Atomic Performance
The MSI Wind NB is one of the first mini-notebooks powered by Intel’s Atom processor—the smallest and lowest-power 45-nanometer processor to date. This 1.6-GHz CPU, along with 1GB of RAM, helped the Wind NB outperform other systems in its class. Programs loaded quickly even when we had several others running in the background. We could listen to music, have a videoconference with a friend, surf the Web, and write this review in OpenOffice Writer all at the same time with no hang-ups.
Although the Wind NB forgoes a solid state drive for a 5,400-rpm 80GB hard disk, we weren’t disappointed with its performance. The system booted in a quick 34 seconds (see for your yourself below) and packs plenty more space than a solid state drive would for files and applications.
The Wind NB notched a 72 on MobileMark 2007, which is better than the score of 39 that the Fujitsu LifeBook U810 notched (powered by Intel’s 800-MHz A110 processor). In fact, the Wind NB is nearly as fast as some traditional ultraportable notebooks; for example, the 11-inch ASUS U2E (equipped with a 1.06-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) turned in a MobileMark score of 98.
We wouldn’t recommend the Wind NB for 3D gamers, but this mini-notebook’s graphics performance is certainly better than the competition. It garnered a 3DMark03 score of 606, which is 226 points above the HP 2133 Mini-Note (with Vista). The system even handled the graphics-intensive Second Life—whereas other mini-notebooks haven’t been able to run the program. When playing City of Heroes, we were able to clock a decent 15 frames per second, albeit at the lowest possible settings.
An Overclocking CPU with TurboDrive
The Wind NB includes a TurboDrive button (activated by pressing Fn+F10), which overclocks the system’s CPU by as much as 20 percent. When the TurboDrive is turned on and the system is plugged in, an orange icon flashes in the corner of the screen and the power button changes from blue to orange. Running a CPU Speed Professional test with the TurboDrive turned on, the CPU clocked in at 1.9 GHz.
When the system is running off its battery, the TurboDrive reduces the CPU’s clock speed around 50 percent and dims the screen to extend battery life; the CPU clocked in at 1.1 GHz with this setting on. When we overclocked it to 1.9 GHz, our 3DMark03 test jumped from 606 to 746. And when we tried our same multitasking (video conferencing, listening to music, surfing the Web), we noticed smoother performance. Second Life also paused less, and loading images in the 3D world’s distance took less time.
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