ASUS Lamborghini VX1 Notebook

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark05 v1.2.0 Details: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark05/

3DMark05

3DMark05 is the part of a long line of synthetic 3D graphics benchmarks, dating back to late 1998. 3DMark05 is a synthetic benchmark that requires a DirectX 9.0 compliant video card, with support for Pixel Shaders 2.0 or higher, to render all of the various modules that comprise the suite. To generate its final "score", 3DMark05 runs three different simulated game tests and uses each test's framerate in the final tabulation. Fillrate, Memory bandwidth, and compute performance especially all have a measurable impact on performance in this benchmark. We ran 3DMark05's default test (1,024 x 768) on all of the cards and configurations we tested, and have the overall results posted for you below.

Looking at the results from 3DMark05, we are disappointed to find the ASUS VX1 down near the bottom of the list. Here, the included 512MB GeForce Go 7400 is only able to best the aging 128MB GeForce Go 6600 and lowly Intel IGP. The performance differential between these GPU's and the GeForce Go 7900 GS found on the Alienware Aurora m9700 is staggering as there is nearly 4000 points between them. 

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.0.2 Details: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/

3DMark06

Futuremark recently launched a brand-new version of their popular benchmark, 3DMark06. The new version of the benchmark is updated in a number of ways, and now includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests, but Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups the number of instructions to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting, and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

Moving on to 3DMark06, we find the ASUS VX1 getting outpaced by even larger margins. Here, even the aging 128MB GeForce Go 6600 is able to best the ASUS VX1 by a significant margin leaving only the Intel IGP solution as having poorer performance. This is surely one of the first times anything with Lamborghini's name on it has been this far from the top of a performance list. Given how capable the rest of the system is, the ASUS VX1 is crying for a higher-performance GPU. 

Performance Comparisons with Quake 4 Details: http://www.quake4game.com/

Quake 4

id Software, in conjunction with developer Raven, recently released the latest addition to the wildly popular Quake franchise, Quake 4. Quake 4 is based upon an updated and slightly modified version of the Doom 3 engine, and as such performance characteristics between the two titles are very similar.  Like Doom 3, Quake 4 is also an OpenGL game that uses extremely high-detailed textures and a ton of dynamic lighting and shadows, but unlike Doom3, Quake 4 features some outdoor environments as well. We ran this these Quake 4 benchmarks using a custom demo with the game set to its "High-Quality" mode, at a resolution of 1024x768 without anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering enabled and the aspect ratio set to "Widescreen".

Once again, we see that the ASUS VX1 is unable to compete with any other notebook using a discrete GPU. When running Quake 4 at a very reasonable resolution of 1024x768 with no FSAA or Anisotropic Filtering, the system is unable to muster 40fps. If games such as Quake 4 are barely able to run fluidly at low resolutions, the chance of being able to play any games on the horizon at any respectable settings seems questionable at best. In short, if you have any interest in gaming you need to be looking elsewhere until ASUS finds a higher performance GPU that will fit the space and power requirements of the VX1 platform.