth. Like all of today’s budget ultraportables there are limits to what the T235 can do, but you’re not going to find those limits often.

« PreviousNext »