Video Playback Performance

We tested the basic video playback claims of the VIA VX855 MSP to see how it faired in normal 480p DivX video, and 1080p WMV9HD.


DivX playback was smooth, with the VIA U2500 CPU posting the lowest level of usage compared to the single-core N270 Atom. Even though the Atom has a faster 1.6GHz frequency than the 1.2GHz VIA CPU, it still requires more CPU horsepower overall, although the video playback was without stutter on all of the systems tested.

The Intel Atom D330 dual-core CPU was naturally a little more responsive to clicking around the OS during the video playback, where the single-core Atom and VIA CPUs would stutter occasionally.


Even though VIA claims 1080p WMV9 support in Windows Media Player from its VX855 chip, we couldn't see smooth playback. The video did continue to play, but our test videos stuttered badly.

Again it's worth noting that Intel's older Atom 945G graphics core (along with the more recent GMA 3150) also won't accelerate 1080p video, but then again, Intel has never claimed that they can either.