Performance

If you've been keeping up to date with out laptop reviews recently, you'll know we've covered a lot of netbooks. This does mean that we don't have a lot of laptops to compare the G60Vx with when it comes to performance. However, as we tested the Asus using the CPC benchmarks, we were able to go and look at some of Custom PC's data to get some comparable scores.

That said, even with the CPC data, we still had problems finding results that would be actually interesting to use as comparisons. Intel's dominance when it comes to laptop CPUs - and the fact there's no mobile Core i7 yet - means that Core 2 Duos clocked from 2.5 - 2.8GHz are the overwhelmingly popular choice for powering portable computers.

We compared the G60Vx with the Asus W90Vp, a high-end laptop we looked at briefly a few months ago. It's got a faster CPU than the G60Vx (2.8GHz, compared to 2.53GHz) and 2GB more memory, but it has 5,400rpm hard disks, where the G60Vx has 7,200rpm models.

Custom PC Media Benchmarks

Download: www.custompc.co.uk/benchmarks

Custom PC, bit-tech's sister magazine, has developed its own Media Benchmarks to simulate the tasks that most of us perform on a regular basis. There are three tests, each of which measure different aspects of a PC's performance. You can download the suite from the link above, and submit your score to the benchmark leaderboard to see how your PC compares with those of others.

The scores are normalised against a reference PC that includes a stock-speed Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB of DDR2 memory and a fast P45 motherboard, as you can see below. This PC scores 1,000 points, so if your PC scores 1,300, it's 30 per cent faster than the reference system, and if it scores less than 1,000 points, it's slower.

GIMP Image Editing

Website: GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

Our GIMP image editing test simulates how well a PC can manipulate a collection of large digital photos, and to achieve a low time requires a PC with a powerful CPU, plenty of quick memory and efficient hard disk drive access.

Handbrake H.264 Encoding

Website: HandBrake

Our test uses Handbrake - an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows - to encode a high resolution MPEG-2 video using the H.264 codec. This primarily tests multi-threaded CPU and memory subsystem performance.

Multi-tasking Performance

Website: MPC-HC
Website: 7Zip

To run multiple applications well you need a powerful (ideally multi-core) CPU and plenty of RAM. Our multi-tasking test performs a massive file backup (with encryption) using 7-Zip, while simultaneously playing back a HD movie file using Media Player Classic, making it a seriously demanding test for any PC.

Overall Score

The overall score is an unweighted mean average of the scores of the three individual tests.


Performance is probably best described as decent, if unexciting. The Core 2 Duo has matured well and clocked at 2.53GHz it can turn its hands to a variety of computing tasks. In the image editing test, it scored 946, just under the 1,000 scored by our 2.66GHz reference PC. It faired similarly well in the video encoding test, with a score of 978 points.

The G60Vx comes out behind the W90Vp in both image editing and video encoding, where the latter machine's faster chip pushes it ahead. The G60Vx's faster hard disk helps it overhaul the W90Vp in the multi-tasking test, and proves to be more beneficial than the extra 2GB of memory the W90Vp has. Overall though, the G60Vx is just over 5 percent slower, although it's closer to 10% down in terms of clockspeed.